Scuba Diving in Lanzarote – Los Erizos Wrecks (The Harbour Wrecks), Puerto del Carmen

Dive Site: Los Erizos Wrecks (The Harbour Wrecks)

Location: Puerto del Carmen

Description: Wrecks

Length: 20 & 45 metres (65 & 150 feet)

Depth: 12 – 40 metres (40 – 130 feet)

Visibility: 15 – 20 metres (50 – 65 feet)

The site can be accessed from the shore, we did it from a rib. The top of the first wreck is at 12 metres and the bottom is at around 22 metres. A steel vessel with all the usual Canary Island fish in the area including rays, angel sharks, cuttlefish, barracuda, amber jacks and all of the wrasse family. Drop off the ledge to around 30 metres to two more wrecks that appear to be about flat now. Much wreckage. There are more wrecks in the immediate area.

Scuba Diving in Lanzarote

Dive Site: Puerto Del Carmen Harbour (Safari Diving Beach)
Location: Puerto del Carmen
Description: Reef
Depth: 0 – 24 metres (0 – 79 feet)
Visibility: 15 – 20 metres (50 – 65 feet)

Diving from the harbour at Puerto del Carmen was like stepping into a giant swimming pool with calm conditions and great visibility. Plenty of wrasse, flounders, bream, angel sharks and even caught a great view of a sand ray as it swam from the shallows straight across our path.

The harbour at Puerto Del Carmen accommodates all levels of diver; from new trainee to experienced wreck diver. During the first part it will instructed the 5 open water dives necessary to qualify the student to BSAC Ocean Diver. Having checked the facilities before you left England it was still impressed upon arrival with the professionalism and readiness of Calypso Diving to accommodate all our needs and provide the necessary locations to undertake these dives. Dive centre owner Peter Monk was a wealth of knowledge and gave comprehensive site briefs before courteously allowing me to undertake my lesson briefs and debriefs. Diving organisation was competent, accommodating and unhurried. Facilities & equipment were good and a fleet of 3 minibuses provided comfortable transport to the dive locations as well as daily pick-up at 8.45am sharp and drop off back to our apartments. There is plenty of parking at the harbour although it did get busy. Entry is made using stone steps from the harbour wall or you can do a giant stride from the wall. As well as the harbour itself there is a small beach cove on the other side of the stone jetty (either a 30 second walk in your dive gear or a 15 minute slow swim underwater from the harbour). This makes the harbour a very versatile teaching area allowing for all manner of entries and exits to be instructed. If you enter from the harbour there is a flat sandy sea floor at 4 to 5 metres where you can teach and practice skills (take care of overhead boat traffic) before heading with the stone jetty on your left shoulder around the point and into the bay. At the furthest point the sand floor drops slightly to 6 metres and there are rainbow wrasse, flounders and shrimps in the rock outcroppings. The sun penetrates the clear water and reflects off the yellow sand making this a very picturesque dive for students.

It’s a great night dive, simple yet plenty to offer novice and experienced diver alike. Many photographers visit for the marine life, which being in the Canaries is on the local doorstep of Europeans.

On every occasion this, about 40-50, there has always been something to see and photograph. Playa Chica starts at ground zero to about 15m maximum, the remainder of the reef area drops to 25m then the drop off to 60m. The most interesting area is 3-15m and depending on the time of the month determined by the Moon different creatures may be on view, for example several octopuses along with perhaps a dozen cuttlefish and some baby versions of both. Baby angel sharks, large butterfly rays and small torpedo rays. On occasions several different types of shrimps jump all over the sand in their scores – impervious to any other marine creatures and divers alike. Sleeping parrot and damselfish tuck themselves into hollows, whilst large numbers of small madeira rockfish, or red scorpionfish hop around the rocks. Hypselodoris nudibranchs and scores of sea hares can be seen grazing, and if this isn’t enough, weeverfish, anemone hermit crabs and other crab varieties can be seen scuttling around the sand amongst the fields of open feeding anemones, the latter of which are by their thousands.

Other denizens include telematactis & burrowing anemones, Alicia mirabils & other species of cnidarians, and Alcyonium palmata – a Mediterranean variety of red dead man’s finger! Occasional sightings of seahorses are made, as well as filefish, but the cave is very much worth the visit. A small cave exists in 2-3m of water, easily accessible only at high water and is home to variety of strange creatures. Also, several of the cracks support similar species.

Occasionally there are sightings of morays, Canarian lobsterette, small slipper lobster, brittlestars, and on the outside some really stunningly beautiful yellow Parazooanthid axinallae (star corals) and rich orange jewel anemones. Also around the sand, eagle rays and rounder stingrays make an appearance as well as fully grown angel sharks.

Several common octopus are the norm, however on this occasion two rarer white spotted varieties appeared. Cuttlefish were out in force and one had taken a scorpionfish into its mouth. A small lunar shrimp (Gnathophylum), looking like a cross between a beetle and a lobster with blue eyes, all of 2.5cm long was”attacking” a small red scorpionfish. Stargazer, fireworms, crinoids, apsylia (sea hare) and rich red nudibranchs placomophorous along with pleurobranchs – berthella were all seen.

Scuba Diving in Lanzarote

Dive Site: The Blue Hole
Location: Puerto del Carmen
Description: Reef
Depth: 4 – 33 metres (13 – 100 feet)
Visibility: 15 – 20 metres (50 – 65 feet)

Lanzarote is a great place to dive. Diving in the Sipadan, Borneo. Lanzarote doesn’t have the diversity and density of marine life boasted by places further a field, however its crystal clear waters, good facilities, location and therefore extremely attractive price tag make it a great diving choice. Entrance to the Blue Hole dive site is made from the harbour at Puerto Del Carmen, where you can either do a giant stride entry from the stone harbour wall or descend the harbour steps (take care – they are slippery and there is sometimes heavy boat traffic here). Once in the water you descend into around 4 metres of clear blue water and cruise down the sand slope and through a large eel garden at around 20 metres. There are often large black sand rays, at around 33 metres there is a canyon which you can descend into and which takes you through a tunnel (the Blue Hole) where there are nudibranchs and small shoals of silver fish.

The Blue Hole (or The Hole) is a popular shore dive and is the remnants of an ancient lava tube, which starts at 24 meters at a rough 50 degrees angle to 32 meters. Small caves are nearby to the right and the whole area here usually has resident grouper and trumpetfish. Various ray varieties are frequent and recently the “point” nearby has seen circling barracuda‘s, amberjack and mantas. Don’t discount the return journey across the sand to the Bar Playa jetty its home to a wonderful array of marine life during the day, and the outer part of the western lava ridge of Playa Chica is ideal for off gassing for 20 minutes or more, watching the bream, bogue, mullet, silversides and damselfish come and go. Exit can be made via the jetty (with care from boats/slippery) or safer around to the Playa Chica beach.

Care should be exercised if venturing to the right of the bottom of the Blue Hole as the small overhang, and nearby small cave usually has Sabella worms on its periphery. These are identified by 8mm wide by 10cm long mud/sand coloured tubes in the sand, and have white feeding fronds above these. A careless fin stroke can wipe them out. The cave is also sometimes refuge to grouper that hide from divers and on occasions, small rounded rays. To the left (south) of the hole it becomes much deeper along a vertical wall to around 40m where occasionally very large rounded stingrays can be found. Above the hole several ridges present themselves, where nudibranchs and cnidarians are usually found.

An alternative diversion (time / air permitting) is to the nearby wall (northwest or ahead and slightly to the right of the small cave). This wall is superb with many fish varieties skulking around it, small orange tree coral, occasional pieces of black coral, but the best is a cavern half way up at 28m. This extends back some 15m and is about 15m wide. Inside and on its outsides are a fantastically coloured array of encrusting sponges in white, yellow and red. It sparkles in your torchlight. This part of the wall seems to be favoured by several inquisitive Cernia, a relative of the grouper, who just sit on the cliff tops.

Either way the harbour wall can easily be reached at about 17-21m, where the crabs and hermit crabs mingle. The ropes around the sand sometimes have seahorses and many goby varieties and during the day cuttlefish can even be seen, as well as stargazer, flatfish, many scorpionfish, grey mullet shoals, and several filefish. And finally, if your exit is the jetty, look at the rocks along the harbour wall. These are hiding places for many marine creatures and in the right conditions some great wide-angle photography is on offer. There is plenty of red and green algae around, so not so many large black diadema urchins.

This sight is great, don’t forget to explore the little caves on the lower side of the hole itself as there are often some large groupers within, a ray, cuttlefish, fireworm, seahorse, barracuda and octopus all in one dive!