I'm fascinated by shipwrecks and their role as attractors of marine biodiversity. That's why I welcomed the opportunity to revisit the Virgo tugboat, sunk on purpose in Recife's Parque dos Naufrágios, where I went on an underwater tourism operation in 2019. Now, as a professional marine biologist, I arrive in this incredible underwater environment with the mission of collecting biological samples for the Bio Bureau's Rota do Coral-Sol project.
As we went down a cable to overcome a strong current, we saw, at first, a huge shadow that was the outline of the wreck and which took shape as we got closer. With visibility of more than 20 meters and warm water, we were at Virgo in the blink of an eye. As soon as I reached the bottom, alongside underwater photographer Luciano Candisani and the dive master, I noticed that the structure of the wreck was full of sun coral.
I was amazed at the quantity, as I hadn't seen any traces of this species on the dive I did four years ago. Although very beautiful, it is an invasive species that is potentially harmful to native marine life in Brazilian waters, as this hotsite explains.
After 50 minutes collecting the species of interest to our study, we returned to the boat for a delicious snack before the second dive of the day.
In the early afternoon, we returned to the water for a different swim. This time, we collected a few more samples, but the focus was really on making the most of it so that we could make videographic records of the place. We noticed that the stern was the part of the wreck with the largest amount of sun coral, we saw huge schools of croakers and a nurse shark. As the wreck is intact, there were high passages too.
Taking part in this type of expedition goes far beyond the dives, and the whole route was very well spent. The sailing, although not the lightest, was very smooth. The Abissal diving team was very professional. When we arrived at the canal, we took the opportunity to process the samples in front of the beautiful view of old Recife.
Karine Venegas Macieira
