Madeira

Most divers base in Funchal or in Caniço de Baixo just along the coast, and the diving tends to fit around the rest of the island rather than dominate the day. Boat runs are short, the usual shape being two dives in a morning from a small harbour with the afternoon free. Shore entries are the local habit but they are not soft ones: the beaches are steep, rounded volcanic cobbles that shift underfoot, so centres run trolleys, and getting in and out cleanly in any swell is the real skill.

Madeira is a steep-sided island and the ground underwater behaves the same way, shelving off quickly so that useful depth sits close to the entry. The south-coast boulders run to the size of cars, piled into gullies and overhangs with sand patches between them and encrusting growth rather than coral on the stone; the Garajau reserve has been closed to fishing since the 1980s, which is why the grouper there ignore divers. Sites shelter or expose depending on which side of a headland they sit, and the north coast takes the prevailing swell and is dived far less often.

The offshore day is a different proposition from the coastal diving: a long, exposed crossing to the Desertas, permits arranged in advance, only a few operators running it and a settled forecast needed, so it is worth booking with slack around it. A separate option is Porto Santo, a couple of hours away by ferry, where a sand seabed and two purposely scuttled ships, a retired ferry and a decommissioned naval corvette, give the archipelago its wreck diving, often in clearer water than the main island.

It suits divers travelling with people who do not dive, and divers who want the diving to be one thread of a week that also takes in levada walks and mountain weather. The site list is not long, though: anyone planning three dives a day for a fortnight will run through it, and repeat visits tend to be about conditions rather than new ground. Winter trips are still worth taking, but settled days are fewer and the water is at its coolest.