Menorca

Menorca

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Menorca report - August 2001

Web-links:
Crystal Seas Scuba
S'Algar diving
Divernet article on Menorca
Divernet article on Spain
Cavern diving in Menorca
Divernet travel article on Menorca
Menorca island website

Crystal Seas Scuba (CSS) is based in Cal 'en Bosch, in the southwest corner of island of Menorca. One of the two most regarded diving centres on the island (the other being Club S'Algar on the south-eastern side of the island) the CSS dive centre is some 100m's from the marina. Not your typical holiday dive centre, they specialise in proving technical divers a service and offer nitrox and trimix. Testimonials from previous divers on there 'compliments board' suggested much respect from the Rebreather crowd. In fact the centre has a connection with Dave Thompson, the inventor of the Inspiration Rebreather. They hire an extensive range of dive equipment ranging from the usual tanks & weights to full sets of kit to 10L nitrox clean twin-sets! The centre itself was well laid out with kitting up space, boxes and hanging space for your kit. A resonably well stocked shop is also attached. They have several boats but were only using a single 5m Rib when I dived with them.

Crystal Seas Scuba - First impressions:

Although I had brought my kit with me and researched Menorca diving & CSS through the Internet, I had not arranged diving with them in advance and so just turned up on their door and asked if I could arrange a few dives. A young summer student (not even a DM) was behind the counter and rightly asked to see my qualification cards - when my modest collection of dive qualifications became apparent, one of the instructors jumped in and despatched the youngster off to kit out some students. Ascertaining my experience level, the diving I was into and how much I wanted to do over the week (I was on a family holiday so was balancing diving with family holiday time), he very quickly steered me on the right path towards a set of dives that personally suited me. This made the week! Once checked-in, a board displayed the forthcoming dives for the week ahead. Two dives a day and a weekly night dive were displayed and all you needed to do was write you name on the dive-list. This needed to be done a day or two in advance as the dives got booked up quite quickly with limited spaces from 6 to 10 on the boat. They appeared to try and fit a range of diving in to suit most tastes and experience levels with deeper morning /shallower afternoons and this formula meant they had 8-9 different dive sites during the week I was there. With constant glorous weather & no tides - the dives were at a constant 0815 and 1300 each day. Theewas never any cancellations or alternative sites. Most dive-sites were visited only once a week, with the notably exception of one, Pont D'en Gil which was timetabled three times that week - but more about that later!

The cost: Diving in Menorca isn't that cheap. My five dives cost c£150sterling, with no equipment hire other than tanks and weights. Boat dives were £24Sterling for a 12L tank with supplements for 15L tanks & Nitrox on two dives, a small supplement for one of the (longer boat journey) wreck dives and the dive insurance. They offered a range of dive-packs so some savings are possible. I'm glad I brought all my own kit! Local dive regulations: Spanish law has some dive related regulations - You must be over 14 to dive (12 is standard for PADI establishments elsewhere in the world) - You must have a dive medical. Crystal Seas also had there own specific requirements - Dive qualifications & logbooks were thoroughly checked. The first dive with them are always non-penetration / non-deep / non-overhead no-matter what your diving qualifications or experience. Personal Dive insurance was mandatory with CSS. Proof was required with indication of depth insured too. Dive Master insurance was available from CSS at some £24sterling (the same 9day policy in the UK would cost some £14Sterling. A daily rate of £10 was also available.

The diving experience: Diving with CSS was quite pleasurable. No more than 10 divers on the Rib, it was fitted with all the expected equipment eg GPS/sounder, radio and O2 on board (not something to be taken for granted with all dive-centres) and with thorough dive briefs given. [Completely unlike Sub Menorca - one of the other dive operators in Caln' Bosch - I watched them lay out far to much shotline and put 12+ divers down on a 40m wreck some 500m off shore - with no left on the boat for surface cover!] The 'recreational' dives I completed were led by a dive centre instructor with a second instructor/DM. A third member of their team was boat handler and surface cover during the dive. As seems an emerging pattern in my forays on diving holidays with no buddy - I got paired up on the first dive with a diver with 15dives. After basically minding them through the dive and assisting them with their buoyancy near the end of the dive - and noted by the dive guide at the end of the dive. I got partnered with the DM at the rear of the party on subsequent dives - this suited me fine as I could bimble along at my own speed doing my own thing whilst the tail-end Charlie dive-guide kept a careful eye on the rest of the group. On the 'technical' dives one lead was only employed, which was fine as all the divers were more experienced, most being Adv nitrox qualified. Having experienced both 'lax' and 'stringent' dive centres around the world, I though they managed to achieve the right balance by shepherding the dive party on the dive whilst respecting the ability and self-responsibility of the individual divers.

The actual dives:

Dive 1 - Slipway

A scenic dive with the odd cave swim-thru, reasonable 25m viz with a little fish life. When I returned to my wife (a "retired" diver as she's expecting) asked me about the dive - and my retort was "about four out of ten". That is probably a little unfair as it was a reasonable and typically Mediterranean type dive with reasonable viz & water temp with some nice underwater scenery.

Dive 2 - Lighthouse

Another scenic dive much like Slipway with swim-thru's thorough the odd caves. A little more fish life and as now paired with the tail-end charlie dive guide - a little more freedom to enjoy my own dive. Overall, Slipway and Lighthouse were reasonable dives that most holidaying divers would find enjoyable. I've done quite a bit of this type of diving in the past and was enthusiastic about it then, but I'm moved on from these type of dives now and was planning some deeper wreck stuff later in the week, so they served my purpose as checkout dives for me.

Dive 3 - Pont D'en Gil

The Dive instructor who guided my series of dives for the week said if I just did one dive on Menorca - this had to be it - and as I said - they programmed in this dive three afternoons over the week. Spectacular is how I would describe it. CSS's website describes the dive as "Perhaps the most spectacular Western Mediterranean cavern dive. Offering magnificent rock formations and underground beaches! All within an 18M depth limit". I would both agree and add that the description undersells it a bit. Difficult to describe the dive profile without a diagram, but in essence, a 10minute swim though a cavern leading to a narrowing tunnel about 1-2 divers wide which goes from 8m to 1m depth over some 40ms distance. During this swim you see some of the features, but when you surface you relaise how unique a dive this is.
This is heightened by the halcocline (change from salt to fresh water) inside the tunnel that makes the your vision go extremely blurred, your buoyancy changes and the water temp drops a few degrees - all adding to the thrill of the dive. Surfacing in the 1m shallow of the tunnel, our torch lights revealed that we were in a narrow, some 4m wide by 8m high cavern with the most amazing stalagmites and stalactites. The 15 minute surface drift back down the tunnel marveling at the chamber was a truly amazing experience and very very different dive. The 50watts of my Kowalski torch were well appreciated as it lit up the whole cavern. After leaving the cavern, we continued on for a scenic dive were we dived around a small headland with quite a bit of sea-life. In total, a 77minute dive with the best bit on the 'surface' Weird but wonderful!

Dive 4 - Francisquita wreck

The Francisquita was a Spanish coastal steamer that sank in 1952. She was completing an journey to Ciudadela in Menorca from Palamos, Costa Brava when she sprang a leak and started taking on water. She sank quite rapidly by the stern and settled completly upright on the seabed in 49m of water. She is positioned some 500m from shore off the North-West corner of Menorca - a 30minute RIB ride from CSS in Cal 'en Bosch.
She sits 8.5m proud of seabed with the top of the wreck (the bridge) at 39m's. She is still well intact. The deck-plates over the cargo holds have gone and the bridge has been stripped but the superstructure is intact and she's still in a fair condition given her 50 years on the seabed. She usually has quite good viz and attracts abundant fishlife, but the day we dived her viz was a little disappointing at 20m (disappointing?) and there wasn't much life on her though I did manage to locate clive the conger eel poking his head out of a tube in the bridge section. Three of us on 15L tanks on a 25% nitrox mix paired up and with a planned 15 bottom time we stuck to the bridge and stern section were we had shotted the wreck and didn't venture to the bow. All in all a fair dive. The young lad from the dive centre was doing bottom time for his adv nitrox course with a 15L and a side-sling and made us all comment about the ungrateful youth of today when he whinged post-dive that the wreck wasn't worth a 50m dip for just 15minutes of BT. On reflection, he actually had a point.

Dive 5 - Malakoff wreck

A cargo steamer, the Malakoff sank in a storm in Jan 1929. Unable to see Artruix Lighthouse some 4 miles away, she struck the cliffs bow on. Bound for Marseilles with a mixed cargo of sewing machines, china dinner services, pig iron and cement the Captain gave orders to go astern, but the ship, with many of her crew asleep in their bunks, was already lost. 27 of the 41 crew took to one of the ship's lifeboats, however, tragically all were lost in the whirlpool caused by suction as the ship slipped below the surface. Now sitting upright on a sandy bottom at 38-39m, she begins in some 29m, with her lower hull largely intact. Very heavily and unsympathetically salvaged by 'smash and grab' salvers, she forms an exceptional, fully colonised artificial reef. 105m in length and 16m at the widest point the fish life on her is outstanding and the claim that she is the most prolific dive site in Menorca and probably in the whole of the Western Mediterranean is not unreasonable. The water temperature on this dive did catch me out though. 26C on the surface plunged to a truly cold 17C at 35m's. In a 3mm wetsuit I was freezing and nearly had to pull the dive I was so cold. But the fish-life caught my attention and I held on! The 30m+ viz we had on the dive revealed the size and prolific fishlife. The cement bales have hardened and form a layer of 'rocks' with lots of hidy-holes for morays, we found several, though we missed the well known one-eyed moray near the bow section. Maybe it was the shoal of 200+ barracuda slowly and menacing circling above the wreck at 20m that caught our attention - or maybe it was the large tuna - or maybe the damselfish, or maybe the large numbers of bream that parted when I flashed my light on them - One of the best fishy dives in the med - and on a wreck to boot - what more can you ask for! On a Nx30% mix I did 20BT and some stops -a cracking dive to finish off my Menorcan dive trip.

I would highly recommend CSS for their high standards in safety and diver care, excellent customer service and extensive dive services inc nitrox/trimix and kit hire.

My top-tips would be:

Organise your dive insurance before you go - bring your own kit if your weight allowance will allow it and save yourself some money

If more than averagely qualified, don't be shy to show your qualifications at CSS, your experience will be acknowledged with respect (I know DMs and Instructors who show lesser C-cards when on holiday to ensure they're not lumbered when on holiday)

pick your dives carefully, the two must-do dives are the Malakoff wreck and Pont D'en Gil Cavern

watch for the much cooler water-temps on the deeper dives, 26c on the surface becomes 17c at 40m's !