La Huerta

Descent line drops to 5-6m above rocky substrate. Bogas and sargo pass overhead from the start, juvenile schools working the upper water in spring through autumn for sardine and anchovy fry, sometimes with bonito or little tunny driving them from below. The route follows down the side of a pinnacle into the orange-coral zone, where Astroides calycularis and yellow Parazoanthus axinellae coat the rock faces in a thick orange-yellow skin. This is the photographer's section: the nudibranch wall is here, with multiple species across the walls and overhangs.

Around 15m the substrate opens to sand. Torpedo rays sit partly buried on the rubble, stingrays stretch out flat on the wider sandy patches, and in summer and autumn eagle rays cruise low over the bottom or settle on it. Three ray species in one zone is the dive's calling card, and groupers, lobsters and conger eels back into the crevices in the rocky pillars next to the sand. The deepest point comes at the rock edge by the white-sand floor at 19-21m. On steady-current days the route runs as a drift along the wall instead of looping back.

The ascent backs up across the crevice rock and into the boulder ground at 5-8m. The pozas at 3-5m are not a parking spot for the safety stop. Moray eels fill the cracks, small wrasse and blennies move through, and the dive ends with a programme rather than dead time on a line.

Spanish divers have called La Huerta the best site in La Herradura for years. The reason is not a single feature: it is the species count per minute. Rocky-reef communities and sand-floor communities meet in close proximity here, and the overlap is where the variety lives. Rays that need sand sit a few metres from groupers in deep crevices and from a wall covered in orange coral. The pinnacle thickly grown over with yellow encrusting anemones gave the site its name; "the orchard" is what the rock looks like. None of this is at deep-advanced depth: the whole story sits inside 21 metres, which is what separates it from the headland sites that need AOW.

April and May add a behavioural draw. Wrasse build and guard nests on the rocky substrate during spring, an encounter genuinely uncommon in Mediterranean recreational diving. Centres run La Huerta year-round, but a spring trip layers the nesting on top of the regular variety.

Buoyancy is the non-negotiable. Astroides calycularis and Parazoanthus anemones cover the pinnacles thickly, grow slowly, and do not recover from contact. Hover, don't settle. Centres run a buoyancy refresh on the descent line if needed. On high tidal coefficient days the route is dived as a drift along the wall, so confirm direction and the exit plan with the guide before descent. Easter water has logged 15-17°C, so plan a semi-dry or drysuit if you are diving in early spring rather than the May-October window.

The dive is permit-only inside the Maro-Cerro Gordo reserve, but the permit is invisible diver-side: book a boat trip with an authorised centre and the fee is built into the price. Independent boat or shore diving is not permitted in the protected zone.