Diving in Alicante

Yes. Diving Tabarca requires prior authorisation from the regional fisheries authority, and boats must moor to a designated buoy. Each named dive zone inside the reserve carries its own daily quota, either 7 or 10 divers, so an authorised centre normally handles the paperwork as part of booking the trip.

Recreational scuba diving is permitted throughout the reserve without an individual permit. Organised or professional diving operations need separate authorisation, and fishing is banned in the reserve's protected core, which is why the walls stay in noticeably better condition than open coast nearby.

It's the resort's signature dive: a sheltered wall on one side of the island opens onto an exposed pinnacle on the other, so a single boat trip covers two very different profiles. The surrounding waters sit inside a natural park, and grouper and damselfish are a regular sight along the wall.

Cova dels Arcs, near Benitatxell, is the accessible option: three natural arches lit by daylight throughout, guided at Open Water level rather than technical cave diving. It's a cavern dive with visible exits, not a penetration dive into an unlit system.

Alicante trades the biggest grouper aggregations of Cabo de Palos or the Illes Medes for calmer typical conditions, year-round operation, and a cave and cavern offering neither of those reserves has. Fish size and density here run smaller, and August brings more boat traffic, but the variety across one short coastline is hard to match.

May to October suits beginners and warmer water. April to June and September to November bring more marine-life encounters and thinner boat traffic. Winter divers with more experience come for the clearest visibility, since plankton levels drop. The coast is diveable year-round.

Cala Granadella is the easiest shore entry in the area, a shallow cove built for beginners and try-dives. Cova dels Arcs is also shore-accessible from Benitatxell, though it's a guided cavern dive rather than an open swim.

Winter runs roughly 13-17C, spring 15-21C, summer surface temperatures reach 22-28C, and autumn sits around 18-23C. A 5mm wetsuit covers summer; step up to 7mm, a semidry, or a drysuit for winter, and expect noticeably cooler water below the thermocline on the deeper reserve and Ifach sites even in summer.

Tabarca, declared in 1986, was the first marine reserve declared in Spain, and runs a strict per-zone diver quota with prior authorisation required for every dive. Cabo de San Antonio, protected from 1993 and covering roughly 900 hectares of protected waters, allows recreational scuba without an individual permit; only professional or organised diving needs authorisation. Everywhere else on this coast, including the Penyal d'Ifac and the waters around Isla de Benidorm, carries natural-park protection but no diver permit or quota system.

Yes. Shore coves like Cala Granadella and Cala el Raco sit at a few metres and are built around try-dives and Open Water training. Certified divers move up to the reserve walls and Isla de Benidorm, while La Punta's 30m-plus profile calls for Advanced Open Water.