Northern Menorca
by Andy Smith


I am a BSAC diver leader who has spent 9 seasons diving in UK waters. Whilst thoroughly enjoying my diving for all these years I have always wanted to dive overseas as well, but have not been able to, due in no small part to financial situations out of my control i.e.. two money pits called children.

The past couple of years, however, have allowed me to take some time out of our family holidays to get into some diving in foreign climbs. This year saw us in Northern Menorca staying in Arenal D'en Castell, a lovely family resort with a couple of decent hotels. In fact this was the third year in a row that we had 'found' ourselves at this resort and for my part I would count one of my reasons for being happy to return as the Dive centre situated in the Fiesta Hotel that I 'discovered'.

This Centre is owned and run by a young Italian named Clay Dell'arto. It is called La Sirena and I found it to be friendly, well equipped and well run with a sensible 'divers' attitude. The diving has always been very good and this year the centre benefited from having a real character of a lad named Javier as the dive guide. Javi is not only an exceptionally good diver, as of course is Clay, but for a young man he is considerate, sociable and a real good laugh to boot. This made my holiday diving a truly superb experience this year.

The dive I wish to tell you about, however, was in fact the eighth dive I have done with La Sirena and was fourth in a series of five I did this year. It took place in the fairly newly established 'Marine Reserve' which can be found to the North west of Fornells on the Northern coast of Menorca. I understand that the reserve is only a few years old and has only really been established for the past couple of years for diving purposes.

Clay moors his new 7m RIB at the port of Addia. This is a ten minute mini-bus ride from the dive centre. Once loaded our small group of six divers sped across the flat calm sea for an invigorating twenty minutes with the sunshine on our backs and the breeze in our faces before reaching our much awaited dive site. The previous dives I had done earlier in my holiday had benefited from fifteen metres visibility (which was a bit less that the previous year but still completely wonderful to a south coast man!) As soon as we looked over the side of the rib it was obvious that this 'Reserva' site was going to beat that. We kitted up and with eager anticipation rolled over the side. The bottom at that point was about 10 to 12 metres away but was as though you could touch it. I waited a couple of minutes for the remainder of the group to sort themselves out before descending. The site is a classic, we dropped down into a bowl shaped area about 6 or 7m deep which allowed us to make sure all was OK with kit, ears and buoyancy etc before continuing with the dive proper.

Inside the 'bowl' the volume of small fish was already more than on the other sites I had visited. I love looking at fish wherever I dive but, apart from the few obvious ones we all know, I can't remember the names of any of them after I finish my dives. (Note to self, if lucky enough to get this published use book tokens to buy fish identification book!). When I really started to look around I noticed more groups of different species than anywhere I have ever dived before, I realised this dive was going to be very good. I helped one of the group sort out a minor ear clearing problem before swimming out of the bowl and over the side of the reef, this is where my dive started. The bottom is only about 25m on this site and rolling out of the 'bowl' we found ourselves looking straight down the wall toward the bottom which gave a grand sense of scale. The wall was encrusted with soft corals, anemones and dead mans fingers. Each crevice and precariously balanced rock seemed as though it held the prospect of discovery and as we contoured our way down towards the bottom, many did. I had seen crabs, lobster, eels and allsorts before even nearing maximum depth or getting to the heart of the dive, a huge archway swimthrough with a cave. This was yet to come, prior to reaching this we twisted and turned our way among the outcrops of rock and fingers of the reef each offering a new and seemingly larger shoal of shimmering fish. Just prior to the archway we turned a corner and there infront of us, and no more that fifteen metres away, was a very large shoal of Barracuda. I had seen barracuda before but always from a distance, this lot were not only very close but were not receding as we moved closer. There must have been a couple of hundred fish. I watched and realised that the shoal was circling into and out of the archway for which we were heading. I looked around the dive group, all of us must have had the same expression on our faces, eyes wide with an obvious grin lurking beneath regulators and mask. I could feel that I was the same, I thought to myself, this is what I dive for. The shoal seemed as though it couldn't care less for our proximity and continued to glide in it's fantastic circle. At this point I was no more than three metres from the edge of the circle and, holding my position in the water as still as I could, I tried hard to control my breathing so as not to expel my bubbles too hard and scare them off. I held this position for a few minutes before gently turning to follow the outer perimeter of their circle towards the archway. My buddy and I carefully swam through the arch, giving the barracuda as much room as we were able, and paused to have a look into the small cave before forcing ourselves to leave the barracuda and swim out the other side of the arch into the next wonderland. The other side opened out into a plateau where there were three or four large groups of brightly coloured fish. Using my previously identified skills in this area I was able to determine that one shoal were silver and yellow with bright yellow fins, another had silver flanks and a darker line across their backs and the other looked something like a grouper or snapper or something else I have seen in Diver mag before. I vow to myself to get a book and learn what species these are.

We have been down here now for about thirty minutes and it's time to start multi-leveling back up towards the bowl. This is not a task made easy with Javi around as he keeps signaling to us to have a look at the latest discovery of some pretty fish or an anemone. The guy seems to revel in his ability to discover truly fascinating marine life forms that us lesser mortals simply pass by. It takes us so long to get back to he bowl and the shot line infact that when we are back at 9 metres my computer is telling me that I should think about doing a stop. Not any hardship I thought and settled down at 9 metres to do a 3 minute safety stop for starters. I have hung on many a line in the UK and sat on wrecks and rocks from Kent to Cornwall doing stops in the past but did not expect in Mediterranean waters to do my stop surrounded by clouds, and I really do mean clouds, of fish. More of those we had already seen and loads of other varieties in yellow, purple and blue hues. I have not yet been to the Red Sea diving, as the eating machines always seem to need something for school or the washing machine breaks, but many friends and buddies have and they have told me of the clouds of fish they have seen, of all the things I didn't expect to see on this dive were proper clouds of fish, I watched in awe. Time came to get out and I dragged our ascent and further 3m stop out as long as I realistically could before finally giving in and getting back in the boat. My buddy (never the most quiet of people) and I sat for a couple of seconds in silence before he turned to me and said, I think that was probably the best dive I have ever done. I think he may be right.

I can't recommend highly enough the La Sirena operation, you can email them at lasirenadiving@hotmail ..com. You may be surprised at just how good the diving has become in the 'Reserva', Northern Menorca.

Andy Smith. BSAC 0411.


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