Pastizza

South of the port of Ustica an imposing sea stack rises from the sea in front of a wide opening that hides the Grotta di San Bartolomeo. The mooring is usually near the sea stack. The descent onto a seabed of 5m mixed with posidonia and rocks starts the two dive routes: La Parete della Pastizza and the Caves Accademia-San Bartolicchio.

La Parete della Pastizza, swimming south, between boulders and rock formations, we head towards the Pastizza wall. The wall slopes down onto a sandy bottom to a maximum depth of 30m. Colorful sponges, feather duster worms, sea urchins and starfish decorate the surface of the wall, while its numerous coves and crevices shelter crustaceans and molluscs; for the more observant it’s possible to spot small nudibranchs, and there’s no shortage of

groupers, moray eels and sea bream. Looking towards the blue, it’s possible to spot hunting pelagic species such as amberjacks and tuna. On the way back, swimming over a posidonia meadow, you often encounter a school of sea bream and salema. Returning towards the sea stack, passing through an evocative canyon is a must, and the dive ends by exploring the shallow seabed observing various types of blennies and gobies.

The caves route: swimming north, crossing a posidonia meadow at 13m depth among schools of sea bream and salema, we reach the rock wall. This wall is a tongue of land that extends from the coast towards the open sea and hides the first cavity to explore. Once inside you can often see large brown groupers, slipper lobsters and crabs. Exiting the cavity and following the wall southward, covering about 100m at a depth of about 10m you find the entrance to the Grotta dell’Accademia. Its name comes from its shape, which resembles a reading room. The bottom is gravelly, and inside small conger eels find shelter, and crustaceans and nudibranchs can also be observed. Beams of light penetrate through openings in the walls and the ceiling of the cave, illuminating the room and forming a fantastic display of lights and colors. Exiting the cave and heading further south, we pass the starting point of the dive and reach a depth of about 4m, where the presence of large boulders hides the entrance to a cave with two chambers, and a partly submerged section, the Grotta di San Bartolomeo. Passing through a shallow passage we enter a very large room, here you can resurface and admire the statue of San Bartolomeo, patron saint of Ustica. Inside the cave, with a torch, you can observe the presence of the mechanical shrimp, the parapandalo shrimp and various crustaceans.

Thanks to its simplicity and limited depth this dive site is also a perfect place for night dives. During the darkest hours, this place is literally full of marine life as crabs, slipper lobsters, moray eels, octopuses and many others become active. It’s also a perfect opportunity to admire the Alicia Mirabilis anemone, which shows itself in all its beauty exclusively at night, when it emerges from its inactive spherical form and displays its elegant elongated white body and long colorful tentacles.