Pecio Arona

A refrigerated cargo ship 96.7 metres long lies on her starboard side on the sand, and the way to her is a fixed line from a surface buoy into open blue water, with no reef or shore in sight. The buoy has been tied to one of the wreck's loading-crane gantries since about 2021. The descent is direct and always on the line, and so is the ascent, because conditions on the bottom can differ a lot from the surface.

One route goes first to the bow and down to the sand at 36 metres, to look under the curve of the starboard hull. It then climbs to the deck line, shallower than 30 metres, and passes through short stretches of the open holds, where black coral grows on the walls, and beside the three deck cranes. These are brief passes through open spaces, not the long interior corridors or the engine room, which are for divers trained in wreck penetration. The route leaves toward the stern and finishes along the port rail at 20 to 25 metres. Another operator keeps the whole dive shallower: it starts on the deck at about 15 metres, heads for the bow and ends by leaving the hull for blue water, where the barracuda are. Which version you get depends on the operator, so ask for its depth plan.

The barracuda are the animals of this dive: a resident group of large fish, sometimes hundreds strong, circling in open water at about 15 metres depth, well above the sand. Around the wreck hangs a thick cloud of bogue, and amberjack hit it from time to time. On the sand beside the hull lie angelsharks and rays, and morays use the plating.

The wreck keeps changing. Winter storms in 2007, 2014 and 2026 each took sections. Stern deck, engine room and much of the aft superstructure have collapsed, leaving a wide gap between the stern and the rest of the hull. The bow penetration into the first hold fell in during April 2026, when the bow cracked and tilted about 15 degrees onto the sand, and other penetrations that were once safe have become very dangerous. An average dive on the standard profile runs about 39 minutes.

Barracuda gather by the hundred in the open water over a 96-metre cargo ship that burned and sank in 1978, a resident shoal that draws most divers here.

By one specialist's account, it became the island's main wreck dive when the older wrecks in the Rada Norte off Puerto de la Luz lost diver access in November 2013, after the quay at La Esfinge was built. The Arona suited the role: a ship of good size, close to Las Palmas, at a depth divers can reach, with many corners to explore. Operators from Las Palmas, Telde and the north coast run it.

Two fish from the Gulf of Guinea, the Monrovia doctorfish and the sergeant major, appeared on the wreck in July 2014, and arrivals of this kind are attributed to offshore oil platforms.

She was built at the ASTANO yard in El Ferrol, launched on 26 May 1967 and delivered on 15 February 1968 as the refrigerated cargo ship Carmen M. de Pinillos, 1,758 gross tonnes, 96.70 metres long and 13.80 metres in beam. Her first voyage opened the first refrigerated banana line between the Canary Islands and mainland Spain. In 1974 she was sold to Naviera del Sur and sailed from then as Arona.

In April 1978 she reached Las Palmas from Abidjan on the 17th to load frozen fish for Lagos, Nigeria. An engine-room fire broke out at sea after she sailed again. The crew of 24 abandoned ship, a Dutch ship and a Spanish trawler came to help, and the trawler took her in tow. The fire flared again with explosions on 23 April, and she sank that evening off Punta Jinamar.1 One account adds that the tug Tamaran asked the owner for permission to beach her at Bocabarranco and was refused.

Line cutters matter here: non-professional rod fishing is permitted in the area, and Buceo Norte makes a cutter or knife mandatory on its dives. It also requires a surface marker buoy, to be launched before any emergency ascent away from the fixed line. Current is moderate to strong and can reverse, and the sea can be very hard. From Taliarte the crossing is quick but usually rough in wind and swell, and seasickness is a real possibility.

With 80 bar or more left in a 12-litre cylinder, a second dive at the shallow Cueva de los Chuchos de Jinamar cavern is possible from the same boat.

Ask the operator for the wreck's current state before using any older route description, and keep to the holds it confirms.