Baixa das Moreias

Shore divers start about 25 metres from the sea-access stairs at the Lido Bath Complex, at the Naval Club's own base in Quinta Calaça, and follow the club's guide cable out along the reef's canyons on one of two paths, graded by experience. Focus Natura instead dives it by boat, dropping near the reef's deepest point and working back up through the same canyons toward the shallows, on a dive that averages 14 metres. Either way, the reef itself runs an easy east-west line over volcanic rock and sand, and the shallow stretch suits a beginner.

The name gives away the draw: "moreias" is Portuguese for moray eels, and the reef's canyons hold two resident species, the black moray and the fangtooth moray (also called the serpent moray), usually paired with cleaner shrimp working over their skin. Locally, the site also goes by another name, "Club Naval", named directly for those same canyons. The permanent guide cable is what sets this reef apart: installed by the club in 2013, it still splits into a shallower and a more experienced path, guiding divers through the canyons without needing a chart or a compass.

On Sunday 12 May 2013, the Naval Club of Funchal opened a permanent guide cable through this reef's canyons at Quinta Calaça, reported at the time as the first underwater route of its kind in the Region.1 Divers followed the cable without needing to navigate, on a route split into two paths by experience level, and the route was still running later that year. The club kept the site in active use for years afterward: in October 2020, ten of its own divers, among 18 participants overall, took part in a seabed clean-up here that closed out that year's Blue Flag environmental programme.

The shore entry sits on the same stretch of Funchal coast where open Atlantic swell can complicate other beach entries nearby, so time it between sets. Open Water divers are fine on the shallow cable path; the deeper cable path and the full boat dive to depth call for Advanced Open Water. Before entering the water on the shore route, divers are reportedly still handed a card describing the route, the site's signature species and its hazards, the same practice the Naval Club introduced when it opened the cable in 2013.