Illes Formigues

The boat moors east of the islets at a fixed buoy, and the line drops to a sandy-rocky cape at around 14 m. From here the dive forks. Keep the wall on your right and the northeast route opens through a series of canyons that drop toward 25 m, their flanks thickening with red gorgonians as the depth builds. Lobsters back into cracks. Moray eels and conger eels watch from gaps in the coralligenous rock. Nudibranchs work the walls in numbers most Costa Brava sites cannot match, and the route can extend to a deeper ridge where an 11 m tunnel between rock walls leads toward the deepest reported point near 42 m.

Turn the other way and the southwest route is wider and brighter. White gorgonians line walls down to about 20 m. Strong light contrasts cut through the canyon mouths, octopus settle in the shallows, and the rock gives way to posidonia meadows over sand on the seaward edge. The dive ends back at the buoy, typically around 50 minutes door to door.

Three things separate Formigues from its Palamós neighbours and they fit on one boat trip. The first is the dual-route system: the same anchorage feeds an Open Water route through wide canyons and an Advanced route through narrower gorgonian channels, so mixed-certification groups dive together without splitting boats. The second is macro density. Visiting divers report multiple nudibranch species per dive at this site specifically, not as a generic Costa Brava claim, with the 12 cm Doris on one Dutch diver's count standing out. The third is the surface scenery itself. Sixteen reddish and grey islets carry a small navigation lighthouse on the largest, and the seabed below has held two layers of history for centuries: the 28 August 1285 Battle of Les Formigues, when Admiral Roger de Lauria's Aragonese fleet defeated French and Genoese ships, and the 1921 collier Paz de Espalza, which sank near the islands. Local centre framing calls Formigues a mythical enclave of the Costa Brava; community accounts are more measured, framing it as a simple dive whose appeal is the beauty of the gorgonian walls. Both readings hold.

The islands sit exposed to easterly weather. Tramuntana, Gregal, and Levant winds at force 3-4 chop the surface and can cancel the crossing from port, so check the forecast before leaving. Centres from both Palamós and Calella de Palafrugell run boats here, which widens booking options compared with single-port sites. A torch is worth bringing for the canyons where scorpionfish flatten against the rock and nudibranchs hide in shadow. The site can get busy in high season with multiple boats moored above the canyons; early departures avoid the crowd. Discover Scuba Diving for divers over 12 requires a doctor's diving fitness certificate under Spanish and Catalan regulations, and local centres enforce it.