Puertito

Boats settle inside the bay around 6 metres, over sand that opens quickly into a seagrass meadow. Cuttlefish, seahorses and lizardfish tend to work this first stretch. The profile rises gently from there toward a rocky ledge ringing the mouth of the bay, where the terrain gets more textured: short crevices and small caves hold moray eels and octopus, and trumpetfish, damselfish and nudibranchs concentrate wherever the rock gets broken up. Barracuda schools move along this transition often enough to be a regular feature rather than a lucky extra. It's a short swim from sand to structure, nothing technical about the route, and shallow enough that a slow pace costs you nothing in bottom time.

Most Tenerife sites sell you a story about what you'll definitely see. Puertito sells you an honest one instead. What happens with the turtles now is genuinely unresolved: one dive centre still reports them working the bay regularly, another says they've become rare. Neither is spinning a sales pitch. That kind of transparency is unusual, and the reef holds up on its own between seagrass, ledge structure and a steady barracuda presence, so the dive works even on the days the turtles don't show.

A resident turtle colony really did live in this bay, built up over years because visitors fed the animals and encouraged them to overstay their natural migration. It ended badly. In 2016, a turtle known locally as "Legends" was found dead in an illegal fishing net here, and the incident drew enough public criticism that the surviving turtles were moved to La Gomera for a calmer recovery. Feeding wildlife is what caused the harm here, not a reason to expect it now. Separately, in September 2024, Spain's national geological survey listed the bay's exposed volcanic deposits as a protected site of geological interest, and the undeveloped land behind the beach has become the focus of a long-running local campaign against a proposed resort. None of that changes the dive itself, but it explains why this small bay gets talked about far more than its size suggests.

Small-boat traffic is a notable factor in this bay, so stay close to your guide and check the surface before ascending. Visibility swings more than the marketing suggests. Pack a torch for the ledge crevices even in daylight; that's where the moray eels and nudibranchs tend to sit. If the turtle story interests you, ask your operator what they've actually seen lately rather than what the brochure promises.