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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:
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
