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July 5, 2013

Friday 5 July 2013

BY: Andrzej Bialas

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© OCEANA / Carlos Minguell

 

Today has been our first day of ROV and diving operations in Poland. We started early in the morning looking for a suitable place to launch our inflatable boat, but due to the fact that it is the peak of holiday season and the concentration of tourists is rather high,  we spent a lot of time getting prepared for the operations. Eventually, after starting in Gda?sk we finally found a perfect spot in the port of Jastarnia on the Hel Peninsula.

In the end our efforts were very well rewarded and we managed to document some very beautiful places in the Puck Bay, a shallow western branch of the Bay of Gda?sk in the southern Baltic Sea, separated from the open sea by the Hel Peninsula. The area we documented is also protected by the Natura 2000 network and is often characterized by its large biological diversity of seagrass meadows and marine species including the elusive and extremly rare Harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena).

We did 4 ROVs in different sampling points in the Bay, witnessing the unique and beautiful diversity of these habitats. Among others, we were lucky to observe: Eelgrass, blue mussels, clusters with barnacles and numerous goby fish (Pomatoschistus sp.). After a rough start I would call this a very successful and fruitful day!