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Aqua Diving Adventures owner Ada Serrano( left), dive guide Patricia Pla
( middle) and Fiona Lemaire( right)
Holding on for El Hierro
I CAME ACROSS THE SMALL ATLANTIC Island of El Hierro by chance, flicking through a travel magazine in a supermarket queue. I was drawn to an article on seven of the world’ s most unspoiled islands and El Hierro, the Canary Islands’ furthest flung island was among them. According to the magazine, it also happens to offer world class diving. I took this random discovery as a sign that we should go.
El Hierro, known as the isla con alma, the Island with a Soul, is the youngest Canary Island, emerging just 1.1 million years ago. Unlike parts of its sister islands, it hasn’ t been ruined by over development and mass tourism; it remains unspoiled, with breathtaking raw natural beauty. It has some unique flora and fauna and in 2000 was designated by UNESCO as a biosphere reserve, with 60 % of its territory protected.
Its marine world is equally respected and protected, and in 1996 the Mar de Las Calmas became Spain’ s first marine national park. We were very excited at the
Boston’ s big night
OVER THE LAST 40 YEARS ARTHUR JOHNSON, A PERSON known to many in the BSAC community, has dedicated himself to diving. Hundreds of people have benefited from his friendship, knowledge and training. He has been a member of Boston Sub Aqua Club BSAC branch 1200 almost from its start, and he has been the one constant within the club. Many of our members
24 prospect of discovering vast marine life and underwater volcanic landscapes.
The main dive area is La Restinga, a port at El Hierro’ s southern tip. There are six dive centres and we chose Aqua Diving Adventure, linked to Extra Divers. Ada, the owner, loves her island and knows its marine area inside out. She was very helpful and let us set up the day before our dives. Their equipment is all well maintained and mainly Aqualung.
Water temperatures are around 19-25 ° C all year round. The wetsuits were all 5mm, which were fine for us coming from diving in Oman. Ada keeps the number of divers to a maximum of 10 during the high season in July and August. In May, we were a group of just four.
Our first dive was the most famous site in El Hierro, El Bájon. It’ s a stunning underwater volcano rising from the bottom, 100m down. Its steep walls reach up to a depth of 8m at its shallowest point. The currents at the site mean there’ s an abundance of marine life.
Visibility is incredible; up to 50m and we saw friendly and enormous groupers, sting rays, barracudas, amberjack, slipper lobsters, brown moray eels and shoals of black sea bream. Our lovely guide, Patricia, was very keen for us to see as much as possible and was very good at pointing everything out.
Our second dive, Barco Chino, was a diver’ s playground, with lots of fun swimthroughs, caves and arches. Here we also saw porcupine fish, Canarian lobsters, garden congers and a magnificent bull ray. This was above all a fun dive with lots of great photo opportunities. We also saw a halocline at the emergence of fresh water from the rock.
The diving in El Hierro was as much of a surprise to us as the hikes on land, with impressive landscapes and volcanic rock formations we’ d never seen before. The people we met were extremely friendly, not yet suffering from tourist fatigue. We only had time for one day’ s diving but there are well over 20 dive sites.
I’ m very glad I came across the travel magazine in the supermarket. Sometimes waiting in a queue can bring unexpected results! FIONA LEMAIRE
agree that if it wasn’ t for Arthur the club probably wouldn’ t still be going as strong today, if at all.
To celebrate this fantastic milestone, our club will be holding an evening of celebration and thanks. It will be held on Saturday 6 September at the Jakemans Stadium on the A16 just outside Boston, Lincolnshire. There will be live entertainment and food. The ticket price is £ 25 per person and includes live music. The event is limited to 100 tickets; contact our chair Andy Willis for tickets, tel 07946 893590 BOSTON SUB AQUA CLUB 1200