Costa Brava — L'Escala & the Montgrí Coast

The diving is run from L'Escala itself. Dive Paradis is at Port de la Clota, Mateua Dive at Punta Montgó and Orca Diving at the Club Nàutic, with Scuba Alegre working the same coast from the campsite at Sant Pere Pescador, five minutes away. Orca takes at most twelve divers, two departures on weekdays and three at weekends, and Scuba Alegre runs three Zodiac departures a day at 08.30, 11.00 and 16.00. Orca picks the point each morning on the weather and the group, because the tramuntana can roughen this coast in any month. Illa Mateua and La Depuradora can be entered from the coast; the islet is buoyed off to boats in summer and is dived only in calm water or a south wind.

The Montgrí is limestone, and the coast south of Cala Montgó is its cliff face going under: walls, boulder slopes and short tunnels. Trencabraços runs a narrow passage through to Les Cambres at 12–27 m, La Xinxa has a small tunnel lined with coral and sponges, Cala Viuda is a set of caves with an air dome, and Les Vetes holds the 'Cathedral', a cave about 40 m long with a large air dome, entered at 19 m. Grouper, spiny lobster, moray, forkbeard, wrasse and octopus are listed at Punta del Bau, and cuttlefish, octopus and nudibranchs shelter in Cova de la Sal. From Trencabraços south the coast lies inside the Montgrí, Illes Medes i Baix Ter natural park.

It suits divers who want the Montgrí park without the Medes permit system, and beginners are well served: the ordinary sites are rated easy, the Cotentin wreck is an easy shallow dive, and Punta del Xeric at 3–8 m is sheltered from the north and north-west wind. The exceptions are Advanced-only: the Reggio Messina at 22–35 m, El Marmoler with its cargo of Carrara marble at 38–44 m, and Puig de la Sardina, a three-peaked rock from 14 to 45 m with yellow gorgonians and barracuda that calls for careful gas management. What this coast does not offer is the Medes' grouper-by-the-dozen reserve; that is a short drive south at L'Estartit, and Cap de Creus to the north has the more dramatic walls.