Levantine Sea: From Rhodes to Paleochora

As I ventured into the eastern dead end of the Mediterranean Sea, I first landed in Cyprus after having sailed over deep waters, strewn with enormous seamounts. There, a mother and calf pair of Cuvier’s beaked whales—the elusive, supreme diving champions amongst cetaceans—paid me a fleeting visit from the depths. From Cyprus, I continued towards the coast of Asia Minor, and reached Tyre in Lebanon after having been visited by a school of the intriguing rough-toothed dolphins, part of a small population living isolated in the Levantine Sea. Sailing out of Tyre, heading southwest towards the Nile Delta, I crossed an area where large numbers of the endangered spinetail devil rays, smaller relatives of the giant manta, perish every winter in Gazan purse-seines. As I sailed around the low coast where the mighty Nile empties into the Mediterranean, having crossed half of the African continent, I was reminded with concern of all the unwanted marine visitors that have invaded the Mediterranean through the nearby opening of the Suez Canal. Alexandria in Egypt was my last stop in Africa before I headed back, northwest-bound. Along the way, crossing again the deep waters of the Hellenic Trench, I finally made my encounter with the big-brained sperm whale, one of the most iconic marine animals and one I so much wished to meet. My journey in the Levantine Sea ended when I reached the harbour of Paleochora on the island of Crete.