Tufia

The descent is gentle, through a field of seaweed that thins out around 6 to 7 metres and opens onto sand, slate and loose stones. Bear left and a small cave appears with an entrance and exit on different sides, a large anemone on its walls and, some days, a black stingray settled inside. Past it the route follows a rocky wall out towards open water, where shoals of bogue and damselfish gather. Divers with air and experience to spare go on to a yellow gorgonian on top of a rock past 19 metres, then cross a sand flat where sea cucumbers and nudibranchs share the bottom with rays and the old anchors and weights fishermen once used to hold their boats. The last stretch brings you back into the cove, with sargo feeding in the shallows beside the bathers.

Swim back over the cave roof and the bubbles you exhaled inside trace your path upward through the rock. That small detail comes with a sheltered inner cove, a shore entry and a soft descent, which is why Tufia is among the sites that centres and instructors prefer for baptism dives, while certified divers get the wall, the gorgonian and the sand flat on the same entry. One Telde diver with 25 years at the site recalls few fish in the early days because of poaching, and credits steady diver presence with deterring it. Silky sharks pass the Telde coast in some years: a photographer placed one of almost four metres off Tufia beach in 2024, and divers describe August 2023 as near-daily sightings followed by months with none. Divers who have met them call them harmless, and the usual no-touch conduct applies.

Most of the effort is on land. The way from the car to the water is long and the climb back is steep, and each diver carries 25 to 30 kg of kit plus a weight belt, so leave time and energy for the return. The entry is shared with swimmers, so go in and out under control. Parking is a local sore point: some residents object to divers taking spaces, which divers put at under 10% of the total.