Diving and snorkelling in the Canary Islands
Here is a fact that surprises people: the best time of year to dive here is not July, it is late summer and autumn. The water warms up behind the air, peaks once the heat has started to ease, and the sea tends to be calmer as well. It is the same mechanism we explain in the September guide.
Why here
The islands are volcanoes rising out of the ocean, and that has a direct consequence underwater: depth arrives immediately. There is no long continental shelf, no kilometres of sand. A few metres from the shore you already have walls, caves, arches and rocky drop offs.
Add to that water that stays clear for much of the year, and a temperature that never falls far enough to close the season. People dive here twelve months a year.
Snorkelling: what you can do without a course
This is the part many people skip, assuming they need equipment or training. They do not: with a mask, a snorkel and fins you see a huge share of what is there, because in many spots the life is in the first few metres.
Four tips that change the experience:
Pick sheltered coves, not beaches open to the swell. On a beach with waves you will see nothing, however many fish are around.
Check the state of the sea beforehand, not once you are already in it.
Go with someone. It is the basic rule and the most frequently broken one.
Wear a shirt or rash vest. You spend longer face down than you expect, and your back burns without warning.
Rock pools and natural pools work well for this too, especially with children, and we have collected them in the best natural pools in Tenerife.
Diving: what you actually need
If you have never dived, you do not need a full course to try: there is the try dive, an introductory dive accompanied by an instructor, with no prior qualification. It is the normal way in.
If you are already certified, you will need to bring your card and your logbook. And in every case there is one check worth making: that the centre is registered and properly insured. That is not a formality, it is what separates a regulated activity from an improvisation.
One thing that rarely gets said: most centres will ask you to fill in a medical questionnaire. Answer it honestly, even though it looks like routine paperwork.
Where to go, island by island
El Hierro. La Restinga and the Mar de las Calmas are the archipelago's reference point, and that is not an opinion: it is where divers go when they are choosing a destination. We cover it inside what to see in El Hierro.
Lanzarote. As well as its own sites, it has a museum of submerged sculptures off the southern coast, designed to be seen while diving.
Gran Canaria. The east coast has a marine reserve that is well known among regular divers.
Tenerife. The south and south east hold most of the dive centres, and there are spots where turtle encounters are routine.
Fuerteventura and La Graciosa. More open water, pale sand and wide visibility, with protected marine areas around the Chinijo archipelago.
La Palma and La Gomera. Less infrastructure and fewer people, with walls that drop away fast.
The centres and trips we verify go into the tours and activities guide.
What you will see
Do not expect tropical coral: this is the Atlantic, and the scenery is volcanic rock, black sand and blue light. What there is, in quantity, is fauna.
Groupers, moray eels, breams, parrotfish, rays, octopus, shoals of small fish over the rocky ground, and turtles at several spots where they are regularly present. In deeper water, with luck, something bigger passing through.
And there is one species worth knowing about: the angelshark, a flat, bottom dwelling shark, harmless if left alone, which is in serious trouble worldwide and has one of its last strongholds in these islands. If you see one, the rule is simple: look, do not touch.
If big marine life is what you are after, that is done from the surface rather than underwater, and it is covered in whale and dolphin watching.
The rules that matter
Protected areas have rules on access and activity, and they are not decorative. Three that apply anywhere in the archipelago:
Touch nothing. Not the wildlife, not the urchins, not rocks that look loose.
Take nothing out of the water. No shells, no debris and certainly nothing alive.
Check before entering a reserve. Some areas have daily quotas or need authorisation.
Safety: currents are the one serious topic
Everything else is detail. This is not.
The Canarian Atlantic has rip currents, and they are the usual cause of trouble, above all among people snorkelling from the shore on an open beach. How to spot them and what to do if one catches you is explained in rip currents in the Canary Islands, which is probably the most useful article we have.
Before you get in, two checks: the beach flag and, if there is a swell episode running, the coastal warning. With a heavy swell, you change the plan rather than negotiate with it.
Cover photo: Jorge Franganillo, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
