Don Pedro Wreck

Five to ten minutes by RIB from Ibiza port or Marina Botafoch, twenty-five from Formentera. From the surface there is only a marker buoy. The descent down the mooring line is the first signature moment: blue-dark and nothing else, until at around 25 metres a hull resolves out of the void. The ship is 142 metres of Ro-Ro ferry lying on her port side, so what divers swim across is the starboard hull and former superstructure tipped sideways.

Three routes are standard, chosen by the operator at the briefing. The cargo-hold transit is the most-described in community accounts — entry through the cargo zone into a large internal tube, swimming along the upper part to keep decompression manageable, with trucks and vans piled against what is now the floor. The stern circuit is the local favourite — drop down by the stern castle, work back to the six-bladed propeller at 35 metres, then return through the recesses. The propeller is a defined turnaround, oversized enough that experienced divers have called it modern art crossed with mechanical perfection. The bridge-to-bow route is longer and gets mixed reviews, though the bridge does hold the often-cited detail of a telephone hanging off the hook as if someone had left in haste.

Light fades as you move along the hull. By 35-40 metres the colour has gone fully blue, and inside the cargo tube it can become very dark even with good outside visibility. The thermocline below 30 metres drops the temperature sharply. Bottom time is 20-30 minutes on air, longer on Nitrox. The closing moment many divers remember is a school of barracuda passing on the way back to the ascent line, drifting between the wreck and Dado Pequeño 200 metres away.

Three things stack up here that rarely appear together on a Mediterranean wreck: scale, accessibility, and the recency of the story. The Don Pedro is comparable in size only to the MT Haben in Genoa among Mediterranean recreational targets, and yet she sits five minutes by RIB from Marina Botafoch.

The wreck also rewards return visits. Five distinct routes have been documented, and few divers see the whole hull in one immersion, which is why most centres sell it as a 2-3 dive progression. Local divers who have been on the wreck since 2007 consistently describe the colonisation as improving year on year — sponges and algae carpeting the hull, scorpionfish settled as permanent residents on the deck and stern ramp. Twelve years on from the diving ban being lifted, the bridge telephone, the trucks in the cargo holds, and the intact six-bladed propeller still carry enough fresh detail to read as narrative while you swim them.

The Don Pedro was a Roll-on/Roll-off vehicle and cargo/passenger ferry built in 1982-84 at Astilleros de Santander for inter-island service across the Spanish Mediterranean and Canaries. On 11 July 2007 she departed Ibiza port at 02:30 bound for Denia. AIS data showed her heading set to 112 degrees rather than the intended 180. The captain ordered a course correction, but at 02:52 the hull struck the shallows around Dado Pequeño, opening a large breach on the port side. All twenty crew and passengers were rescued.

The Spanish Maritime Investigation Commission concluded in February 2009 that navigation error, fatigue, and the absence of prescribed route planning had combined to sink her. Greenpeace pursued the operator over unlicensed transport of dangerous waste, including 3,016 kg of used car batteries. The cleanup ran from 2007 to 2013 before the diving ban was lifted that November.

Plan multiple dives if the wreck is the reason you are on Ibiza. One dive covers a single route at most, which is why operators run it as a 2-3 dive progression. Nitrox is mandatory with Scuba Ibiza and recommended elsewhere; gas planning matters here in a way it does not at the easier sites in the Es Freus reserve.

Bring a primary torch and a backup — the interior cargo tube is dark enough that a single torch failure inside the hull is serious. A DSMB is on the standard PADI equipment list for ascents through active-port waters. A 5mm wetsuit with hood and booties is the summer minimum, thicker semi-dry below the thermocline in shoulder season. Pair the wreck with Dado Pequeño 200 metres away as the standard second dive. May-June and September-October are the windows local centres point visiting divers toward.