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Menorca - Jewel of the Mediterranean  Despite Menorca's small size, 35 miles by 9, it has more than 120 beaches - that's more than all of the other Balearic Islands added together. Many of these beaches are managed by the Spanish "National Trust" and can only be accessed by foot or sea. This means most of the island is preserved and offers an ideal holiday destination for people wanting to escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It is also an ideal island for families where the gently sloping beaches offer safe bathing for children. Menorca is an island built on soft limestone rocks providing many natural caverns and caves around the island. This makes Menorca ideal for divers to explore the underwater caves with aid of expert resident divers. Parts of the coast and surrounding sea are also protected by the Spanish "National Trust" to encourage the regeneration of marine life. This gives divers the chance to see more fish! Menorca is only 2 hours from the UK and offers warm summer diving in water of 27°C with visibility of 25 metres. The Trip In May 2003 I was seriously bitten by the scuba diving bug and was keen to spend some of my family summer holiday completing my open water scuba diving training. We had already booked a fortnight's holiday in July to the beautiful, unspoilt island of Menorca in the Mediterranean. All I needed to do was find an excellent diving centre. We had visited the island many times before and had made some good local friends. I contacted Steve Potter, a resident of Menorca, who had been a scuba diving instructor for 6 years. Steve explained he had finished working as an instructor and was keen to recommend a diving school, Diving Galadana, based at one of the most beautiful beaches on the island - Cala Galdana. As we were staying just 4 minutes walk from the beach at Cala Galdana it sounded ideal. I contacted Jose Molina at the diving centre over the internet and reviewed his website. I was impressed by the quick response to my emails and the professional image that his website portrayed. Jose gave me some details of local dives suitable for a novice and explained that in July and August we should have 25 metres visibility in water with a surface temperature of 27°C. He also advised me that a 5 mm shorty would be adequate protection from any thermoclines. I looked at a number of other Cala Galdana based diving school websites to check the competition. Unfortunately the other websites simply didn't give me the confidence that Jose's did. I contacted Jose and agreed to complete my open water dives with his team when I arrived on holiday. We booked our flights over the internet through a company called Flightline who we had used to book many of our flights in the past. Flightline's website scans all available flights to Menorca from UK airports for the date, time and duration of your planned holiday. You can then select the flight that suits you best. We find this quick and easy service ideal for organising our holidays. There are many types of accommodation on the island at all main resorts - hotels, villas, apartments, and campsites. In the past we have booked accommodation with a holiday company called Open Holidays. For this trip we were going to stay at Villa Mir, a 3-bedroom privately owned villa. The villa was located in the residential part of Cala Galdana. The beach, dive centre and restaurants were located a short 4 minute walk from the end of the villa's back garden. We booked a car from a local Menorcan car hire company, Valla Cars. The local companies offer the same range of vehicles at more competitive prices than the down the spine of the island so getting to any resort is very easy. Our journey took 30 minutes on a fast road past farmland dotted with Friesian cows, white washed farm buildings and Menorca's highest mountain - Mont Toro. 
The Diving CentreDiving Centre Cala Galdana is located underneath the five star hotel Sol Gavilanes. The hotel is clearly sign-posted from the main road into Cala Galadana. Simply find the hotel and you find the diving centre. The diving centre offers a full range of courses, diving trips and equipment for hire. The courses range from try dives for children and adults, through to tricky cave dives and deeper wrecks for more experienced divers. While the centre offers great tuition it does not sell diving equipment. The nearest diving shop is about a 25 minute drive away at a resort called Fornells. Jose and his team operate a 12-seater rib that takes divers out on scheduled trips twice a day - 9:30 and 15:15. The rib can also take divers on trips at midday if there is the demand. You can also do try dives from the sheltered pine clad beach. Diving Centre Cala Galdana also have a good relationship with another diving centre in the north of Menorca at Fornells. If the weather is too bad to dive safely in Cala Galdana Jose will ferry divers booked on trips to Fornells. This means divers are almost always guaranteed a dive every day of the season - May to October. The dive centre also has excellent fresh water baths and hoses to clean all equipment after a dive. Jose's team are very strict with the cleaning regime for hired equipment and rightly chastise any divers bringing anything back with sand on it. The dive centre lets you leave any personal equipment e.g. wetsuits, regulators, BCDs at the dive centre that you may need to dry out. My Dives I booked five dives with the Diving Centre Cala Galdana; each was no more than 15 minutes ride away in the rib - Escull D'es Governador - This dive was around a large rock jutting out of the sea about 50 metres from the coast. The south side of the rock was about 17 metres while the north was about 5 metres. Like most dives in Cala Galadana the seabed was covered in a Posidonia field - one metre long waving fronds of seaweed that shelter fish and crustaceans. We saw many sea bream, red starfish and schools of tiny purple "neon" fish. On the south point of the rock we saw the iron remains of a ship - the Malakov. The Malakov struck the rock in 1929 and sunk 700 metres away. The wreck is at about 30 metres and can be visited on another trip. Cala Escoxada - This dive was along a cliff face to a depth of 10 metres and lasted about 55 minutes. Again there are many schools of purple neons, rays and fields of Posidonia. One of the highlights of the dive were the numerous swims though holes and chimneys in the limestone cliffs. The boat trip back to the Dive Centre was a real buzz as we flew along the coastline on a sea that was perfectly calm, beneath a cloudless blue sky. Na Gall - This dive was located a short dive from Macarella beach, a beach popular with naturists. The dive took us to a maximum depth of 20 metres and took us amongst more boulders and fields of Posidonia. This time the views on the beach and cliffs were more appealing than the views below! Cala Turqueta - On the previous dives the sea had been like a mirror - perfectly flat and riding on the rib in the orange glow of the early morning sun was pure bliss. Today was different, the wind had picked up and we rode the rib like a cowboy rides a bucking bronco. Fortunately we moored in a quiet bay and spent 50 minutes diving along a rock face to about 13 metres. This was a beautiful dive - swimming along, up and over huge boulders amongst patches of Posidonia. In places the seabed dropped away and we dived down through shimmering thermoclines. It was just like flying in slow motion. This bay was also popular with large glass-bottom boats. As the boats zipped overhead they seemed no more than buzzing mosquitoes as we dived safely 10 metres or so beneath them. Sa Tortuga - This was my first pleasure dive having successfully completed all of the open water exercises on my previous dives. When I arrived at the diving centre I met an "interesting" family of qualified English divers. By interesting I mean they got into the wrong size wet suits, didn't know how to put the scuba gear on, and one of them spent all the time walking to the rib reading business papers while talking on his mobile phone. As the only other novice diver on the trip I had no doubt I'd be buddied with the "interesting" family. On the boat Jose surprised me by asking me to buddy with Nigel, the other experienced English diver. Hooray! I was saved. I had an excellent dive - I saw many more multicoloured fish up to about 2 feet in length, lots of schools of purple neons, bream, and fields of Posidonia. We also visited The Tortoise - a large tortoise shaped rock beneath the sea. The dive finished by visiting a huge open top cave that we lit up with torches. Back on the rib we spotted a naturist in a small boat - the "interesting" English mother whistled and shouted at the man asking him to turn around so she could see all he had! He did the sensible thing and dived into the sea. Other Dive Sites Menorca has a vast number of dive sites. Here are a couple of the more popular sites I hope to visit and report during future trips to Menorca. 
El Pont D'en GilThe famous Pont d'en Gil cave system is situated near Ciutadella. The entrance to the cave system is via an enormous cave mouth through which you emerge into a submerged pool decorated with stalagmites and stalactites. The roof space above is some 200 metres high though the water is only a maximum depth of 6 metres. It is possible to see diplodus sargus, damselfish, moray eels, groupers, lobster and even rays on the sandy bottom. 
The MalakovThe Malakoff was a cargo ship that sunk on 2nd of January 1929 as a result of a violent southern storm and probable navigation error that caused it to hit the rock - "Escull d'es Governador". The wreck rests in a sandy bed 700 metres from the coast at depths between 30 and 40 metres. The cargo which consisted of iron beams, cables and sacks of cement have solidified creating an artificial reef populated by scorpion fish, moray eel, big grouper, amberjack, and barracuda. The Malakoff is an explosion of life in a desert of sand. 
The Ocean DiverThe Ocean diver was a Dutch barge sunk at Son Bou beach in order to create an artificial reef. The wreck lies at about 26 metres. It is a young wreck and shelters groupers, scorpion fish, cardinal fish and is often visited by barracudas and amberjack. Summary Diving with Jose's team was very easy and I liked their "fun" attitude to diving. On one dive I saw a novice diver get into trouble when their tank worked loose. That's when I saw the other side of the dive team. They moved in smoothly and professionally to fix the problem and calm the diver. This impressed me and showed me that they could have fun because they were damned good divers. I'll be back next year. Contact Details Diving School Jose Molina Diving Centre Cala Galdana. P.O. Box 872 07760 Ciutadella Menorca, Spain Tel: 0034 629 73 48 73. Fax: 0034 971 15 45 46 eMail: info@galdanadiving.com Website: www.galdanadiving.com Flights Flightline Website: www.flightline.co.uk Telephone: 0800 0360 777 Accommodation Villa Mir Website: www.villa-mir.info Spain main page | ||||
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