Steno

Steno — meaning 'the narrows' in Greek — is a submerged rocky channel near Heraklion's eastern coast where two limestone ridges funnel current through a 15 m wide passage, accelerating water flow and creating a high-productivity corridor packed with Posidonia seagrass meadows, aggregating salema fish schools, and patrolling sea turtles. The seagrass beds transitioning to coralline algae reef on the channel walls provide a rare opportunity to observe the full Mediterranean benthic succession from a single dive, and octopus density in the meadow is among the highest recorded at any site on Crete.