El Toro

The boat ties to one of six buoyed points around the islet, and that choice shapes the whole dive. At a platform-and-slope mooring, divers descend to a shallow rocky shelf at around 5 metres, already alive with octopus in their dens and seabream moving through the rocks. From the shelf edge the reef drops near-vertically to about 18 metres, then eases into a slope that runs to 35-40m depending on the point. The 15-20m band is the heart of the dive: groupers out in the open, morays and congers lodged in holes and grottos, dentex and barracuda hanging in the blue. The groupers don't retreat. Divers close in to a couple of metres without the fish moving, because two decades of reserve protection have rebuilt that population's tolerance. Most guided dives loop back to the platform for the safety stop, finishing in the shallow fish life where they began.

At a wall mooring, the centre takes a deeper point. The profile drops past 30m quickly, barracuda and dentex replace the slope-dwelling groupers, and the water is colder. Both versions use the same islet. Same boat ride, different depths.

El Toro's draw is biological, not architectural. The reef is clean and the water clear, but what separates it from the rest of the Mallorca coast is what 20 years of protection have done to the fish. Dusky groupers, elsewhere elusive from fishing pressure, hold their ground here and let divers close in at normal recreational depths. The density of morays, conger eels, barracuda and dentex is higher than on unprotected reef nearby — not because the site is inherently richer than its surroundings, but because nothing removes them.

The six-point structure makes it a rare single-site option for a mixed-ability boat. A beginner and an advanced diver can share the same boat and the same mooring, then dive different parts of the same islet. No other Mallorca reserve site offers that range from one anchor. It is the reason El Toro is the most-run reserve dive for SW Calvià centres.

In 2004 the Isla del Toro and its surrounding waters were declared a marine reserve of fishing interest — reversing years of pressure that had depleted the site's fish life. The recovery was documented by the operators who first ran the site under protection: species counts climbed, grouper and sea bass populations rebuilt, and El Toro became the most-visited reserve dive on the island. In 2022 a decree unified El Toro with the Malgrats islands; in 2025 the reserve was expanded into the Reserva Marina de les Illes del Ponent, adding the Sec islet and bringing the protected area to around 2,300 hectares (Decreto 26/2025). El Toro's story is not a shipwreck or a legend. It is 20 years of documented recovery, visible on every dive.

Diving El Toro requires a personal, non-transferable Balearic reserve authorisation — not a group permit, a personal one tied to your certification and dive insurance. SW Calvià operators normally include it in the dive price; confirm this when booking. The deep wall beyond 30m is an AOW profile. Respect your certification depth limit, plan your gas, and watch your no-deco time. The thermocline bites below the reef: the surface may be 26C but the wall is 15-18C. Dress for the bottom. Night diving is not permitted in the El Toro special zone.