Formentera, Balearic Islands, Spain

Cap de Barbaria

Cap de Barbaria is the southernmost cape of Formentera, the smallest of the major Balearic Islands, and a benchmark dive site for the clean Mediterranean water of the southern archipelago. The site combines a sheltered shoulder of large boulders at 8 to 18 metres with a wall on the outer face that drops past 35 metres on a sand and Posidonia bottom. Formentera is famous for the largest single Posidonia oceanica meadow in the world, a UNESCO World Heritage feature, and the meadows along the descent host pipefish, juvenile fish in summer and recovering Pinna nobilis. The walls themselves carry red gorgonia, yellow encrusting anemone and small red coral colonies. Marine life is the Mediterranean classic: dusky groupers, schools of saddled seabream and salema, octopus, scorpionfish, common moray and frequent passes of barracuda or amberjack. Visibility is exceptional, often 30 metres. The Balearic archipelago sits in the western Mediterranean and is the only Spanish region to combine four distinct marine reserves with the largest single Posidonia oceanica meadow in the world, the UNESCO-listed prairie between Ibiza and Formentera. Water temperature ranges from 13 C in February to 26 C in August, and the islands are served by year-round dive centres in Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera.