Illetes

Illetes are the islets that give the area its name, off the Calvià coast and a stone's throw from Palma. The group is made up of Illa de sa Caleta, Illa de sa Torre —the one with the defence tower on top— and Illa des Pas. You dive between them and along their outer face, and the centres describe it as the islet off the bay of Cala Contesa.

The profile is gentle: you drop down stepped, weed-covered rock until you reach sand and Posidonia seagrass meadows, and the maximum depth is around 25 m with no sharp drop-offs. Sitting inside the Bay of Palma, it is sheltered from almost every wind except the southerly, which makes it the fallback plan when the west coast is rough.

This is small-stuff territory rather than big encounters: cleaner shrimp in the cracks, cornetfish, red mullet, octopuses, moray eels, cuttlefish and schools of damselfish and salema over the seagrass. That is exactly why it works well for macro and for long, quiet dives.

The downside of being so close to Palma is the traffic: plenty of pleasure boats in summer, so fly a marker buoy and ascend along the mooring line or the wall.