Punta San Paolo

A dive site with a sloping scenic landslide full of marine life and a small wreck surrounded by sea stars.

 

The dive starts from the bay of San Paolo‚ located on the southern side of the island of Ustica. Descending to a depth of 8m‚ we start our swim over a large meadow of posidonia seagrass. This is the perfect environment for many fish types‚ such as crustaceans and brown‚ green and peacock wrasse‚ to hide. Exploring the seagrass with attention one can encounter the greater pipefish‚ perfectly camouflaged with the blades of grass.

We head out to the open sea in eastern direction‚ following the sloping seabed down to a depth of 25m. Here‚ a wreck of about 10m length‚ rests on a sandy sea bottom. The small wreck hosts a large moray eel and an impressive number of the pentagonal shaped Peltaster Placenta sea stars‚ scattered around its surrounding.

We change course in a southern direction‚ following the contours of the coastline which with a gentle descent forms the underwater reef wall of San Paolo. This scenic landslide is full of marine life‚ from smaller splendid nudibranchs‚ like the purple nudibranch and the umbrella snails‚ spiny sea stars‚ big specimens of octopuses and brown groupers. Don’t forget to have a look in the blue to spot larger pelagic such as great species of amberjack.

Further along‚ a big crack‚ 4m wide and 20m long‚ forms a dramatic discontinuation in the smooth shaping of the riff wall. This location indicates the turn-around-point of our dive. Exploring the shallower parts of the wall‚ we head back towards the bay where the dive boat is moored.