Trip Report Shore Diving in Tenerife

[MikaelT]

Hi,

First post, but long-time reader and felt that I wanted to give something useful back to the community.

I am diver in Belgium (where we have some interesting quarries and lakes) but this time of year it's just not too fun to dive in 4 degree water. I therefore did some research on where I could go, reasonably cheap and quickly to find good diving. My eyes fell on Tenerife and since it has plenty of cheap direct flights (about 4-5 hrs) from Brussels as well as ample options for accommodations in all price brackets, it was a simple choice to go there for week.

My research led me to the town of Abades just north of the south airport of Tenerife and I chose to dive with Tenerife Diving Academy, a dive center directly located just 150 meters from the calm Abades Bay (which is also a protected marine reserve). This dive center is specialised in Dive Master training courses, something they offer as six-week long sessions for a whole class of budding DMs. I was lucky enough to come for fun diving when they where in between course which meant I got some really nice VIP attention.

The diving is predominantly shore based in Tenerife, although there are some spectacular dive sites that requires boat access. For my week, I was quite pleased just enjoying what was on offer from shore and also within just about a 20-30 min drive from Abades.
Apart from doing several dives in the bay of Abades where I saw turtles, barracudas, sting rays, electric rays, as well as the spectacular angel-shark, we also experienced the following sites:

• Montaña Amarilla
• Las Eras
• Tabaiba – El Pejin (wreck)
• El Poris

All sites offered good parking and rather easy access directly from shore (or even with ladders etc). Most of the sites are within the OW depth range, except the Tabaiba wreck where you need to qualified for depth of about 30-35 meters.

My impressions are very positive, both from the abundance o interesting dive sites and the plentiful and varied marine life present. It would have been simple to stay for a couple of more days and not feeling bored or lacking in diving options. Temperatures ranged form about 19-22 degrees in the water and around 24 topside.
Unfortunately, this was a windy week so there were some waves and swell which according to my knowledgable guides contributed to degraded visibility. With my background and what I am used to, this was not any problem for me - I found the visibility to be perfect and allowed for many great encounters with fantastic species underwater.

A final few words about the dive center. Since I am side mount diver, I travelled with everything except for bottles and weights. They had no problem supplying with with 12l steel HP bottles like I use at home, but should I have wanted Al80s, they had plenty of those as well. We used air for all dives since none of the sites visited really required Nitrox. If you are a recreational diver or would like to travel light, TDA offers to rent you everything you need. I choose to dive in dry suite, but all others were in 5 or 7 mm wetsuits which seems to be the standard for the island.

I really recommend Tenerife as a dive location for us cold European divers that long for warm waters and nice marine environments. This island has a lot to offer for us, while keeping the logistics and costs down.


There are more pictures and some videos from the dive center's Instagram

Instagram

 

[Blackcrusader]

What was the water temperature in Tenerife?

 

[MikaelT]

I pulled the data from my Shearwater and it says 19 centigrades as the lowest (66F) up to 22 centigrades (72F).

I used a drysuit with a very thin base-layer and a 3 mm hood. But plenty of others dove without hoods and gloves.

 

[jale]

Hi.
Good info. Can you just rent tank and go diving on your own? Or maybe it is what you did and didn't get it.
Thanks

 

[MikaelT]

Hi.
Good info. Can you just rent tank and go diving on your own? Or maybe it is what you did and didn't get it.
Thanks

If you are properly certified I am sure they allow to just rent tanks and equipment. Although I solo dive sometimes here at home, I really appreciated the guiding that was offered plus the fact that we used their car to drive to the various sites. This enabled me to avoid having to rent my own vehicle for the stay.