Scuba Elx

Scuba Elx has run out of Santa Pola since 1992, the earliest dive centre to open in the town. New premises followed in 2013, right on the seafront. Diving happens by boat. The marina sits about 15 minutes from the Reserva Marina de la Isla de Tabarca, Spain's first marine reserve. The centre shares infrastructure with two sister businesses under the same local group: a nautical school selling and renting boats, and a water-taxi service to Tabarca. Courses run from Discover Scuba through Divemaster, and a refresher programme brings lapsed or out-of-practice certified divers back up to speed before a trip. Snorkelling and freediving round out the programme alongside scuba. Trips into the reserve need authorisation arranged in advance, and boats use the zone's official mooring point rather than drop an anchor. Named zones inside the reserve carry daily limits of either 7 or 10 divers, a permit system that predates most of this centre's three decades in the water.

The larger body of feedback is strongly positive, with guides praised repeatedly for patience with nervous swimmers, first-time snorkellers, and children, plus same-day underwater photos delivered soon after the trip. A smaller cluster of complaints, concentrated in third-party add-on bookings rather than the centre's own guided dives, describes mismatched meeting points and ill-fitting gear, with photos promised but never delivered. One account raises a safety concern. It describes a snorkelling group entering open water without flotation support, a booking-channel issue worth flagging rather than a pattern across the wider feedback. Taken together, the picture is a long-running local operator whose core diving product reads far more consistently than its third-party tour listings.