EL Hierro
Trip report

While starting to scuba dive a few years ago I found that this sport was a great excuse to get away to foreign countries. Visiting places like Tobago, Egypt, Gozo and Canary Islands. The one place I find myself wanting to return to is literally an island nobody knows or has heard of. It is "El Hierro" in the Canary Islands....
This island is like heaven on earth. It is not like the tourist islands of the Canary’s, i.e. Tenerife, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria. It’s the smallest, most westerly island of the 7 Canary Islands. A ferry is needed to get to El Hierro from Tenerife.
The diving here is quite amazing with crystal clear visibility. The island is a marine reserve and is enforced with patrol boats. It’s good to see this and you know your diving in good surrounding waters.

Shane Grey is our travel host for the week. Shane lives in beautiful Conemara in the West of Ireland in summer and in beautiful Tenerife in winter. I’m sure most Irish scuba divers would have heard of Shane’s trips to El Hierro, run in the winter months. He also arranges hill walking. Shane has all the information on his website, www.shane-grey.com. The cost for the package deal including flights transfers accommodation and diving was around €800.
The week I went to El Hierro just happened to be also a GODS week away. The term "Golden Oldies" became loosely attached by Shane Gray in recent years to the divers who joined Ollie and himself regularly on dive holidays abroad, thus the name formed as the Golden Oldies Diving Society

.

This was my third trip to the island. I normally like to visit new countries to get different experiences but the diving in El Hierro is so good and the marine life is stunning, it just makes me return to see more and more. Actually it’s also everything else about the island that completes the holiday. It is a Spanish speaking island and they have little or no English. If you speak a little Spanish, it is acknowledged and appreciated by them.
So we arrive in Tenerife airport to be met by Shane. The group will stay one night in Tenerife and then get the ferry to El Hierro in the morning. We have time in the evening to get a few drinks in one of the many bars in Tenerife. The ferry leaves about 9:00am the next morning (4 hour crossing) so most people have an early night. Everyone is just keen to get diving at this stage.
The dive centre is located in La Restinga, a very small fishing village which is about 1 hour drive from the ferry. This is where our apartments are and only 2 minutes from dive centre. Did I mention there were NO tourists!

The next morning is our first dive. We get ready at 9:00am and put our tanks and equipment into the dive centres van, which transports the gear to the rib (2 minutes walk from the dive centre). The first dive was just around the harbour point, thus the name of the dive site, harbour point. We all kitted up and did our buddy check routine. Once you back into the water for the first time, you suddenly realise how blue the water actually is. The visibility was an amazing 30 meters +. The underwater terrain is mostly rocky with a carpet of green petal algae growing. El Hierro is known by most Spanish divers as a top diving destination, so in the summer months it would be normally full with Spanish divers. As it was out of season in November, we had the all the dive sites to ourselves. There were about 15 divers at one early stage so Shane decided to separate the group into two, thus making it more relaxed on the rib.
The water temperature was a pleasant 22 – 23 degrees according my dive computer. Throughout the week we dived in generally good conditions. All the dives were led dives and we were given a dive briefing just before we backed into the water. The currents can change very quickly in El Hierro so we normally dived where the dive guides (Fernando & David) thought it would be best. The dive sites are not more than a ten minute boat trip from the harbour. We had all sorts of divers with us on this trip, from the “experienced” divers, drift divers, photographer divers, lover divers, night divers to lazy divers. It was an interesting combination.

The fish life we saw on the dives varied from trumpet fish, groupers, rays, moray eels, fire worms, trigger fish, Spanish lobster, parrot fish and more. The dive depths were down to about 34 meters. On one particular dive we were about to start our safety stop at 5m after having a great dive, suddenly Fernando the dive guide, is waving our attention and pointing to the blue. A manta ray glides by us…YES !! Unfortunately the manta ray kept its distance but was a great buzz for all the divers. One fish that is not shy of divers is the groupers. These fish are partly why I return to El Hierro. They can come right up to your face without you even knowing it. If you go slowly near them, you can even get a chance to scratch them under their mouth which they seem to like. One of the divers had his glove snatched by a grouper and had to wrestle with him to get it back. They have great character and follow you throughout your dives. This is what pleasure diving is all about!!!
Probably the most dived site in El Hierro is “El Bajon”. It is a Pinnacle rising from 90m to 9m. The currents can be very strong here, but if you get to dive it with little current, it’s a really beautiful dive. The drop offs are spectacular and I always find it quite a unique feeling when you go over one. There is lots of marine life to look for.

I like to take photographs on all my dives and find it always challenging to get good composure and colour. It’s nice that there are a few other divers with similar interest on the trip. A few of the divers are testing out their new digital cameras and underwater housings for the first time. One lady was a proud user of the nikonos film camera and was testing her new digital setup on this trip. At the end of the week I asked Paula what she thought of her digital image results. Well, let’s just say that Paula was very impressed with the photos that she took and will be using the digital setup in the future.

We normally got lunch in El Bar which is on the same road as the apartments and the dive centre. It was nice to relax and catch some sun rays in between dives.
In the evening time we would all meet up at Shane’s place for “happy hour”. We chatted and looked at diver’s photo slideshows that were taken earlier that day. The group then made their way to one of the local restaurants for some deliciously filling food. As it was a fishing village, the fish menu was very popular. A full course meal could be got for around €17 and the drink is very cheap too. After the meal, people would retire for the night or go to El Bar for some music and laughs. It was all good fun and Shane was a great host for the group. Shane has some great story’s of his friend Denzel !! Anyone who has been to El Hierro with Shane will know the antics Denzel gets up to. Some of us younger divers were also given the title “New kids on the block” as opposed to the Golden Oldies. The crack was 90 and the Spanish locals would look on in amazement to us dancing on the streets. Later on, some of them would even join in on the fun.

If all the partying at night time takes its toll or you just fancy a break from scuba diving, then you could skip a morning dive to relax on the black sandy beach or go for some stunning hill walking around the island.
The weeks diving ends as quickly as it started. On the last day we arrive back in Tenerife, early. The day is spent shopping and relaxing, before we catch our evening flight back to Dublin.

El Hierro is a fantastic dive destination and is open to all levels of scuba divers. Practically all of the divers on this trip had been to El Hierro before, so that’s saying something about the diving there.
From the Gods to the New Kids on the Block, we all had a great time and enjoyed each others company. I’m sure I will return to El Hierro once again. Sometime soon I hope…

Good Diving
Derek