Golfe de Valinco — Propriano & Porto-Pollo

Diving here is done from day boats out of two harbours about twenty minutes apart by road. Porto Pollo Plongée moors its boats ten metres from the shop on the Porto-Pollo port and is on the sites within fifteen minutes; Propriano Plongée works from Plage du Mancinu at the other end of the gulf and runs its exploration dives either guided or autonomous. Both open from April to November and each closes one day a week — Saturdays in Propriano, Sundays in Porto-Pollo — and both are FFESSM and CMAS centres, with SSI certifications listed alongside.

The ground is granite rather than reef. Most sites are secs, submerged rock heads that rise steeply out of 35 to 50 m and stop short of the surface. Les Aiguilles is a plateau at 45 m with spires reaching up to 9 m, La Petite Vallée a boulder mass sitting at 35 m and rising to 9 m, La Grande Vallée a similar mass dropping more abruptly past 45 m. The walls at Les Cathédrales and Le Jardin carry red gorgonians, and Le Jardin holds one of the rare black-coral branches in Corsica at around 35 m. Below 45 m, red coral and spiny lobster share the deeper tombants. The Porto-Pollo centre puts visibility above 25 m on most days.

The gulf suits a diver who wants rock scenery and resident fish a quarter of an hour from the harbour, and who does not mind that the two centres work the same water: the sites both shops list carry near-identical write-ups, so this is one dive ground worked from two ports rather than two rosters. The shallow ground at Plage du Mancinu, La Crique and Tour de la Calanca covers beginners, and Le Jardin at 27 m and the 45 m tombants give Level 2 divers somewhere to go, with La Vallée des Mérous at 55 m held back for experienced teams in current. No wreck is named among the sites; the Gulf of Ajaccio, 19 to 25 km north, is a separate area with its own centres and a P-51 fighter on sand.