Diving route in Es Pallaret – Ibiza
Diving
ANCHORAGE COORDINATES: 38° 58’ 37,11’’ N | 1° 13’ 54,25’’ E
MAXIMUM DEPTH: 30 M.
TIME: 45 Min.
ROUTE: 300 M.
DIFFICULTY: Media
Es Pallaret is a little island o Punta Rovira, barely 500 metres from the coast. Although its proximity to the coast of the main island could tempt us to swim over to it, we shouldn’t venture across the channel that sepa- rates the two points, as the passing boats and the currents that cross the area make it inadvisable to do so. The best way to reach the diving point is by boat.
Try to anchor the boat to the south of Es Pallaret, as the depth and lack of a platform to the north make it more difficult.
The dive that we are going to do goes all the way round the island, meaning that one can’t get disorientated. If we keep at the right depth and stay close to the rocky sides, the route is not at all difficult.
Setting o from the anchoring point, we will begin the dive in an anti- clockwise direction (S-E-N-W). The recommended depth is about 20 metres, although we will come across several points where the platform goes down to almost 50 metres. In the whole of the southern end the depth is around 20 metres, as long as we keep the wall of rock as our reference. It is a “must” to try to nd the famous motorbike (a Vespa, at 21 metres), one of the highlights of this dive.
Once we have left the southern end, the platform disappears and we get into the deepest part. Here it is easy to nd shoals of pelagic sh on their way to the coast (barracuda and am- berjack are the most usual) and some odd adult grouper that comes up from deeper down.
As our route progresses and we ap- proach the northern end, we might come across shoals of dentex that ap- pear out of the blue to nose around for a few minutes and then disappear again. We will also nd moray eels, sea bass, white bream, scorpion sh and many sea slugs if we take a look into rocky hollows that appear all around the little island.
As the dive goes on, the rocky platform starts to lose depth, which means that we have to slowly come up to 10 metres’ depth. Once we reach the anchor of the boat we might have enough air left to go round the island again at a lesser depth, as the dive usually takes about 20-25 minutes in all.
Once we come to the end of our diving plan, we can make a safety stop in the area close to the coast that is 5 metres deep, and we might be surprised by the complex and varied ora and fauna that we can see.
