Le Roc / La Vallée Blanche

Le Roc is the broadest piece of ground off Carnon, and one dive takes in most of its variety: faults to swim along, rocky scree full of hiding places and open plateau in the light, between 8 and 14 m. Posidonia beds border the site and work as a natural nursery, so there is small life over the shallow parts as well as in the rock.

La Vallée Blanche is the west face, dived between 7 and 10 m: a long protective fault running alongside a wide expanse of white sand. The contrast is the point — dark, holed rock on one side, clean pale bottom on the other, which lifts the light on a coast that rarely has much of it. A stingray will occasionally be resting on the sand, discreet enough to swim past.

In the scree bordering the sand, Mediterranean moray eels take the dark cavities. Damselfish form clouds over the rocky relief, salema graze the plateau, rainbow wrasse work along the fault and octopus make their lairs in the scree. Neither half of the site is demanding: Plongée Carnon asks for Niveau 1 (PE20) or above on Le Roc and lists the Vallée Blanche side as all levels, baptism dives included.