Carmelo Isgro’

Location: Milazzo, Sicily, Italy

Occupation: Biologist, Founder and Director of MuMa Sea Museum Milazzo. I am involved in sea protection and outreach

Scuba Diving Since: (year) 1990

Favorite Local Dive: Scoglio della Portella, Capo Milazzo, a marine reserve protected Area

Favorite Dive Location: Capo Milazzo Marine Protected Area

An Interview with Carmelo Isgro’

Why did you decide to take the giant stride into the oceans?

- I was born in a city by the sea: the house where I grew up was by the sea, my school overlooked the sea, my current home is by the sea. Since childhood my "playground" has been the sea: snorkeling, freediving, sailing and scuba diving were my favorite pastimes. I loved exploring the sea in all its dimensions. Since I was born, my life has always been intimately linked to the sea. Inextricably. Fortunately, that child never grew up.

My mother always recounts that I was already itching to explore the underwater world even before I learned to swim: I would take off my floaties "so I could look underneath" and satiate my curiosity. For me it was like opening a treasure chest. I couldn't stand aquariums, seeing fish trapped in a tank made me angry. I always thought of the sea as a big aquarium where fish are happy to swim freely.

I would never let go of my "first mask," which was a SCUBAPRO mask (as seen in the photo). I carried it in my school bag, to my grandparents, to playmate’s homes, everywhere. I could never detach myself from it. I was even going to bed holding my mask in my hands. I keep it preciously because it is not "simply a mask," it is a part of my body. It is my underwater eyes since I was born.

How has diving changed your life?

Diving has not changed it, diving has shaped it! Simply because my life has always been lived above and below the sea. For as long as I can remember, my life has been linked to the underwater world and diving. I have always gone into the water, not as a guest but as one of its inhabitants; I have always felt that I am part of the marine fauna. I merge with it. I am not a pebble thrown into the sea but a drop that merges with it.

What kind of diving do you like to do?

Dives that stimulate my curiosity in nature. I love to go slow underwater, to stop and observe all life rock by rock, I like to practice what I have christened "slow diving." Underwater I take nothing for granted. Sometimes it happens that I stay in the same spot for the entire dive.

Tell us about one of the most amazing experiences you have had underwater?

In June 2017 on the coast of my town, Capo Milazzo, a sperm whale was stranded, and died from a "spadara" or illegal net that had tangled in its tail. I stood for hours looking at it, it was motionless, lifeless, until it spoke to me. Looking at his glassy eyes I realized that he was asking me for help. He wanted me not to let him die again by letting him fall into oblivion, that his death would not be in vain, but rather to tell everyone how he had died, lest other sperm whales like him might die in the same way. I donned my wetsuit, went into the water, stripped out by myself as much as 10 tons of rotting flesh in order to recover the bones. Inside the ancient Milazzo Castle, I reconstructed the skeleton by placing in the tail the net that killed him and in his belly the plastic I found in his stomach. I named him Siso to remember a friend who had helped me bring the bones ashore and who died the day after recovery. Around the Siso Sperm Whale, I have founded the "MuMa Museo del Mare Milazzo," a unique museum because it was created to raise awareness of issues related to anthropogenic impact, a museum created with the help of more than a thousand volunteers. The Sperm Whale Siso is not dead but still lives thanks to visitors, to the young people who tell his story, a symbol of environmental protection. Visiting the Museum takes one on a kind of spiritual journey, of purification by passing through the three environments into which the second part of the Museum is divided: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Ever since I first met the Sperm Whale Siso, his voice has never stopped speaking to me, spurring me on to continue my efforts to safeguard sperm whales, turtles and other sea inhabitants in distress.

Where are some of your favorite places underwater?

The "Scoglio della Portella" or "Artichoke" was my first dive site. I will never forget that day. To this day that it remains my favorite dive spot and now that it is within the Capo Milazzo Marine Protected Area, it is even more safeguarded and beautiful. A few hundred meters from there is the Secca di Ponente, also a Bs zone (special protection zone) of the Capo Milazzo MPA. When you dive, you fall into a cloud of Mediterranean chromis fish and hundreds of huge barracuda circle about. As you descend you see "red grouper balls" and under each rock one or more brown groupers.  But the wonder of this place is even deeper, with immense forests of Gorgonians. As you descend, the first type encountered is the White Gorgonian, then the Yellow and even further down (but already at 30 meters) great "fans" of Red Gorgonian (Paramuricea clavata). On these corals we always see the Gorgonian Star (Astrospartus mediterraneus) and the False Black Coral (Savalia savaglia or Gerardia savaglia, a strictly protected parasitic species of other gorgonians. Still further down is a vast forest of Black Coral (Antipathella subpinnata).

What is your advice to someone considering diving?

Enjoy yourselves. Melt with the sea like water drops. Do not be in a hurry to advance, always keep your equipment in order and efficient to deal with any opportunity or difficulty.

What would you tell people about the oceans?

"We do not inherit the Earth from our fathers, we borrow it from our children." This Navajo proverb makes us realize that we have a double responsibility. Helping free the Fury Sperm Whale from the "death net" in the summer of 2020 (in collaboration with the Coast Guard) made me realize how important it is to take action now to save our planet, because it is already too late!

What does diving mean to you?

It is like for a believer to go to church! The sea is the temple in which to go and pray. Underwater I always have the impression that I am flying on the seabed. Observing marine life satiates my curiosity. Diving means disconnecting with the world, merging with the water. Diving means "observing outside and inside me."

What's your favorite thing in your dive bag?

My camera flashes. Deep down they restore the stolen color absorbed by the water column above me. The flash has the ability to explode a bomb of color under every reef! I love to show, through my shots, the wonders of the sea even to those who have never gone underwater, as an incentive to dive and because I believe that in this way I contribute to making people know, then love and consequently protect, the sea! In a nutshell, with my pictures I try to make people understand that the Sea is wonderful but also so fragile and that is why we must respect it.

Social Media links:

-Web: www.carmeloisgro.com

-Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carmeloisgro.biologo

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carmelo_isgro/

-TikToK: https://www.tiktok.com/@carmelo_isgro

-Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CarmeloIsgrò

-Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmelo-isgro/

-Twitter: https://twitter.com/CarmeloIsgro85