Ilhéus das Formigas

The boat run to Formigas is part of the dive: open Atlantic with no land in sight until eight low basalt islets break the surface, the tallest, Formigão, rising about 11 metres. On the days when even those are awash, a lighthouse 600 metres south, its light 22 metres above the water, is the only visible feature. Divers work the prismatic basalt wall around the cluster (mostly its east side) through caves, overhangs and canyons, in a full-day, two-tank format with a surface interval spent on the rocks themselves rather than back at a marina. The standard trip stays well within recreational limits; a wreck on the reserve's south-west slope and a kelp bed reported as an Azorean rarity both lie deeper, outside where an Advanced Open Water diver is taken. Even divers who want to go further are held near that line: "Only one regret, not been able to go deeper. Well, rules are rules," one account puts it, and the limit holds on every crossing described.

Grouper density is the reason experienced divers make the crossing. One diver with more than a thousand logged dives called Formigas' dusky groupers "the most curious and friendly ones I've ever seen, although they're wild and don't meet divers every day." Soft coral and black coral forests fill in around them, and schools of barred hogfish, amberjack and yellowmouth barracuda work the same wall.

Formigas is where Santa Maria and São Miguel operators send a diver once the coastal reefs stop being enough. The official reserve page names Oceanic Manta Ray, Chilean Devil Ray, Galapagos Shark and dense Dusky Grouper aggregations among its resident large animals1, and the reserve itself is layered protection: a Ramsar wetland, an OSPAR marine protected area and a Natura 2000 site on top of its 1988 regional-reserve status1. What separates Formigas from its sibling seamount Dollabarat, usually dived on the same boat day, is room to move rather than a fixed line: "In Princess Alice you are mostly on the mooring line," one diver who has dived both wrote, "in Dollabarat/Formigas, you are able to move around."

Santa Maria's dive operators sell the trip from Vila do Porto, consistently the nearer port by distance, though the crossing time itself is unsettled: figures on file for that route range from about 70 minutes to closer to two hours each way. São Miguel operators independently run the same reserve from Vila Franca do Campo or Ponta Delgada, a longer two- to two-and-a-half-hour crossing. Both islands are real departure points, and this page does not pick one over the other.

Current is the site's defining condition: open ocean, far from any shelter, and described by operators as prone to strong currents and recommended only for experienced divers. The crossing itself is weather-dependent and can be called off or rescheduled close to departure, so book with slack in the itinerary. Operators require Advanced Open Water for the standard trip; a newly certified Open Water diver is generally turned away, though a few check dives with an instructor have occasionally changed that call. Inside the reserve, taking or damaging anything is banned, as is fishing of any kind, spearfishing included, and diving there needs the marine park authority's permit.