After a long trip with a night at Schiphol, the airport of Amsterdam, we were got picked up by car at the airport of Calvi and brought to STARESO. The first day we unpacked our stuff and started to explore the sea. During our two-weeks stay here, we had to find and carry out a scientific project and later on write a report. So we started some short diving trips to find a topic to work on. It didn't take long until we found one:"A Crowded Place. Factors determining the dominance of Paracentrotus lividus or Arbatia lixula (Echinodermata; Echinoidea) in a rocky bay of Corsica.". Which means, we wanted to find out why at some places, there are mainly Black Sea Urchins (Arbatia lixula) to be found whereas other places are crowded with purple Sea Urchins (Paracentrotus lividus).

For the next two weeks we were almost more time to be found under water than above :-). We did 25 diving trips in only 13 days ! The area around Calvi is a great diving place. At about 12-15 m of depth there are vast seeweed meadows, at the rocks of the upper regions you'll find octopusses, lobsters and thousands of fishes (especially Chromis sp.). Close to Calvi, a military plane crashed into the sea during the World Wars. It is possible to explore it at a depth of about 25 m. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to go there.

At least for one day, we could do some sight-seeing. We went to Calvi, the pittoresque little town with it's citadel, situated directly at the Gulf of Calvi. Calvi is diveded in a upper and lower town, while the upper town is built by a fortress. Within the fortress, there is the citadel, the Governor's Palace (today the headquater of the Foreign Legion), the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste and the Oratorium of Saint-Antoine. The forteress is full of tiny little streets, in one of these streets, Christoph Kolumbus is said to be born.

At the lower town, there is the church of Sainte-Marie-Majeure, the Hôtel de Ville, the market and the harbour for yachtes and ferrys. I've never seen so many expensive boats together at one spot :-). At the harbour, you'll find lots of - quite expensive - restaurants and again tiny little streets with lots of shops (for diving fans: there are a couple of diving shops, they are quite cheap !).

After two weeks, our work was done and we had to go back to Groningen again. It wasn't easy to leave STARESO, especially the food there was excellent (the Station employs a cook, she did a lunch buffet and lots of different dishes for dinner every day, it was excellent - if we wouldn't have been diving so much, we would have grown fat !). One thing's for sure - Korsika will see us again one day !