BELOW THE PEARL OF THE ATLANTIC | SCUBA DIVING
Cap Garajau was voted by professional divers for the biggest German diving magazine, tauchen, as one of 100 most beautiful diving areas in the world and Manta Diving is located centrally on the domestic reef at Garajau, which drops down to 34 metres. The nearest diving point is only a few metres from the shore. This has a diving depth of between 5 and 25 metres and is suitable for beginners, intermediate and advanced divers. The reef here is like an amphitheatre, with a backdrop of impressive rock formations and a 10 metre tunnel, through which you can swim, flooded with light. Reef inhabitants include a rich variety of shoals of fish, trumpet fish, grouper, barracuda, mackerel, locust lobster and reef lobsters.
Esmeralda lives at Lavafinger, another dive site, where there is a small cave and a steep rock face and at Ponta da Oliveira, the lava flow extends down to 28 metres. Here there is a large cave, 50 metres long, 20 metres wide and 12 metres deep with a large air bubble at the end where divers can surface. In this location, you might
be lucky enough to spot one of the rare Atlantic Monk Seals, which come into the cave to rest and sleep and because it is a protected area, they know they can always find fish. Monk Seals were taken to the Desertas Islands many years ago to breed and to increase their numbers, but now they are coming back to Madeira.
“ If you take a boat out to reach one of the furthest of the diving areas, you often find our‘ handsome’ groupers come up when they hear the motors of the boat. They follow us like dogs. They can be up to 1.5 metres in length and you might find 50 to 60 come so close” says Sittika.
Madeira Divepoint is based at the Hotel Pestana Carlton. The centre is a 5 star PADI dive resort run by Wilfried Pilzer and Ralph Hein, who run many courses from Discover Scuba in the pool or sea to a PADI Adventure Diver and Specialist courses including a Rescue Diver course. The centre has been running for 10 years, is open all year round and has shore and boat diving areas. Right in front of the diving centre is
Pictures courtesy of Manta Dive Centre
an excellent shallow dive area, going from 3 to 12 metres, which is great for beginners as it shelves very gradually.
Their boat takes divers to deeper sites and they have two wrecks, one of which is the infamous dredger, Bowbelle, which ran down and sank The Marchioness on the Thames in London in 1989. The boat was brought to Madeira after the tragedy, but sadly sunk in 1996. It is still in perfect condition and sits on the ground at about 30 metres.“ We dive there in the summer every week and it is a very good place to dive” says Wilfried. The centre also dives in the National Park.“ There is some pretty and colourful coral on the rocks, which is solitary rather than creating a reef and we also have some black coral, some 25 – 35 metres down. There is also black coral around the wrecks”. Wilfried also runs a second dive school from the Hotel Pestana Palms in Funchal.
Focusnatura is a diving centre / school located in Santa Cruz and at the Hotel Four Views Oasis in the Caniço. This is
12 | Summer 2012 | www. madeira-life. net |