International Swimming Pond Day is celebrated every third Saturday in June.

The International Organization for Natural Bathing Waters ( IOB ) is again organizing a photo competition and is asking all owners and builders of a natural pool or swimming pond to submit a photo of their happiest moment of the past year at or in their natural bathing water.

The procedure has been significantly simplified again and you can upload the photos without size formatting to https://iob-ev.com/tag-des-schwimmteichs/


An international jury evaluates the images. The three best photos from private owners will win a T-shirt by Colombian artist SOMA.

The prize for the winning professional participant is free participation in the 12th International Swimming Pond Conference on September 27th and 28th in Mechelen, Belgium.

Last year's winner was our collaborator Gustavo Fraille with the picture above.

Beachgoers to Ibiza can currently find sea olives in the flotsam - a rare chance!

The sea olive is the fruit of the seaweed, Poseidonia oceanica, which keeps our coastal waters around Ibiza so clear and creates particularly biodiverse communities.

Seagrass normally reproduces "vegetatively", i.e. by growing its rhizomes from which the leaves and roots sprout. A single plant can form hundreds of square meters of underwater forest.

However, it can also reproduce sexually, although this rarely happens: only every 10-15 years does a mass bloom occur around Ibiza in autumn. The fruits ripen over several months and rise to the surface in spring to be carried to new realms by the wind and currents. At some point they burst open and release the seed, which sinks to the ground to - with a lot of luck - found a new colony.

The extreme heat period in late summer, which put the seagrass in a "stressful situation", is suspected to be the trigger for last year's mass bloom.