Grotta dei Gamberi

The dive follows the lava tongue of Punta Galera down to a rockfall that ends on sand at 40 metres, where the entrance arch opens. You go in along the left wall, which bends away from the light past sponge-covered rock; at the darkest point of the wall, in the fissures of a large boulder, conger eels wind through the cracks and forkbeards hold still in the beam of the torch.

Past the bend the sandy floor begins to rise and the walls narrow into a low, wide tunnel that leads to the exit. A terrace of rock on the roof here is crawling with shrimp, the massed Plesionika that give the cave its name, in numbers that make the stone itself look as though it is moving. Three further openings break the cave wall and let light filter in on the colour. Turning right you get the blue tear of the entrance and a pale clearing where feather duster worms are out.

A short passage brings you back out to the rockfall, among big grouper and silver seabream, and the dive carries on along the Punta Galera wall, where circling a few of the boulders can turn up a spiny lobster out walking. Depth sets the shape of the whole dive: the deepest point is the cave mouth at the start, so the profile only gets shallower from there.