Adriatic Sea: From Venice to Otranto

On a day in early June, I took to the sea aboard Pontoporia and motored out of the lagoon of Venice to begin my journey by sailing down the Adriatic Sea. At first, reaching the coast of Croatia, I had an encounter with a community of bottlenose dolphins, residents of the waters of the island of Lošinj. These dolphins, which have been studied now for several decades, are the only cetaceans surviving today in the shallow northern portion of the Adriatic Sea, one of the world’s most abused by humans in terms of overfishing and land-based pollution. After a night in which I experienced the encounter with a brutal Neverin—luckily, while I was safely docked inside the harbour of Rovenska—I continued my journey southward in the fairest of weathers, crossing back to Italian waters and hugging the Apulian coast. As I proceeded, my memory went back to a distant episode, three decades ago, when I was involved in the investigation of a catastrophic event whereby scores of striped dolphins and loggerhead turtles ended up dead on the beaches, likely poisoned by a devastating spill of toxic chemicals. Once in Otranto—the gate to the Ionian Sea—I was led to ponder on a mesmerising medieval mosaic decorating the floor of the city’s cathedral, and on the message that can be drawn from it about what we are losing as the natural world deteriorates.