Over 1,345 different marine species have been listed there since Jacques Cousteau went scuba diving there and the Medes Islands ecosystem is justly classified as the exemplary natural reserve in the western Mediterranean.
Preservation of Iles Medes started in 1983, and in 1990 the conservation was extended to the seabed flora and fauna, encouraging an amazing recovery of the natural marine life and changing the area into a refuge for numerous species facing extinction. The areas supporting marine seagrasses like Posidonia oceanica are especially productive as they are the breeding habitats for many crucial species.
The Medes Islands Protected Zone covers an area of 93,2 hectares with an added protected 418 hectare area stretching up to the Montgri coast. A new Natural Park has been proclaimed by the Government of Catalunya to include the coast northward all the way to Cala Montgo, L'Escala.
Tunnels at Medes Islands Marine Reserve
The plentiful tunnels and caves make clear that this limestone archipelago was attached to the Montgri Massif over ten thousand years ago. Today caves around the Medes Islands and up the Montgrí coast towards L'Escala provide exceptional opportunities for divers to experience (with a divemaster) the separate fauna that choose to live in semi-darkness.
One of the most well-known sites at Illas Medes is Dolphin Cave, because of a statue at the southern entrance. Within is a home for large groupers, meagres and shoals of silvery bream. Along the reef outside divers glide through shoals of bream and clouds of anthias at the same time watching out into the blue for cruising eagle rays and visiting sunfish and dolphins.
There's another cave system on one side with its groupers, always ready to pose for photographs, illuminated by a great funnel. Yellow cup corals deck the walls and camouflaged scorpionfish perch unseen on ledges. Mediterranean moray eels and congers live in cracks in the rocks. From here a further tunnel leads back through the island and out onto the reef again, past the most beautiful yellow and red gorgonian corals.
Scuba Diving at Medes Islands Marine Reserve
There are 10 buoyed dive sites, offering the opportunity for diving during every season. A range of depths offers immersions for every level of diver, and even snorkelers can enjoy the colourful spectacle of undersea marine life of the Medes Islands. In the shallow zones we can peer into a dense canopy of brightly lit seaweeds with over a hundred species hosting shoals of silvery bream, colourful wrasse, and delightful nudibranchs. Beneath 10-15 meters we notice light-deprived algae and pretty pink sea perch, large predatory dentex, eagle rays, octopus, lobster and big, friendly groupers. Below 20 meters we enter an area of gorgonian corals inhabited by upwards of 600 species.
The Medes Islands Marine Reserve, with its 65,000 annual dives, is an example of good stewardship. Throughout 2009 scuba divers helped with an assessment of the the Iles Medes ecosystems by filling out questionnaires following their dives. Questions asked about the abundance of different species counted and the number of divers, snorkelers and boats present at the dives sites.
The findings of the ongoing analysis of the Medes Islands Reserve will demonstrate the level of control required to safeguard this small archipelago for future generations. An area of exceptional ecological significance, all the underwater environments to be found in the Mediterranean are represented in the sea floor around the Medes Islands, making the area one of the most fascinating sites for Mediterranean scuba diving.
Mediterranean Recreational Diving Inside The Illas Medes Nature Reserve
Did you know that Jacques Cousteau visited the Medes Islands in his marine research vessel Calypso back in 1955? He drew attention to the need to research, record and preserve the rich ecosystems that he found whilst scuba diving there.
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