Lanzarote: Puerto Calero

By Les Waller

Having returned in January 2005 from organising a club diving holiday in Sharm el Sheikh, I decided that I needed a holiday to get over my holiday! So being the kind person that I am, I asked my wife if she would like a holiday somewhere warm.

Once she had agreed that it was a good idea it was only a small step to suggest that whilst she and our teenage daughters were soaking up the sun I would be better off getting out of their hair for a few hours and doing some diving. So far so good, so where could we go? As we have access to a timeshare villa in Lanzarote this seemed the obvious place, but could we get in, could we get flights, and more importantly, what was the diving like? The first two problems were resolved relatively easily; I organised two weeks in Puerto del Carmen, and booked some competitively priced flights from Birmingham which left at a civilised time via Thomas Cook for me, her indoors, and my daughters.

Now to the main problem, who should I dive with? I have dived round Lanzarote on several occasions but have never been particularly happy with either the dive centres or the quality of the dives. I had recently noticed a dive magazine advert for a dive centre in Puerto Calero which is about 5 miles south of Puerto del Carmen. Puerto Calero consists of an upmarket marina with associated shops and restaurants. The dive centre, which is called Island Watersports, has a website which is Here . So after a look on the website and a few emails I decided that this time I would give Island Watersports a go, after all they couldn't be any worse than the others and they might just be better.

As the date of our planned departure at the end of March drew near I was anxiously watching the weather forecasts, as Lanzarote along with the other Canary Islands had suffered a miserably cold and wet winter. We arrived at Birmingham airport for our 9.00 a.m. flight and departed only 5 minutes late. An uneventful flight was made more interesting as we came into land at Arrecife by some strong gusts of cross wind which caused some of the passengers to believe that the pilot was still taking flying lessons and hadn't quite got the knack of things. I needn't have worried about the weather as, in spite of the wind, Lanzarote lived up to its reputation of being one of the sunshine islands. The temperature was pleasantly warm at about 22C and after settling in at our resort I phoned the dive centre to arrange to be picked up the following morning. Then we all set out to revisit "down town" Puerto del Carmen. The range of restaurants here is truly amazing and you can eat anything from a McDonalds through the full range of French, English, Indian, Chinese and German through to traditional Spanish and Canarian.

Promptly at 9.00 a.m. the following morning a van with Island Watersports pulled up outside the resort to take me on the short drive to Puerto Calero. On arrival at the dive centre, the owner, Norman Sparrow, took me across the road to a café on the side of the marina for a pre dive coffee. He repeated this extremely civilised start every day that I dived with Island Watersports. Suitably refreshed and in good spirits I was even more pleasantly surprised when, on going through to the dive centre's changing area, I found it to be spacious, spotlessly clean and believe it or not fitted with shower cubicles boasting an ample supply of hot water and free shampoo dispensers. Now this is what I call value for money!

We then went through the formalities of examining dive qualifications and filling in a medical self certification. This is all taken very seriously and in my case, as I have a medical condition which warrants a doctor's certification of fitness to dive, Norman took a photo copy of my form. Due to the fact that my two teenage daughters had taken not only their own baggage allowance but mine as well, the only items of dive kit I could bring with me were my computer and my mask which is fitted with prescription lenses; so the next stage was that of getting kitted out. Yet again I was in for a pleasant surprise, no more wet suits with holes in, Stab jackets with leaky bladders and DVs that looked like Jacques Cousteau's cast offs. Everything was obviously well maintained and quite new.

Following a thorough briefing by the DM a great guy called Tonin, who in spite of his name is very British, we walked 50 yards across the car park to the large RIB moored ready for us. Island Watersports are almost unique on the island in having their own well equipped and large RIB. Many of the other operators do a lot of beach entries and only hire a RIB when they need to do boat dives. Once again it was obvious that the RIB was maintained to the same high standard as the rest of the equipment. It always started first time; it never faltered, and being fitted with a large inboard Volvo turbo diesel engine, was more than adequate for the job. Norman always stayed on the RIB whilst we dived to provide surface cover even though we were usually moored. This again was a pleasant surprise as some of the other operators don't seem to bother with this aspect of safety.

Over the course of the next few days I did a number of excellent dives, a couple of which I had done before. It soon became obvious that I had previously only touched on these sites. For example, just outside the harbour at Puerto del Carmen there are a number of small wrecks starting at 15m which make for good diving. I had dived these before but was under the impression there were only three boats, as this is all most dive centres show you. Tonin informed me there were actually seven, and he was correct. We found all seven on one dive, the deepest being at 40m. There is also a cavern at about 25m which is home to a large colony of shrimps, and a few larger residents such as a large Grouper and an even larger Ray. These larger residents eagerly indulged themselves in a free meal once we had switched on our torches to show them what was on the menu. Rather than describe all the dive sites here, there are some excellent descriptions and photos on the "divelanzarote" web site.

The water was a constant 18C and the newness of the 5mm wetsuits meant that the neoprene hadn't been compressed so they were more than adequate. Tonin was a great DM and guide, he never seemed to rush the dives, yet I saw many things that had not been pointed out to me on previous dives to these sites and managed to achieve average dive times around 45minutes for dives in the 30 to 35m range.

Due to having the family with me on Lanzarote I was only allowed to dive in the mornings whilst the ladies arose at their leisure, put on their war paint and paraded the latest fashions in swim wear round the pool. Consequently I had to be back at the resort by lunch time. This was never a problem as Norman provided an excellent taxi service unlike some dive operators who will only take you to and from your resort at the beginning and end of the day.

I can honestly say that this was the best series of casual holiday dives that I have done. Very often with holiday dives you get the feeling that the sooner the dive centre can get you through the dives, the sooner they can take the money of another punter. Nothing could be further from the truth with Island Watersports, I was made to feel valued and everyone went out of their way to ensure that I got value for money and enjoyed my time with them. I came away at the end of my dives feeling certain that the next time I return to Lanzarote there will be no doubt in my mind who I will dive with.

The end of the holiday came only too quickly. I spent most of the afternoons reliving my dives and topping up my tan, and most of the evenings indulging in my other favourite pastime, that of eating and drinking in some of the excellent restaurants. I also spent a considerable amount of time trying, unsuccessfully, to convince my wife and daughters that as they had already taken up all the baggage allowance on the way out, there was absolutely no point in us indulging in retail therapy. However they informed me that if I wished to continue diving whilst on family holidays, then I had to spend as much on them as I spent on my diving. It didn't take me long to come to the conclusion that this was an argument that I was not going to win.

One month later I am back in the reality of a cold and wet UK, stilling reminiscing about an excellent break on Lanzarote and trying to think what excuse I can use to go back sooner rather than later.

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