On the surface of the water, sounds ricochet. That day, the bay of Toulon resounds with the cries of the sailors fighting over the buoy, the laughter of the children on their dinghies, the engines of the speedboats… Between the Pipady pass and the Giens peninsula, which hides Porquerolles, the imposing mass of the Dixmude199-meter-long amphibious helicopter carrier, makes ripples in the water. Like an echo of the world’s noise.
A few hundred meters away, Flyfisha fast inflatable, hits the waves. Direction the cove of Sainte-Marguerite. At the helm, neoprene suit pulled on the legs, and hooded sweater, the diving instructor and defender of underwater fauna Sandrine Treyvaud screams. “There’s too much movement, we’re going to start by taking inventory!” Everyone checks their equipment, their bottle and regulator, but also the underwater tag and pen, the tape measure, the dive computer. The words are muffled by the roar of the outboard.
Note the state of conservation
Beneath the surface, suddenly, the silence of the sea… In pairs, surrounded by oxygen bubbles, the divers descend towards the seagrass beds of posidonia, run along the rocks covered with orange sponges, padinas and ball-shaped codiums (algae). Here, nature seems intact. Unlike at the foot of the drop-off of the Fer-à-Cheval cove, located just below a road, where you find tires and, sometimes, car carcasses.
At 11 meters, the first Cladocora espitosa seems. Spherical, greenish-brown, more discreet than its tropical cousins. A diver measures it carefully so as not to crush the tentacles of the polyps that catch the suspended plankton. And another participant scrutinize and note. Dimensions: 21 centimeters by 18; depth; state of conservation, of “ + + + » to « – – – », depending on the number of damaged or bleached polyps. This will be noted « − ». Colony after colony, the census continues. A few gestures to show, to direct. The strokes of the fins scare away the octopuses in the middle of the reproduction period. Not the schools of wrasses, which remain impassive.
Here, some of the corals discovered are no longer anonymous. In the seven years since she founded Ocean Quest France, a protection and restoration association, Sandrine Treyvaud has named some of them “names of friends, children and grandchildren”. So, there is “Charlie”, like the granddaughter of the president of the NGO. On the slope, there is also “Oli”, a ball of polyps measuring 42 centimeters by 30. “He’s doing better, it’s nice to see him turning green again…”confides the diver. Three years ago, in August 2022, this colony suffered a marine heatwave. For three weeks, the surface water reached record temperatures, up to 26 °C. Above 24 °C, the Cladocora espitosa begin to expel the algae that live in symbiosis with them.
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