Diving the Canary Islands

Sue and Michael regularly escape the darkest days of the Highland winter with trips to the Canary Islands.

Below is a small selection of Sue's photographs from these warm temperate Atlantic islands. Please contact Sue of you are interest in other Canary Island underwater photographs for any publications.  See here for some of Michael's land photographs from La Palma in the Canaries.

Note that this website only allows us to display extremely low resolution images; all the photographs displayed are available either as 35mm transparencies or as high-quality digital images with a minimum size of 2GB.

All images copyright Sue Scott

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BEACH SCENE, FUERTEVENTURA This is the sort of view that attracts most visitors to the Canary Islands, but for Sue and Michael the islands have much more to offer.	ABOVE AND BELOW THE SHORE Even the shallow waters of sheltered lagoons like this one in Fuerteventura can be remarkably rich in marine life.
NEW PERSPECTIVES Simply snorkelling is enough to display the diverse and colourful life of Canary shores. In the Canaries, a wet suit isn't even essential, although it does help you stay in the water longer and see more!	MOROCCAN BLENNIES (Parablennius parvicornis) Moroccan blennies live in rock pools, feeding on various algae. Groups of them gather in the zone of breaking waves, feeding on plant material brought in with the incoming tide,
ATLANTIC PARROTFISH (Sparisoma cretense) The parrotfish ~ known as 'Vieja' in Spanish ~ is one of the most abundant Canary island fish. Specimens on Fuerteventura and Lanzerote can grow to 50cm long.	LIZARDFISH (Synodus synodus) Other fish are a little harder to find! The Lizardfish ('Lagarto' in Spanish) lives half-buried in the sand, waiting to snap up its prey. Its colour adds to a perfect disguise.
SEASLUG Sheltered rocky shores and lagoons around the Canary islands are full of colour, like this seaslug, although you need a torch to see these colours beneath a metre or so.	FIREWORM (Hermodice carunculata) This polychaete worm is strikingly coloured to warn that its hairs are poisonous. This one, photographed in Fuerteventura, is feeding on an anemone.
DIVER FEEDING STINGRAY There are several excellent dive companies on the Canary Islands that organise dive trips. Several have sites where they regularly feed fish, as with this common stingray (Dasyatis pastinaca) on Tenerife.	GUELLY JACKS (Pseudocaranx dentex) Shoals of these busy fish gather over both rocky and sandy shores, especially near the entrances to caves. They often come to inspect divers, as here on Fuerteventura.
LAVA GOBY (Mauligobius madarensis) This little fish is common in rocks pools all round the Canary Islands and Madeira. It can cope with major changes in temperature and salinity as the pools dry out in the sun.	YELLOW GORGONIAN As well as fish, there is plenty of other colourful marine life to be seen underwater in the Canaries, like this yellow gorgonian ~ a type of sea fan.