Caniçal

Slightly less windy over night (12-15mph perhaps), and not many more days left, so decided to find somewhere sheltered for a swim. Best spot seemed to be a beach near Caniçal, it was sandy, fairly sheltered, and further protected today by a nearby breakwater. First though we stopped in Caniçal itself for a quick look round, to pick up some food to make lunch, but most of all to visit the whaling museum and were pleased to find it open this time of year. We didn't see a life-size model sperm whale or the whaling boat boat said to be on show, but looked at the interesting whaling artefacts, models, and artwork and watched an interesting short film about Madeiran whaling.

On to our beach, parked at the top of the cliff and took all the kit down to the beach. Used my FJ suit and rash vest and hood (didn't bother with gloves) and 4kg of lead. Camera: my Canon IXUS 700. I hadn't bought my slightly rubbishy strobe, but had recently used with the camera's own diffuser with good results. There would be plenty of light and good visibility.

Water felt cold going in but soon warmed up. There was a bit of a surge around the rocks, but not too bad. Swimming out it was very clear and blue. Estimated the visibility to be about 10m, but may have been slightly more. Setting off, the rocks were quite barren but I did notice some barnacles and algae as I was getting my fins on (I hadn't seen any weed, shells, or any creeping thing on any of the beaches we'd stopped at previously). The sandy bottom was also apparently lifeless. Then as I got a bit further out and swam down, things suddenly became interesting with reefy turf, plants and colourful fish.

The fish I can remember were: painted wrasse, saddled bream, parrot fish, shiny blue fish, (all frequent), salp, small grey blue fish (shoals), lizard fish (common), weaver fish (2x), puffer fish (2x), tompot blenny, black headed goby.

Invertebrates included: spiny starfish (these attractive ble and brown), red starfish, brown spotted sea cucumber, yellow, red, green/brown sponges. Sea urchins abundant on the large angular boulders. Some of these had striking blue streaks in the narrows between the spines; the spines of many seemed longer than those I'd seen off Crete, and they were generally spread well apart from one another. I found a few top shells and limpets, but saw no crabs or anenomes.

Plants: reefy turf had short green/turquoise weed with lobed edges, short dark tufts of something, but the largest and most conspicuous plant was the plump pink feathery weed that was dotted around in clumps.

I snorkelled for about an hour going as far as the breakwater then back the way I came slowly, over the beach then over to the rocks on the other side. More exposed the visibility wasn't as good and the effect of the surge far greater. From what I could make out there was less to see, so I came in. I was very pleased with a good swim here and seeing plenty of life.