Neptune's kingdom

By Franco Savastano

A wonderful marine park rivalling the finest seascapes in the Mediterranean.

In the collective imagination, heaven is located in the sky, although anyone diving in the waters of the "Regno di Nettuno" (Neptune's Kingdom) may begin to doubt the truth of this belief as they discover an extraordinary underwater paradise formed by submerged cliffs and boundless shallows - an underwater Garden of Eden.
These depths are among the most beautiful in the Mediterranean, a superlative sight with luxuriant meadows of Posidonia Oceanica seaweed and a marked bio-diversity of the rocky areas, often populated by rare creatures and endemic species.
Regno di Nettuno is the name given by the 1991 law on Italian Protected Marine Areas to the small archipelago formed by the islands of <%=ischia%>, Vivara and Procida opposite the Phlegraean coast, at the western edge of the Bay of Naples.
This vast area, currently being established as a marine park, has been the object of in-depth research carried out by the Naples Zoological Station through the Benthos Laboratory in <%=ischia%>, in collaboration with Biolink, a company set up by the Parthenopean Chamber of Commerce.
Today it is under close examination by the local authorities of the seven municipalities that look out onto it, who will eventually present the government with a plan laying out the boundaries and zones of the areas to be protected. From a geomorphologic point of view, these volcanic islands, of which <%=ischia%> is the biggest, rest upon a vast submerged continental platform that rises up from the depths, forming immense rocky expanses, sometimes steep and sometimes flat, most of which are within the reach of human beings, be they fishermen, explorers or underwater photographers. In the past, the cliff of Sant'Angelo suffered from repeated acts of environmental vandalism, now thankfully avoided due to the strict controls of nearby diving centres. This area is home to Gerardia savaglia, a Zoantharian with a corneous structure supporting colonies of yellow-gold polyps and forming a breath-taking fan known as "Mediterranean black coral".

On the flat "Formiche" in the <%=ischia%> channel - which the old sailors call "è case" ("the houses" in dialect) - there are caves that look as if they were carved by man in some bygone era. Considering the frequent tremors and subsidence that still occur, they would have once been above sea-level, as would the underwater rocky "tongue" that lies between 4 and 40 metres below the surface - in prehistoric times the umbilical cord joining the islands to the mainland.
Rising up at Forio d'<%=ischia%> in the Punta Imperatore area is a characteristic rock whose shape has earned it the name La Nave (the ship). At its submerged base live various species of marine life of great biological interest.
Following the rock face of San Pancrazio, gradually descending to a steep and uninhabited area, the diving is exceptional good and affords frequent sightings of both permanent and pelagic species.
In the so-called Cuma canyon, close encounters with dolphins, black whales and sometimes even large cetaceans are common.
Its proximity to other top marine locations such as Procida, the Bay of Sorrento and Capri enables visitors to make day excursions and experience diving trips that can only reinforce the image of an underwater Eden.

Franco Savastano, journalist and photographer