Diving at Tabarca Island

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Scuba Diving Spain
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La Galera

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Escull Negre

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Escull Roig

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Arrecifes Artificiales

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Cabo de Santa Pola

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Tabarca Reef

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La Nao

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La Llosa (Merolandia)

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Pecio 19

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Pecio 30

Tabarca Island is the first marine reserve in Spain. It was created in 1986 and since then it has been preserved and overfishing has been controlled. Therefore, it is one of the few places in the Mediterranean where we can see extremely large fish in shallow water.

Thanks to the huge fields of Posidonia sea grass and rock, we can enjoy masses of fish that use this area as a refuge and for protection, as well as having turquoise water, more typical of a Caribbean coast.

Tabarca Island is a tourist attraction that welcomes more than 8000 people a day in the summer months. But luckily for diving, we have a limit of a maximum 10 divers in some spots and in others, 7 divers.

PRICE: 80€ for two dives per person + 20€ (Equipment Rental)

Make your reservation by leaving 40€ deposit:

40,00 

Get to know the best Mediterranean island

Where is it?

Tabarca Island is located 8 km or 3 nautical miles from Santa Pola’s coast (Alicante). It is very close to our dive centre and it only takes around 20 minutes to get there in our boat

What can we see there?

The marine reserve has an immense biodiversity where we usually see an abundance of giant groupers, schools of thousands of barracudas, stingrays, butterfly rays, lobsters, crustaceans, moray eels and plenty of soft coral. It is like paradise.

Requirements to dive at Tabarca Island.

In order to dive at Tabarca Island you must bring:

ID or Passport

Diving certification

Diving insurance (if you do not have diving insurance, we can arrange for you)

Diving at Tabarca Island

What diving spots will we find there?

We have a wide range of diving spots at Tabarca Island’s Marine Reserve for all different levels. Luckily, there is usually no current, making the dives accessible to everyone. 

Tabarca Island Marine Reserve is divided into two areas. The first is called Interior Reserve, here we have 5 different diving spots. The second, Exterior Reserve, made up of two diving spots which are further away from Tabarca’s coast. 

To dive in both areas, you must have a permit which many dive centres in Alicante do not have. But we are one of the lucky ones who can enjoy the amazing underwater world at Tabarca Island. 

Interior Reserve diving spots:

  • Escull Negre, Escull Roig, Arrecifes Artificiales, Galera and Tabarca Reef

In the Exterior Reserve we can find:

  • La Nao (The Arches) and La Llosa (Grouperland)

There are also two diving spots outside the Marine Reserve:

  • Pecio 19 (Wreck 19), Pecio 30 (Wreck 30) and Santa Pola Cape

Escull Negre

Difficulty – easy (suitable for all divers from Open Water)

This is one of the best dive sites at Tabarca Island, located in the Interior Reserve. 

It is called “Escull Negre” which means black rock in Valenciano, the language of the Valencian Community. It submerges from the water on the south face of the island.

It is known for being one of the most biodiverse spots on the island, it is shocking the amount of marine life that you can see at only 13 meters depth.

Schools of thousands of barracudas, groupers, rays, meagres, salema fish, octopus, congers, nudibranchs, zebra sea breams and much more.

It is a shallow dive, we will be at 7- or 8-meters depth most of the time, so you will not have to worry about your air consumption. 

Dive at Tabarca Island

Escull Roig

Difficulty – easy (suitable for all divers from Open Water)

This dive spot is called Escull Roig, which means Red Rock. We will do the dive around the red rock which is on the south side of Tabarca Island.

Here we can find nudibranchs, scorpion fish, star fish, large Posidonia meadows, moray eels and much more!

It is an easy dive, we will be at 5- or 7-meters depth most of the time, so you will not have to worry about your air consumption. 

Arrecifes Artificiales (Artificial Reef)

Difficulty – medium (suitable for all divers from Advanced Open Water)

This dive spot is made up of concrete blocks which were sunken on purpose years ago to stop trawling fishing boats from destroying the beautiful seabed that surrounds Tabarca Island.

The concrete blocks at “Artificial Reef” are hollow, cube-shaped structures that lay on a sand bed at 24 meters depth. Over the years an artificial reef has formed and made a protection area and refuge for uncountable species of animals. Offering us at the same time a fantastic diving spot. 

At the giant cubes we can find scorpion fish, groupers weighing more than 40kg, schools of thousands of salema fish, white bream and much more. We can also visit the remains of a sunken fishing boat near the artificial reef occupied by moray eels, congers and many more species. 

Dive at Tabarca Island
Dive at Tabarca Island

La Galera

Difficulty – easy (suitable for all divers from Open Water)

La Galera is a small Island next to Tabarca, which has a remarkably interesting feature, its orography. In addition to an incredibly significant topography, where we can find some rock corridors and a cave.

It is a shallow dive and the visibility is usually excellent there.

We can see all kinds of fish, but this specific point is quite unpredictable since sometimes we see marine life that is not seen anywhere else in Tabarca’s marine reserve.

La Nao

Difficulty – easy (suitable for all divers from Open Water)

Without a doubt, La Nao is one of the best diving sites in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds of photographers come here each year to capture amazing photos of its marine flora and fauna. The light entrances through tunnels and arches full of fish is what makes it so incredible for taking photos. Also, it is a shallow dive, so the light reaches everywhere.

During this dive we will follow a strip of rocks until we reach some arches, here we can find a wide variety of marine life. Like hundreds of varied fish and the maximum depth is 10 meters.

We can see giant groupers, sea cicada, sea breams, salema fish, cuttlefish, octopus and in the sandy area we sometimes find stingrays.

This dive will not disappoint any diver and it has a special charm because the fish there do not see you as a threat and they get very close to divers making us feel part of the ecosystem.

Scuba diving Tabarca

Tabarca Reef

Difficulty – easy (suitable for all divers from Open Water)

It is called Tabarca Reef or Cemetery. Do not worry, it’s not called cemetery due to a lack of fish. Moreover, we can find abundance of fish, including large schools of barracudas and some Spanish dancer nudibranch.

This dive spot is located on the north face of Tabarca Island, in line with the cemetery. It is a fairly easy dive and the maximum depth will be 15 metres.It is characterised by its interesting topography, made up of a row of rocks, one on top of the other, creating passageways to explore.  Surrounding the depths, we can find meadows of Posidonia sea grass, a great area for many fish to hide and protect their selves.

We will see Mediterranean reef like gorgonian, sea sponges and ascidians. We often see rays, barracudas, some groupers and much more

Pecio 19

Difficulty – easy (suitable for all divers from Open Water)

This dive spot is located just outside Tabarca Island’s Marine Reserve. We normally throw the anchor to around 12 meters depth and we descend through an interesting canyon type rock while observing a huge cloud of bogues swimming in sync. Then we will see, on the seabed, a sunken wooden fishing boat. If you take a close look in the propeller shaft there is normally a conger eel hidden there. This dive spot can be very surprising.

Here we can find small groupers, sting rays, barracudas, spanish dancers, conger eels, moray eels, sting rays and much more! The maximum depth is 19 meters.

Dive at Tabarca Island

Pecio 30

Difficulty – medium/high (suitable for all divers from Advanced Open Water)

At this dive spot we can find the remains of 3 sunken wooden boats on the seabed at 30 meters. From all the diving spots at Tabarca Island, this is the one where we are most likely to see sunfish, sometimes we have seen more than 20 together. They like this area because there are a lot of rainbow wrasse or “coris julis” and they clean the Sunfish. Let’s say it’s like a spa day when they come here. We can also see moray eels, a big conger eel and a variety of many other fish.

There can be strong current here sometimes so we can also find quite big fish.

La Llosa (Grouper-land)

Difficulty – medium (suitable for all divers from Advanced Open Water)

This is a dive you cannot miss is you visit Alicante!

It is considered one of the best diving spots in Spain and of the entire Mediterranean Sea.

The depth in La Llosa is between 19 and 28 meters, and the dive can be done in 2 different ways depending on level of the divers.

The shallowest part of the dive is at 24 meters, what we do is circle a rock or “llosa” and enjoy the view, dozens of gigantic groupers (hence the name grouper-land), mottled groupers, goldblotch groupers, thousands of barracudas, stingrays, massive moray eels, octopus, anemones, etc. Then we will ascend gradually until we reach 19 meters, at this point if you look from side to side you will be surprised by thousands of fish surrounding us. The most amazing thing about this dive spot is you can get extremely close to the groupers, without touching them. Just think about the amazing pictures you will be able to take.

At the deepest part of the dive,28 meters, we will view some tunnels and rocks. Here, we are sometimes surprised by different types of less common fish like sunfish and eagle rays.