ISLANDS AND LIVEABOARDS
SPAIN
Lanzarote Island
Text and images by SIMON ROGERSON
To most Europeans, the island of Lanzarote is
known for its nightlife and relentless parade of
sunbathers, but it has another side that most
tourists never experience. The easternmost of
the Canary Islands, it was born in fiery eruptions,
creating a stark landscape of arid mountains that
plunge into the cobalt-blue Atlantic Ocean.
Underwater, you swim over steep sand slopes
and moonscapes of frozen lava. At first, the
environment seems drab compared to a coral
reef, but you will come to realise that these subtropical seas are brimming with life. The sand
is thick with flounders and weeverfish, while
seabass and Moroccan bream flit around in midwater. You can find octopuses and seahorses on
pretty much every dive.
In deeper water, you will find an array of
predators. Tuna and white trevally stream in from
the deep, testing the schools of damselfish. The
resident predators are even more impressive:
Stingrays are common currency, and with a bit
of luck you may come across butterfly and eagle
rays. On the deeper fringes of the reef there are
dusky groupers, which are big, but quite skittish.
02
03
01
The must-see fish is
01 Divers enter the
the common angel shark,
water at Playa Chica
Squatina squatina, sadly not
02 A common angel
shark waits to ambush
so common these days, as it
is critically endangered due to prey
The fine detail of an
overfishing. The Canary Islands 03
angel sharkâs eye
is one of the few places you
04 The wreck of the
can reliably find these ambush Masso at Puerto del
Carmen
predators, which lurk just
under the sand with their eyes scanning the water
column for potential prey.
Otherwise, there are the harbour wrecks at
Puerto Calero, which are fizzing with fish and sit in
an area of wonderfully clear water. For something
completely different, there is the new underwater
museum at Playa Blanca, an installation of statues
by artist Jason deCaires Taylor. So, away from the
bucket-and-spade brigade, Lanzarote is a quietly
beautiful place, and well worth a few dives.
SDOP
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