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August 13, 2011

Passing through Formentera

BY: Silvia García

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The storm passed at last and we set sail to Sagunto where we’ll finish the 2011 campaign, although first we’ll make a stop at Formentera to dive and document and destruction of the posidonia beds caused by ship anchors. In the Balearic Islands, there are a series of ecological buoys, which we talked about in this diary last year, around some points in the archipelago, that signal the location of the beds to prevent ships from anchoring there and destroying them. But there are not enough buoys and the ship captains obviously don’t care too much. A few smart tourists are careful and anchor in sandy areas, but most just let their anchors go without even thinking what’s underneath. It’s like parking your car without looking where, just parking in the most beautiful spot, right where you want to be, precisely the spot you’re destroying thanks to your ignorance.

Well, we headed to Formentera to support an advocator of Balearic marine biodiversity, Manu San Felix, who disseminated shocking photographs to the press showing what massive and uncontrolled anchoring is doing to the oldest seagrass beds in the Mediterranean, considered World Heritage Sites.