MALLORCA

Ten days in Mallorca with family and friends gave me an opportunity to link up with Tom and his team at Scuba Mallorca (http://www.scubamallorca.com/index.htm) in Port de Pollença for ten dives.

I was expecting the usual Mediterranean diving, good visibility, great topography and few fish. Having done a little research I had pinpointed a few dives I wanted to complete and was looking forward to seeing some of the caves that were advertised as dive sites.

Over the week I dived the magnificent Geronimo's Cave, Swiss Cheese, Ron's Cave and Formentor Island. These all lived up to expectations, great visibility and magnificent topography. I even got to see a reasonable amount of fish. In particular some large schools around the 20 meter mark. There were plenty of nudibranchs in evidence and several schools of Barracuda, added to this were Conger and Morays with Octopus in plentiful supply. The dives were extremely enjoyable and the dive team were professional and friendly.

 

Formentor Island dive site

Preparing to dive Geronimo's Cave

Swiss Cheese dive site in the distance.

Towards the end of the week an opportunity cam up to join some local divers on a longer trip. We travelled out of the bay and round to the north. The first stop was El Colomer a small island off the north coast. We travelled past magnificent cliffs that climbed into clear blue skies, with the local hawks flying over head. The dive site was in a small sheltered area between the island and the cliffs. Entering I dropped down to the cliff edge working my way along until at 15 meters in depth I arrived at massive 8 meter arch, I swam through and followed the route prescribed into 20 meters where there hundreds of fish schooling about (the opposite to how I normally see the Mediterranean). Glancing off to the right I noticed a big school of Barracuda and then realised they were feeding. excitement mounting I let the others know and we followed them around the point watching them swirling around and feeding. A wonderful site which lead us back to the boat and finished in about seven meters.
The second dive had less fish but was just as interesting. Eduardo's Tears are two caves that appear above water and then below water you swim into one up through the cave and then out of the second. A lovely dive with plenty to see and do, finishing off with a wall dive.
Mallorca is a great place to dive and one place that I intend to return to and dive again.

View over the El Colomer dive site

One of the school of foot long jellyfish.