cave diving in mallorca

[11973]

anyone got any experience of cave diving in mallorca? i would have thought it would be lava tubes and seem to remember reading about shek diving caves there. any contacts/info greatly appreciated as my parents live there and have just informed me they are returning to the uk over the next two years so i need to use there hospitality while i can.

regards

nick

[Rod]

There are some freshwater caves in the North West of the island. Try Octopus diving in Soller for some info as the owner is a caver.

[AMW]

Mallorca is mostly limestone the CDG ran a number of trips to look at sumps in the late 1980,s to early 1990,s driven by Owen Clark of the Welsh section. Try a message on the CDG board there is also a book on the caves available from Tony Oldham tonyfoldham@hotmail.com not a huge book but some basic information.

Any number of dive operations that have excursions in to coastal caves the inland caves can have access problems.



Andrew

[Foggy]

Albatross diving have a few sites they use:-
Albatros Diving, PADI dive centre, diving school, Cala Bona, Cala Millor, Majorca
I've also done a few further down the east coast.

All limestone, with stalactites etc.
Most commercial operators will only take experienced divers into caverns (and only after they've seen you in the water), hence they don't do it often.
A couple of Diveguides from Skualo took me on their day off (NB diveguides turnover every year - so may not get same offer)

Hope that helps

-Paul

[joel corrigan]

Lava tubes? No, no, no: limestone. Think you may be thinking about the Canary Islands as Mr Exley did a lot over there? Mallorca boasts some of the best cave diving around. In fact, unless the lists have changed it's got the longest underwater cave in Europe (Cova de se Gleda). The caves in the north (around Soller) are at higher altitude, cold & active whereas the southern caves are generally old, inactive & well decorated.

Since I was actively exploring the place in the late '90's access has tightened up & it's now very, very difficult to sneak into the more accessible sites. Fresh water is a precious commodity on the island & if you're caught diving on someone's land then the police take a dim view of it: tales of confiscated kit were common in the past. So I'd suggest that you avoid the inland sites & talk to the dive operators about the sea caves. As it is, they won't know many of the inland sites anyway (although in the past one or two of the main explorers on the island worked in dive shops so you could be lucky).