Illes Formigues

The mooring buoy sits east of the archipelago, above the canyon area. Descend to the rocky seabed and choose a direction. The northeast route leads through a series of gorgonian-lined canyons — red and white fans on both walls, deepening progressively as you move between the rock formations. In the crevices and holes that punctuate the coralligenous bottom, lobsters retreat into shadow, moray eels watch from gaps, and octopus shift colour against the stone. Nudibranchs appear on nearly every surface, in varieties and densities that make this the dedicated macro site of the Palamós area. The southwest route opens into wider canyons where light pours in from above, creating contrast that shifts with the time of day. Grouper patrol the deeper edges. Beyond the main rocky formation, the seabed transitions to sand with posidonia meadows — a different ecosystem to finish the dive.

The Formigues are Palamós's invertebrate dive. While the Ullastres draw divers for their dramatic seamounts and Furió Fitó for its scale, these 16 islets concentrate a density of small life that the bigger sites cannot match. Nudibranch diversity here is genuinely exceptional — divers consistently describe leaving with more varieties on their camera than they can identify. The gorgonian canyons provide the backdrop, but the organisms living among them are the reason photographers return. The archipelago setting also creates a quality rare in the Costa Brava: route choice. The northeast and southwest routes offer substantially different experiences — depth, light, and species composition shift depending on which way you turn from the mooring.

This is a shared site between Palamós and Calella de Palafrugell dive centres, so it can be busy in summer — boats from five operators regularly moor here. The shallow 3-metre minimum depth and wide southwest canyons make it the strongest all-level canyon dive in the area; guides frequently bring mixed-ability groups and split them by route. For macro photography, bring a dedicated lens — the nudibranchs and flatworms reward close focus more than wide angle on this site. The posidonia meadows beyond the main rock offer a peaceful finish to the dive and occasionally reveal cuttlefish hovering above the seagrass.