Scuba diving in the marine park of Pianosa - Buoy SP4

Type of scuba diving: wall
Minimum licence required: base
Depth: min 3 m - max 40 m

This diving area is just off a fringing reef that is near the tiny island of Scola. 

If you swim down at the mooring buoy you will get to the bottom and see it is completely covered in a lush bed of Mediterranean tapeweed at a depth of approximately 15 m.

Keep swimming to the right of the wall and your descent goes eastwards along the seabed covered in Mediterranean tapeweed, if you go down to a depth of at least - 35 m  sand takes its place.

At one point along the wall a small grotto opens up and inside you can see a thick blanket consisting mainly of sponges of all shapes and sizes; here you are at a depth of -30m. 

You continue in a north-eastern direction and here the deepest layer of the field of Mediterranean tapeweed leads on to a surfacing rocks as is the wall behind you, and it looks more like a typical colony of coral. 

The russet coloured seaweed ((Lithophyllum stictaeforme, Mesophyllum alternans), and the great quantity of green seaweed (Flabellia petiolata and Halimeda tuna) make up this underwater panorama. The animal life is also particularly dense, above all sponges and Bryozoa, that inhabit every ravine, as well as the many different species of fish especially groupers.

Now that you have swum down most of the perimeter of the surfacing rock you can swim upwards again towards the main wall. At a depth between -15 m and -5 m on the hill that now lies on your east, facing the open sea, you have some spectacular carousels of damselfish and minus fish that try to avoid being eaten by their enemy red snappers, amberjacks as well as barracudas.