Lanzarote (February 2025) Dive Trip Report

This was to be my first outing with Reading BSAC, and it proved a good one. We all met up at Gatwick Airport and got an early morning flight out to Lanzarote, leaving behind the gloom of February. After checking into our apartments, we made our way down to the dive centre to sort out kit and pre-dive paperwork. Lanzarote was quite the contrast from what we had left behind – we were now feeling the warm sun on our skin and walking around in shorts and a T-shirt. Safari Diving is perfectly placed with only a short stumble into the sea after kitting up. The apartments are also extremely convenient being only a three-minute walk up the hill from the beach. That evening, we rewarded ourselves for all this effort with a slap-up meal overlooking the sea before an early night dreaming of the diving to come.

On the first day we all took it easy and did a checkout dive on the house reef, ‘Playa Chica’. The visibility was excellent – over 15m. Cuttlefish and octopus abounded, as well as shoals of brightly coloured fish. A second similar dive followed on the house reef, with Sue doing some Sports Diver training with Alex, before we did a night dive that evening. This was a great dive with loads of nocturnal life, and it really was dark!

Cuttlefish says hello

On the second day, Sue buddied again with Alex to finish off the last few bits of his Sports Diver qualification whilst the rest of the group dived ‘The Cathedral’; a deep cave at around 30m with lots of colourful sponges and huge grouper patrolling the area. The second dive that day, ‘Punta Tiñosa’, was a real novelty – diving on some old lava flows. These basaltic beauties provided a stark contrast to the colourful marine life that clung to them.

The Grouper!

The final day saw most of the group dive ‘The Blue Hole’ in the morning, a great underwater swim-through, where we were treated to an angelshark sighting. Sue and Alex did Alex’s 25m depth progression. This meant that we could all dive together on the harbour wrecks in the afternoon, which, in my opinion was one of the best sites. Here, there were no less than six wrecks that had all been purposefully sunk in the 1970s. Huge barracuda patrolled the wreckage amongst shoals of fish. The visibility was excellent, even at 35m.

A Colourful Nudibranch

It’s a hard life, but the last day was spent relaxing in the sun and sampling the local seafood before we headed for the airport. Many thanks to Sue for organising such a great trip. What a way to start the 2025 season!

James Hickman