Buggerru & Pan di Zucchero

Diving here is guided and runs from rubber inflatables. They reach Pan di Zucchero, a stack standing a short way off the shore near Masua, a district of Iglesias, and the caves cut into the coast nearby. Each dive is planned around the certification level of the group and the state of the sea, so the conditions decide which sites the boats visit. Full equipment, computers and torches included, can be rented, and non-divers can ride along to snorkel and see the coast between dives.

Pan di Zucchero is Cambrian limestone, and the coast around it mixes volcanic and limestone rock. The stack carries on below the waterline as walls coated in multicoloured sponges and Parazoanthus. A dive on it ends at 5 m inside a grotto where divers can take the regulator out and look at the vault. Along the shore the rock is hollowed into caves and galleries, some floored with white sand over white limestone.

Pan di Zucchero is rated easy and open to divers from Scuba Diver level. Grotta della torpedine is an easy cavern of three long, roomy chambers, but it does not suit anyone who suffers from claustrophobia. The guided dives take only divers who already hold a certification, so anyone without one needs a course first. Besides the stack and the caves, the same boats visit other coastal sites, wrecks and old tuna-trap grounds.