Cabrera, Balearic Islands, Spain

Punta Salinas (Cabrera)

Cabrera Archipelago National Park, the most strictly protected marine area of the Spanish Mediterranean, covers the small archipelago south of Mallorca. Diving inside the park is regulated by daily quotas and access permits, but the result is one of the most pristine fish communities of the western Mediterranean. Punta Salinas is a classic intermediate dive on the northern shoulder of Cabrera, with a wall that drops from 8 metres on the inshore reef to 35 metres on a Posidonia and sand bottom. The wall hosts dense red gorgonia colonies at depth, yellow encrusting anemone, sponges and red coral colonies under deep overhangs. Marine life is exceptional after decades of full protection, with very large dusky groupers and brown meagre approaching divers, dense schools of saddled seabream, white seabream and salema, barracuda from late summer, amberjack hunting in the blue and frequent moray eels and octopus on the wall. Visibility is consistently 25 metres.