If you’re pushed for time, southern Spain is pushing hard for your attention for long-weekend dive trips.
One option is to head for Castellón on the Mediterranean coast of Comunitat Valenciana, with its own airport easily accessed from the UK with Ryanair (or else fly into Valencia, 60 miles away).
Attractions include a day-boat trip to Columbretes Islands Nature Park & Marine Reserve, an archipelago of four volcanic islands with a “very peculiar landscape“ of shoals, reefs, craters and volcanic chimneys, and a population of grouper, barracuda, conger and moray eels, lobsters, sting rays and even sunfish.
A separate boat-trip offers dives on the two 50m-long Burriana cargo shipwrecks sunk in 1995 – the Cala Egos and Litri – also said to be notable for the plentiful marine life populating them, in particular a range of colourful nudibranchs.
This pair of boat-dives with Casa Mar Charters costs 225 euros pp, and the food served, especially on the Columbretes trip, including paella valenciana, is a third big attraction, we‘re told.
