Dive Sites - Playa Quemada, Lanzarote (& some scooter fun)

I would be the first to admit that I have a “childish” streak in me, but then again don’t most men? What’s that got to do with diving? Well it will, I hope become apparent soon.

After all these years of diving here in Lanzarote, we went to try yet another new dive site, it was at a small fishing village called Playa Quemada. Looking on the Marine chart, it showed a 500mtr contour line about 300 to 400mtrs out, so we decided to use the underwater scooters as these are highly maneuverable and you can almost fly underwater.

This of course brought out the childish streak, and I ended up in an underwater “dog fight” with Brian (Von Ricthoven). During our challenge, he performed a stylish stall turn and managed to crash nose first into the sandy part of the reef. Now he might have got away with that, but this part of the reef had a proliferation of black sea urchins with long spines, which commensurate with the Island councils wish to rid the Island of them, he proceeded to try and destroy with his hands. The poor bloke was picking the spines out of his fingers and gloves for ages!

Divers are not the most sympathetic of people, although we did offer to urinate over his hands, as someone once mentioned that can help the pain, but Brian took it in good heart and simply picked away until the worst offenders were removed.

So, what about the dive? Its not the best, vis was poor at around 15 to 20 mtrs and there is not much of a reef to see, but we did reach an area where it clearly drops off dramatically.  There as plenty of fish life around this area with a very large Amberjack, and a shoal of  30 or more Bonito, and I am pleased to say we found a large fish trap that had come loose from its line. Inside were 3 beautiful Dorada, and a large Grouper - they are now free in the Ocean.

On shore we met a local fisherman, who told us we were diving on the wrong part of the reef, so following his instructions we will be trying the new location soon, watch this space.

Note from Scuba Mike: I was also due to be on this dive, but sadly the scooter I had hired leaked and gave up before I’d got more than 10 meters off shore. This was the worst kind of dive, I got all my kit on, got wet and then had to get out and take everything off and clean it, without even being able to log it as a dive. My bad mood was lightened but the arrival of Brian and his hand full of urchin spikes, however!

Are you are Gordonisimo subscriber yet? If not, join our dive community today! We’ll update you when we add new posts to the site, and we’ll email you from time to time with special offers related to diving and diving holidays. Use the form top left - all we need is your first name and email address.