Scuba diving Azores

Haliotis Dive Center is located at the Faial Resort Hotel on the island of Faial, Azores. Open from March to November, you have access to showers and changing rooms, an equipment store, a small classroom, and an inflation station. The Haliotis Faial diving school offers PADI courses with Bubblemaker children's diving, Discover Scuba Diver baptisms, and specialties to improve in Digital Underwater Photographer or Aware fish Identification. Go diving onboard Haliotis Faial's semi-rigid boat, The Lioti, 12 meters long, equipped with two 300 HP Yamaha outboard motors. Benches allow divers to sit down during the sea crossing. The access ladder makes it easy and comfortable for them to enter and exit the water. Safety on board is ensured by the presence of an oxygen kit and first aid equipment. A depth sounder allows you to locate the diving spots of Faial, located offshore. You will quickly reach the best dive sites in the Azores, Princess Alice, and Condor. Dives in the narrow channel, 8.3 km wide, between Faial and Pico, are very popular. The climate and ocean currents in the Azores offer unique diving conditions in Faial. Have great encounters with the blue shark (Prionace Glauca) which is the big star in Faial. The diving center Haliotis Faial has even adopted it as its mascot! You can meet it in the open sea but also sometimes in the coastal areas. These sharks seem to become more numerous in Faial as soon as the water temperature varies between 13 and 18°C. Haliotis Faial's instructors will take you to observe these animals with tapered bodies and long and conical snouts, some of them reaching a length of 4 meters and a weight of 205 kg. Be careful, you may have to wait a long time in the water before you can see their big round eyes! [+]

Cetacean Watching Lda is located in Madalena, on Pico Island, Azores. It is located 20 m from the boats, in the center of the marina. Open from March to October, Cetacean Watching Lda offers changing rooms, equipment storage, a classroom, showers, and toilets. Equipment rental is available. Cetacean Watching Lda organizes a package for you to stay with or without diving to see dolphins and/or whales, including 7 nights in a double room in Bed&Breakfast, 3 Whale Watching trips, 1 guided land tour to the lookout, 1 guided tour to Malcolm Clarke's Sperm whale and Squids' Museum and transfers to the airport It is best to stay 7 nights in Pico. Embark from early June to mid-July, on semi-rigid boats from 8 to 24 pax, to observe the sociable behavior of sperm whales and swim with dolphins. The aluminum boat of Cetacean Watching Lda is used for scuba diving. About 20 species of cetaceans pass through Pico, in the center of the Azores, with a 97% success rate in observing them. In July and August, the sea trip lasts 3 hours, and includes 2 to 3 snorkeling dives. You swim with bottlenose dolphins, Atlantic spotted dolphins, common dolphins, Risso's dolphins, striped dolphins. From July to mid-October, trips are organized, depending on the weather, to Princess Alice with a departure at 7 am for a 2h30 trip. This shoal rising from 1,000 meters to 35 meters below the surface, 45 nautical miles from Pico, allows beautiful encounters with Mobula tarapacana, Manta birostris, tunas, barracudas, and sharks. Due to strong currents, you descend along a line. Snorkeling is possible because the rays come up to the surface! [+]

Best Spot Azores Dive Centre is located in Ponta Delgada, on the island of Sao Miguel, Azores. Here you are in a 5 star PADI and AWARE dive center. Nevertheless, PADI training for beginners is in the spotlight with Discover Scuba Diver and Scuba Diver sea baptisms. Choose the 10-dive package with or without equipment rental, if you want to have time to observe pelagic animals. On Best Spot Azores Diving center boats, you have access to around 50 dive sites around Faial Island. Some of the Best Spot Azores dive guides are biologists who give you an educational introduction to the marine life of the Azores. Experienced, they guide you in a calm, relaxed and safe manner. During your diving holiday in the Azores, go on long trips out to sea to observe the passage of rays, tuna, and kingfish in the blue. Take advantage of a diving holiday on Sao Miguel Island to go on snorkeling trips with family and friends, with insurance and equipment included. Best Spot Azores guides explain how to use the equipment, fins, mask, and snorkel and give you technical tips to practice safely. The Best Spot Azores diving club organizes trips to the sea, either for a walk along the coast or for a beautiful encounter with the local fauna, in the middle of the Azores' underwater landscapes, in a zen atmosphere. [+]

The Espirito Azul diving center is located in the marina of Vila Franca do Campo, on the island of Sao Miguel, Azores. Open every day of the year, you make an appointment at Espirito Azul in the morning at 9 am and in the afternoon at 2 pm. For day trips, departure is at 7:00 am with a picnic provided. At Espirito Azul, you will find changing rooms with hot and cold showers, toilets, a store, a workshop to have your equipment serviced, a nitrox, trimix, and oxygen filling station, a room, and a pool of 3, 7, 10, 12 and 15-liter diving cylinders (DIN and INT) with one or two outings. The equipment is provided by Espirito Azul. Fifteen complete sets of equipment are available for rent. There is space to rinse and store your personal equipment. Don't hesitate to bring your rebreather too! When you take your nitrox training at Espirito Azul, you get free nitrox during all your stays in the Espirito Azul dive school! PADI courses for beginners are offered from Discover Scuba Diver to Advanced Open Water Diver. At Espirito Azul, expect two exploration dives per day on one of the 3 RIB boats, starting from the marina of Vila Franca do Campo. Dives include skipper, guide, boat, and gas up to 6 nautical miles from the center, insurance, tank and weights. Visit the best spots in the Azores, in Formigas, and Dollabarat. Ideal for diving with stingrays and eagle rays? Go to Dori and Banco D.Jao De Castro! Snorkeling trips along the coast are also possible. Ask for the photos taken as a souvenir during your dives! The organization of barbecues on the beach and aperitifs in the marina contribute to the nice atmosphere of Espirito Azul. [+]

The Haliotis diving center is located in the Colombo Hotel, on Santa Maria Island, Azores. The infrastructure can accommodate 60 people, with changing rooms, hot water showers with towels, two classrooms for courses from beginner to advanced level, a technical room with 50 pieces of equipment at the disposal of customers, a store selling branded equipment. There is even a place for divers to relax before and after their dives, to chat and have a drink. The Haliotis diving school offers PADI training courses from the Bubblemaker for children to the Discover Scuba Diver course. And of course, Haliotis Santa Maria also prepares you for many PADI specialties including the AWARE Shark Conservation Specialty Course. Embark on one of the two RIB boats, Mobula or Rhincodon, which will quickly take you to the best dive sites in the Azores including Formigas and Dollabarat. However, Haliotis Santa Maria also has a large playground for its divers with 55 dive spots consisting of caves, canyons, drop-offs and reefs. Even close to the coast, you will have beautiful encounters with oceanic species such as manta rays, quite common in some places. Sometimes you can even see them from the surface as they swim by at a depth of 50 meters. The Mobula tarapacana has a nice triangular body shape with a wingspan up to 3.5 meters wide, with a spineless tail. And it has become the mascot animal of Haliotis in Santa Maria! [+]