Dive from boat - intermediate level.The cave (cueva in Spanish) of el Palm-Mar is half way from Las Galletas to Los Cristianos, just in front of the real-estates monster which composes the mushroom town of El Palm-Mar.
The vertical cliffs of the mountain of Guaza take shape at the horizon. While arriving on site, the glances turn to the piscicultural farms at about fifty meters from us. It is very frequent to see dolphins between the net cages. But the area is formally prohibited in order not to disturb the production. It is 10 hours am and it is already the rush hour with the presence on site of two other scuba dive centres from las Galletas and a third one from los Cristianos. This time the descent is done inside a continuous bubbles flow, it is crowded down there. We cross away the plateau at about 15 metres depth. Tiny air bubbles escape between the algae and the rock. In fact, the plateau is the roof of the cave, huge, and the bubbles which escape from it belong to our predecessors.
We will visit the cave on our way back. Our objective is a little deeper. Three large rock pitons rise above the sandy bottom, majestic. Formerly, a statue of dolphin decorated one of them. Time, bad treatments from the divers and certainly a waterproof kleptomaniac get rid of it. We glide slowly between the abrupt rocks. Signs on the sand clearly indicate that we may find rays in the neighbourhood and especially butterfly rays. Garden eels are present as far as the eye can see. We scan the blue in search of pelagic, small tunas or big hamber jacks.
It is at 33 metres than we stop the descent, just at the feet of the Nuestra Señora del Carmen's impressive statue, fishermen patron saint. The most impressive is the lack of marine life around this statue. Lizard fishes certainly dissuaded the poor young damselfish to settle down there. The statue offers only few hidden recesses to be protect from them, and without means of defence, the other fishes would become then an easy prey. I carry out a slow 360° degree to enjoy the beauty of the blue, in search of an heralding shadow. But the group begins its ascent and I join quickly my dive buddy.
We move then in the cave direction. On the way, it appears me to have crossed more divers than trumpet fishes. Where the Hell are they? But we already arrived at our next stop. A cross was placed down there, at the entrance of the cave. Down on my knees, my eyes do not cease going and coming from the cross to the darkness of the cave. This shape of dark open mouth does not stop reminding me about the safety instructions given during the briefing: “this cave is dangerous, several divers have died, lost inside, and this cross is there in order that we do not forget about it: so we do not enter”. A beautiful sea star climbs with an extreme slowness the last centimetres which separates it from the top of the cross. During a short moment, time seemed to stop.
We get closer to the entrance of the cave. The ceiling is situated at approximately four metres height. Inside, we can see the bottom which goes up until almost touching the ceiling. A dune of sand seems to block the entry. Indeed, all the bottom of the cave consists of sand. It is thus necessary to pay great attention on the kicking not to lift it up and to lose the poor remaining visibility that stays for us, after all these continual comings and goings of divers' groups. Our guide switches on his torchlight and shows us a magnificent and huge sea anemone escorted by its two cleaning shrimps. It is enormous and is located at the junction of the sand and the wall, on the left hand side when we face the cave. Too many particles in suspension for this time, there will be no photo …
The cave of El Palm-Mar is also called “Cueva de la Morena” (the cave of the morey eels). They are everywhere. They are nested in arc of circle on the outside face of the vault. We can find on this site multitude of black morays, brown morays, and even some tiger morays. Their attitude is typical. When we approach, they do not hesitate to come to us, keeping sometimes nearly half of their body out of their hole. Hold on! Feeding is in the air… We go along the falling on the left hand side. Wide cracks are the refuge of the biggest brown moray eels that I had the luck to observe on the Tenerife dive sites. Some share their hole with other congeners, a delight for underwater photographers.
Some quick shots and we leave the underwater cliff to swim back to the plateau at shallower depth. The eradication campaigns of the lime sea urchin allowed a full growth of a huge seabed carpet made of algae Cotoniella filamentosa. It covers the rock as far away as the eye can see. Its filamentous aspect does not make it very attractive. It is while going up slowly to the safety stop my thoughts lead me to this question: Is there any relationship between the contamination of the fish farms and the massive growth of these algae? To be continued…
The vertical cliffs of the mountain of Guaza take shape at the horizon. While arriving on site, the glances turn to the piscicultural farms at about fifty meters from us. It is very frequent to see dolphins between the net cages. But the area is formally prohibited in order not to disturb the production. It is 10 hours am and it is already the rush hour with the presence on site of two other scuba dive centres from las Galletas and a third one from los Cristianos. This time the descent is done inside a continuous bubbles flow, it is crowded down there. We cross away the plateau at about 15 metres depth. Tiny air bubbles escape between the algae and the rock. In fact, the plateau is the roof of the cave, huge, and the bubbles which escape from it belong to our predecessors.
We will visit the cave on our way back. Our objective is a little deeper. Three large rock pitons rise above the sandy bottom, majestic. Formerly, a statue of dolphin decorated one of them. Time, bad treatments from the divers and certainly a waterproof kleptomaniac get rid of it. We glide slowly between the abrupt rocks. Signs on the sand clearly indicate that we may find rays in the neighbourhood and especially butterfly rays. Garden eels are present as far as the eye can see. We scan the blue in search of pelagic, small tunas or big hamber jacks.
It is at 33 metres than we stop the descent, just at the feet of the Nuestra Señora del Carmen's impressive statue, fishermen patron saint. The most impressive is the lack of marine life around this statue. Lizard fishes certainly dissuaded the poor young damselfish to settle down there. The statue offers only few hidden recesses to be protect from them, and without means of defence, the other fishes would become then an easy prey. I carry out a slow 360° degree to enjoy the beauty of the blue, in search of an heralding shadow. But the group begins its ascent and I join quickly my dive buddy.
We move then in the cave direction. On the way, it appears me to have crossed more divers than trumpet fishes. Where the Hell are they? But we already arrived at our next stop. A cross was placed down there, at the entrance of the cave. Down on my knees, my eyes do not cease going and coming from the cross to the darkness of the cave. This shape of dark open mouth does not stop reminding me about the safety instructions given during the briefing: “this cave is dangerous, several divers have died, lost inside, and this cross is there in order that we do not forget about it: so we do not enter”. A beautiful sea star climbs with an extreme slowness the last centimetres which separates it from the top of the cross. During a short moment, time seemed to stop.
We get closer to the entrance of the cave. The ceiling is situated at approximately four metres height. Inside, we can see the bottom which goes up until almost touching the ceiling. A dune of sand seems to block the entry. Indeed, all the bottom of the cave consists of sand. It is thus necessary to pay great attention on the kicking not to lift it up and to lose the poor remaining visibility that stays for us, after all these continual comings and goings of divers' groups. Our guide switches on his torchlight and shows us a magnificent and huge sea anemone escorted by its two cleaning shrimps. It is enormous and is located at the junction of the sand and the wall, on the left hand side when we face the cave. Too many particles in suspension for this time, there will be no photo …
The cave of El Palm-Mar is also called “Cueva de la Morena” (the cave of the morey eels). They are everywhere. They are nested in arc of circle on the outside face of the vault. We can find on this site multitude of black morays, brown morays, and even some tiger morays. Their attitude is typical. When we approach, they do not hesitate to come to us, keeping sometimes nearly half of their body out of their hole. Hold on! Feeding is in the air… We go along the falling on the left hand side. Wide cracks are the refuge of the biggest brown moray eels that I had the luck to observe on the Tenerife dive sites. Some share their hole with other congeners, a delight for underwater photographers.
Some quick shots and we leave the underwater cliff to swim back to the plateau at shallower depth. The eradication campaigns of the lime sea urchin allowed a full growth of a huge seabed carpet made of algae Cotoniella filamentosa. It covers the rock as far away as the eye can see. Its filamentous aspect does not make it very attractive. It is while going up slowly to the safety stop my thoughts lead me to this question: Is there any relationship between the contamination of the fish farms and the massive growth of these algae? To be continued…
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