Tag Archives: Porto Mari

Wednesday in Porto Mari

Colorful house Playa Porto Mari We went back up to the area we were yesterday, looking for Porto Mari again. We found it this time, and what a find it turned out to be! The beach itself is a labor of love for a family who has lovingly restored it. They’ve added a boardwalk so you can walk the 2 kilometers without burning your feet on the hot sand.

There are lots of chairs and umbrellas, palapas and even some larger shaded areas for large families. There is a dive shop, a restaurant and facilities. Lots of great parking too. The strange thing is, we saw way more scuba divers than snorkelers.
A palometaBUT the snorkeling was amazing! AMAZING. Yesterday I mentioned how we had run out of new fish to see – well was I wrong!! This site provided us with some stunning fish to see, and lots we had never seen before. The highlight was seeing another octopus, but there were several rainbow flounder, and some fish we can not identify, since we forgot our fish book at home! Smart huh? We saw a couple of morays, and one kind of moray eel we had not seen before.

New fishThe entrance to the water is fairly good, some minor rocky bits, but we both got in quite easily. Right away, we saw these amazing silver fish, quite large, 12-20 inches long, with long dorsal fins. They schooled in groups of 8-15 and swam with us for a long time! Quite cute actually…
Chain moray eelOne thing that has surprised us, is that the Sergeant Major is not as prevalent as it was in Aruba and the Caymans. We’ve seen them, but in nowhere near the quantity we’ve come to expect, and the Dusky Sergeant Major is far more common than the yellow/black banded one.

For dinner we went to The Wine Cellar. We chose that particular restaurant because they provide a free shuttle from our condo! Pretty scientific huh? Well, it was quite simply fantastic. The Wine Cellar is a French restaurant, owned by a Dutch couple who have been on the island for 39 years. The restaurant is indoors, and very cozy with wonderful art on the walls. Service, food, ambiance – all impeccable.

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OctopusA couple of movies — first, here is a picture of the octopus. Do you see him? They can blend in very very easily, and sometimes the only way to notice them, is if they move.

Well, I dove down to take a picture of the black fish above, we thought was a grouper (turns out it is called a coney). I thought I’d spied something, so went back up to get my bearings then went down again. Well, when I came around a piece of coral, I startled an octopus and he flashed his warning color.

I’ve added two movies here – the first is the “discovery” video, and the second is a short 15 second piece of him getting agitated.

I thought I had an amazing movie of him flashing color, then moving across the ocean floor, while a blue peacock flounder moved beside him – but guess I forgot to turn the camera on! LOL Same thing happened with the moray – had a great movie of him moving across the ocean, then raising his head to me and opening and closing his mouth to flash his teeth at me. Sigh – ah well – guess we’ll have to find another moray to get a movie of!

Another short movie of the octopus.

The domed shapes are called reef balls, and are used to help coral reefs recover. Fish love ’em! When the coral covers the domes, they kind of just fade away. They are made of a material that will eventually just disappear, and leave the coral that has encrusted them to start a new reef.