Corsica · France · Sand slope · Reef
Île de Forana — Nord-Est (banc de sable)
A sandbar edge from 3 m to 15 m, used for courses
Area photo: Reustli · CC BY-SA 4.0
The north-eastern site off Forana, an uninhabited island in the Cerbicale islands reserve that is also a bird sanctuary, is dived along the edge of the island over a sandbar. The catalogue gives a range of 3 m to 15 m and notes that several dive courses run here, which tells you the kind of dive it is: shallow, unhurried and easy to supervise.
Where it is and how deep
41.5626° N, 9.3739° EPublished position for this site.
The dive
The dive follows the edge of the island rather than heading away from it, over a sandbar catalogued from 3 m to 15 m. That shape makes it easy to run in either direction and easy to abort: the shallows are always on one side of you, and the deepest published point on the site sits inside every recreational limit.
Sand next to rock is worth diving slowly. The interesting things on this kind of ground sit at the boundary between the two — in the edge of the bank, in the seams of the rock, and flat on the open sand, where you have to stop moving to notice anything at all. Keep your fins high, because one careless kick over a sandbar takes the visibility with it for everyone behind you.
Several dive courses are run on this site, so expect to share it with training groups and to be asked to keep clear of them. Forana is uninhabited and protected as part of the Cerbicale islands reserve and a bird sanctuary, so everything comes and goes by boat and nothing is left behind. No current, visibility or marine-life figures are published for the site.
Marine life and season
The sources we used don't single out particular species here.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Off-season | Fair | Fair | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Fair | Off-season |
Season follows Corsica: Operators run Apr–Oct with July and August warmest; the Bouches de Bonifacio funnel wind and can close the crossing at short notice.
Questions divers ask
Can you learn to dive at Forana Nord-Est?+
Several dive courses are catalogued as running on this site. The dive follows the edge of the island over a sandbar between 3 m and 15 m, shallow enough for training work, and it sits inside the Cerbicale islands nature reserve.
Sources
- Île de Forana - Nord-Est (banc de sable) — Scubago
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