Diving in Ibiza - October 2003 - Page 3
Ibiza 2003 page 1:- Introduction
Ibiza 2003 page 2:- Llado Norte, Illa Llarge Norte
Ibiza 2003 page 3:- Formentera (Espardell, Punta Prima)
Ibiza 2003 page 4:- Seca Sta Eularia Chimenea, Pecia Cala Mastella, Dive 7:- Roca Llisa
Ibiza 2003 page 5:- Llado Norte, Llado Sur, Sta. Eularia Rocks, Espardell, Punta Prima, Summary
Dives 3 and 4 - Day trip to Formentera
This was the first full day trip and the destination was the island of
Formentera off the southern tip of Ibiza. The island is generally regarded as
having the clearest water of anywhere around Ibiza and it seems this claim is
true. Travel time was around an hour from Sta Eulalia but on a warm, clear, calm
day
nobody seemed to mind.
Dive 3:- Espardell
- Max Depth:- 33m
- Average Depth:- 18.6m
- Duration:- 55 minutes
- Visibility:- 25m
- Water Temp:- 25c (surface), 24c (depth)
- Water speed:- slack
- Weather:- Air Temp, 30c, clear skies, calm seas
Firstly, this was by far the best dive site of the entire trip !
The Espardell is a wreck dive with a difference - it's an abandoned fish farm
that was sunk a few years ago when it became uneconomical. The method of sinking
appears to have been to blow some of the supporting legs from under it and the
wreck itself is near intact as a result and covers a large area. The
top part of the platform starts at around 10m while the main wreck continues
down to the sandy sea bed at 35m. For this dive I was buddied with a non English
speaking Spaniard which as I speak no Spanish made the pre dive brief amusing
for anyone watching.
Dropping into the water the platform legs and top were clearly visible below
the boat and we descended down these legs slowly taking in the view until
hitting the main piece of wreck at roughly 20m.
Its difficult to describe the layout of the wreck but its a mix of pipes, tubes, crumpled areas, fences and supports - all in all it sounds a mess. There are a very large number of swim throughs and areas to explore and the crumbled metal at the bottom provides small gaps and habitats for a large variety of life including enormous congers, the odd Moray, Octopus and more. The ubiquitous Barracuda again circle off the wreck.
At one point in the dive I passed an odd object which I quickly realised were solar panels still gleaming in the torch light.
The dive was spent examining all these metal openings at various levels although due to its size there was no chance seeing all of the wreck in one dive. In total we spent 23 minutes at near the maximum depth which meant some deco was needed. The vyper was indicating 15 minutes as ascent time when we left the bottom and due to the profile meant most of that was spent hanging on the trapeze at 5m. It got fairly crowded there as divers completed their dive but was fairly relaxing looking down at other divers as they explored the wreck 20m below.
After exiting the water after near an hour I was ready to go back and do it
again - one of the best dives i've ever done. A huge wreck with no real hazards,
entanglement hazards or sharp objects with crystal clear warm waters. Again, a
torch is very handy for lighting up the holes and without one you're
likely to miss a lot of the life. My little SL6 was OK although my buddy's
expensive looking Kowalski put it to shame. I decided to save my batteries :).
Following
this dive it was lunch time. The boat anchored off a beach a few hundred meters
offshore and people had a choice of either swim to shore or be ferried to it
with a combination of the dive boats inflatable or another one the restaurant
provided.
After a leisurely few hours on shore and a large paella meal, wine and the usual it was time to be ferried back for the second dive of the day.
Dive 4:- Punta Prima
- Max Depth:- 23.5m
- Average Depth:- 15.0m
- Duration:- 47 minutes
- Visibility:- 15m
- Water Temp:- 25c
- Water speed:- slight current near surface
- Weather:- Air Temp, 27c, clear skies, calm seas
Punta Prima is a point off the cliffs on Formentera and is essentially a wall
dive along a 24m bottom with a boulder field and rock outcrops.
After entering the water a fair surge and slight current was noticeable near the surface although this was nothing to cause problems. On descending next to the anchor line we hit a rock with green growth bottom at roughly 7-10m which turned out to be a ridge. Following this ridge we eventually dropped off it down a near vertical wall which bottomed out at around 24m. The sea bed here was flat, sandy but had large numbers of rock outcrops with small crevices, holes and swim-throughs to explore again. Octopus, Eels and the usual Barracuda were all noted again on this dive.
Near the bottom silt was evident in the water although this didn't really affect
visibility.
As the dive continued we turned and made our way back to the boat higher up the wall before hitting the ridge then led to the anchor line.
I have this dive logged as "a very green dive". The reason for this is all the rocks in the shallows were covered in green growth which made it look almost like a lawn. Spiny urchins were abundant on the 7m ridge where the anchor lay so anyone on safety stops had to be careful with their buoyancy to avoid being stabbed by one. The slight surge meant a back and forth motion over these urchins and rocks so it paid to keep 1m or so above them. We got nowhere near deco on this dive with the last 10 mins spent around 7m on that ridge looking into holes.
A nice easy second dive complete it was time to board the boat and head back to Ibiza.
