First dives in France (Mediterranean sea)

[Dody]

Hello,
Until now, I had never dived in France, my country. Only in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America. This summer, my wife and I are taking advantage of a friend's invitation to dive in Nice. On the bright side, the dive presented as multi-level was rather "challenging". Lots of side and down currents. The former owner of the club (Chango diving) told me that in 50 years, he'd never seen anything like it. On the bad side, I've never seen a sea so poor in animal or plant life: no fish or so few and so small as aquarium fish. No corals even in the coral grotto. Almost a desolate landscape. It seems that this is not due to pollution but rather to the temperature, which is rising sharply. These were my first two dives in the Mediterranean and I booked 3 more in advance. I'm afraid I made the wrong choice. At least it was sporty. Do you know of any sites in the Nice area that are more interesting in terms of biodiversity?

 

[Redtwo]

This was frejus a couple weeks ago (close to nice). Great dive and plenty of fish (also some groupers/moray eel/forkbeard fish/peters fish)

 

[jborg]

I haven’t dived there myself yet, but hearsay is that Port Cros and Porquerolles are good. It’s a little west of Nice though, more than a day trip.

Did a dive at Frejus last year and there were a few groupers, octopus, and a fair amount of smaller fish.

 

[Scared Silly]

25 years ago I dove out of Juan les Pins regularly. The shop in the area now is Easy Dive.

 

[paddydiver]

Well I did my very first dives in Nice 25 years ago and apart from sponges there was absolutely nothing to see!
I'd say it's down to chronic overfishing along with historic pollution more then rising temperature.

 

[Njord fr]

I haven’t dived there myself yet, but hearsay is that Port Cros and Porquerolles are good. It’s a little west of Nice though, more than a day trip.

Did a dive at Frejus last year and there were a few groupers, octopus, and a fair amount of smaller fish.

+1 !

 

[JMBL]

It seems that this is not due to pollution but rather to the temperature, which is rising sharply.

Only too true...

Concerning diving : you had bad luck indeed.I've been diving the area from Menton to Nice (Tombant des Américains) for the last 30 years (summer time) and like it a a lot. Try Villefranche sur Mer (former Chango diving location), or le Cap Martin, Antibes-Juan les Pins, in front of the Lerins islands (Dante's Inferno for example).

In le Var, St Raphael or Fréjus (le Rubis a FFL submarine wreck) are nice too, but it's a 1h30 drive from Nice (depending on the season : in Summer, it's a pain in the neck...). Further away, as already stated, the natural reserve in Port Cros - Porquerolles (La Gabinière, le Sec du Sarranier...) is wonderful, and there are also tons of wrecks in le Var (le Donator, le Grec, le Hellcat, le Togo...).

Further away, around Marseille and Cassis, you've got terrific diving as well : Riou, le Grand Congloué, les Impériaux, les calanques... Only problem there : cold water because of the many underground rivers reaching the sea in the area, and the damned Mistral (cold wind, which made the sea rough...).

Just keep in mind that the best dives in that part of the Med are below 30 m, which implies deco diving. The play ground extends to 60m and below. Finding Nitrox for deco is not that easy and as far as trimix's concerned, it's even worse, alas.