Scuba diving in Giannutri - Punta San Francesco

Type of scub diving: wall
Minimumm licence required: advanced
Depth: min 12 m, max 90 m

Scuba diving here is very near the full protection zone of the marine protected area of Giannutri so you are sure of seeing spectacular things at any depth.

You will see the area is marked off by two mooring buoys at a depth of approximately 12/14 m on top of a seabed that consists of both surfacing rocks and, at other times, oceanic Posidonia.

Head eastwards/south eastwards and you will get to the real reason for your scuba diving here because you will come up against a large wall that is very rich in typical,coral coloured organisms. The verge at approximately -25/30 metres opens out to a sandy seabed until -50 then , as far down as -90 metres, and this gives way to the perfect area for technical scuba dinving.

The flourishingrusset coloured seaweed and the green seaweed are typical of this underwater scenery, but the animal component is also very rich thanks to the beautiful gorgonia fans that are both yellow and red as well as the sponges and the bryozoans that you will often see growing out of the larger gorgonia branches.

In the ravines among the surfacing rocks and in the cracks of the cliff you can make out largeredfish and lobsters very easily, while in the deep blue water you will see barracudas and gred snapper fish.

Punta San Francesco is the perfect site if you want to take underwater photographs.

If you swim back towards the surface you will cross a rocky seabed that is slightly unlevel full of white, fan shaped gorgonias, which then leads on to the mooring chain where you will see many groupers and moray eels and you might even spythe odd electric ray.

The passage from the scuba diving is taken from the leaflet "The hidden Archipelago. Scuba diving routes in the Tuscan National Archipelago”