Menorca

A diving day here starts by deciding which coast to be on. The two confirmed centres sit about 30 km apart by road — Blue Dive Experience at the Addaia marina on the north coast, S'Algar Diving on the south-east, established there over thirty years ago — and a third cluster of sites lies off Ciutadella at the western end of the island. Boat rides are short once aboard: five minutes from Cala Galdana out to a 12 m training site, longer to reach the northern reserve from Fornells. Several of the shallower calas are dived from land instead.

The rock is limestone and it is drilled through. PADI counts 13 cave dives among the 44 catalogued sites, and the Balearics are cited internationally for their coastal cave systems and underwater speleothem; Pont d'en Gil runs past 200 m, and Escorxada's galleries reach about 300 m. Above the overhead ground, walls and reef platforms carry the standard Mediterranean roster — grouper, conger and moray eels, red lobster, scorpionfish, bream and wrasse, with amberjack and barracuda along the reserve edges. The Malakoff's plates have grown sponges, red sea squirts and sea slugs.

Depth is available but gated. The everyday diving sits at 10 to 25 m, shallow enough that an Open Water diver working to the 18 m limit is not shut out of much, and one site is named for an arch in only 3 m of water. The deep end is a different trip: the Malakoff at 30 to 38 m, the Santa Clara fishing boat on sand past 40 m, the Junkers Ju 88 on sand for experts only, and cave dives with an 80 m guideline penetration. Those are stated as advanced or expert only, and some caverns need a torch.

It suits divers who want a mixed island week rather than one harbour: caves in the west, reserve walls in the north, easy reef and wall diving in the south-east. Treat the driving as part of the plan — nothing links the three bases but road — and book with whichever centre is nearest the coast being stayed on. Divers who would rather have everything leave from one quay, with permits and boats handled, are better served by Cabrera off Mallorca or the Medes Islands on the Costa Brava.