Côte d'Azur — Cannes & the Estérel

Diving here is mostly day-boat work out of small harbours rather than one hub: Cannes Vieux Port, Golfe-Juan, Port la Rague at Mandelieu, and Agay further west, each running to its own nearby sites. Sails are short and quoted in minutes — about 20 from Golfe-Juan to La Fourmigue, 40 out to the deeper Cannes pinnacles. When the forecast is poor there are shore entries to fall back on, Tiki Plage at Cap Dramont and the Pointe de l'Aiguille trail inside the Théoule marine park among them.

The dominant site type is the tombant, a drop-off running off a shallow rock plateau: at Le Vengeur 2 the plateau sits at 7 m and the wall falls to 60. Deeper down the rock carries gorgonians — red and white in fields at Calafat, red on the scattered rocks of Pierre Jaques beyond La Fourmigue — and red coral grows in the fissures at La grotte à Corail. Grouper hold there and on the 11–53 m drop-off at La petite Françoise; sea bream, sars, conger and barracuda are the standing fish around Cap Roux, Le Dramont and Lion de Mer. Several sites, La Traille among them, have caves and through-swims, and the Estérel end of the coast is described as rich in wrecks.

This reads as a diving scene along one coastline rather than a single destination. The Cannes clubs and the Estérel clubs at Agay and Boulouris sit 20–25 km apart and are unaffiliated, each with its own site list, so a week here means picking a base and largely diving what that base reaches. It suits divers content with rock, gorgonians and protected shallow ground within reach of a city, and those working toward Niveau II for the 55–70 m pinnacles. Anyone who wants grouper in numbers or deep wrecks as the point of the trip is better served west at Port-Cros and the Îles d'Hyères, or at Marseille and the Calanques.