Katelanos undersea cave

On June 5th 2017, the diving team of Antonis Grafas with friends and partners such as Mr. Lefteris Koutalas and Mr. Stilianos Stamatakis visited the cave of Katelanos, collecting information from the undersea adornment while filming it.After the area of Astros in Kinouria, on the way to the Arcadic Village, at Krioneri there is the cape of Katelanos. There is located the well-known undersea cave of Katelanos that can be accessed via sea by the cave divers.Cave is any natural hollow in the earth where a man has access. If a man cannot have access, it is called cavity. The formation of the caves is realized by the penetration of the rain water in the gaps of the calcareous rocks that dissolves them very slowly by gradually creating bigger and bigger hollows in its interior. Adornment of calcareous deposition can be found in the caves. The water that dissolves the calcareous rocks and creates the cave becomes full of calcium carbonate that is gradually deposited on the spots where water drips. As a result, stalactites are created on the roof of the cave and stalagmites on its bottom. Several other specialized formations are created as well from the same procedure creating complicated and very beautiful complexes.
There is life in the caves. Besides the area of the entrance of the cave where many animals find their shelter (accidentals – trogloxenes species), deeper into the cave there are the troglophile species that live in the cave but eat
outside of it (e.g bats) and the troglobites that live and complete their entire life cycle in the caves without never leaving it.Caves are considered to be an important part of the environment and are directly connected to the quality of life as most of the times they are related to the ground water that is extracted with the drillings for the water supply and irrigation.

Some information about the cave

 The entrance of the cave at the cape of Katelanos is located on the rocks few meters over the sea level. The diver starts heading west for the first 20 meters, while after that the direction becomes north-west reaching a maximum length of 48 meters. The width is 18 meters and the maximum depth is 24 meters. The cave has few but huge stalagmites. One of them located near the entrance, which is only partially filled with water, only its one third, has a height of 5 meters. Very close to it in a northern direction, there is another one with a height of 6.6 meters. In a depth of 15 meters we meet a pair of stalactite and stalagmite from the furthest past. They still express their mutual love even though they never managed to unite. The stalactite with a length of 2.10 meters and the stalagmite with a height of 2.20 meters needed only 3-4 cm to unite with its partner for ever. The water is brackish as in a depth of 5 meters there are small rivers with fresh water coming out from the cave’s walls and mixing up with waters of different salinity, creating in this way halocline water layers that give a unique picture to the diver. Many pieces of the stalactites are on the bottom of the cave, maybe due to human mistake, but the stalactites that still stand imposing in their position luckily are more. The clear water, the excellent visibility and the short depth of almost 15 meters where the diver can move as well as the light coming from the entrance contributing in its way, make the cave very beautiful and unique. The temperature in June is 19 Celsius degrees. Finally, we would like to thank Mr. Giannis Litrivis for transferring us with its boat and for his valuable information as well as the Port Authorities of Astros in Kinouria for their kind communication and cooperation.