Mediterranean Diving Guide: Best Places to Dive by Country

Where to dive in the Mediterranean: a comparison

Each country has one or two dives that define it, and a rule that decides how you dive there. The table sets them side by side. Depths are as published; where two sources disagree, both are shown. For other regions, see our destination guides.

Larnaca and Kaş run about 4-6°C warmer than L'Estartit in every month shown, so a May trip to Cyprus and a May trip to Catalonia call for different suits. The next section has the monthly numbers.

Mediterranean water temperature by month

PADI gives May to October as the Kaş season, Divernet rates June to September best at the Medes, and August is the warmest month everywhere in the table. The spread is wide. In February, 10-year averages range from 10.6°C (51°F) at Rovinj in the northern Adriatic to 17.4°C (63°F) at Kaş, a gap of almost 7°C. In August the range is 23.5°C (74°F) at L'Estartit to 28.8°C (84°F) at Kaş.

These are surface figures. PADI's Kaş page mentions thermoclines on deeper dives, so in early summer the water at depth can be colder than these figures. October keeps much of the summer heat: 19-26°C across the table, against 16-21°C in May. Our wetsuit thickness guide turns these numbers into a suit choice.

Malta and Gozo: shore wrecks and caverns

Malta's signature dives are shore entries. The Um El Faroud, a Libyan tanker damaged by an explosion in 1995, was scuttled off Wied iz-Zurrieq on 2 September 1998 and broke in two during the winter of 2005-2006. maltadives.com gives 15 m at the funnel and 36 m at the propeller, while PADI lists 40 m as the maximum. PADI also says entering the wreck is for divers with a wreck certification.

In Gozo, the Blue Hole is about 15 m deep, with an arch into open water at 9 m and a maximum of 25 m on the dive, reached after a 200 m walk over rock. The Inland Sea dive follows an 80 m tunnel that starts at 3 m in the lagoon and reaches 26 m at the seaward end, where the seabed drops to around 50 m. maltadives.com rates both as advanced dives and warns of tourist boats in the tunnel, so stay close to the sides if you surface there.

Visit Malta says divers must complete a medical statement, and that divers who want to dive unaccompanied need a buddy and PADI Advanced Open Water or equivalent. Historic wrecks are managed by Heritage Malta's Underwater Cultural Heritage Unit, which lists 17 sites open to divers through registered dive centres and clubs. Some are technical dives: the HMS Southwold's bow lies at 70 m and its stern at 72 m.

Croatia: Baron Gautsch and the permit system

Croatia is where the paperwork matters most. The government's own guidance says organised diving is open to members of registered diving centres and associations. To dive on your own you need an individual diving authorisation from a harbourmaster's office, which costs 318.53 EUR and is valid for one year. Mark your dive with an orange or red buoy at least 30 cm across or a diver-down flag; at night the buoy needs a strobe visible from 300 m.

Sites with cultural goods, which include protected wrecks, can only be dived with centres that hold a permit from the Ministry of Culture and Media. The ministry awards those permits for five-year periods, and 34 locations are covered for 2024-2029.

The best-known of them is the Baron Gautsch, a passenger steamer that hit a mine in a newly laid Austro-Hungarian minefield on 13 August 1914, killing 127 people. It lies 9 nautical miles from Rovinj at 28-39 m according to Rovinj Sub and 28-40 m according to Wikipedia, and has been a registered cultural monument since October 1995. That depth needs deep training, and the northern Adriatic is the coldest water in this guide: Rovinj averages 10.6°C in February.

Spain and France: Medes Islands and Port-Cros

Both are small, heavily protected areas where the fish are the point. The Medes Islands off L'Estartit in Catalonia were declared protected in 1983. Every dive needs a permit arranged through an authorised dive centre, a daily diver quota applies, and a conservation briefing comes before guided dives. Boats tie to 13 mooring buoys under a booking rotation between centres, anchoring is banned and landing on the islands is forbidden. Dusky groupers are the signature sight, and the Reggio Messina wreck sits at about 32 m (104 ft). Divernet's guide rates June to September as the best period for visibility and fish.

Port-Cros, off Hyères in France, was created in 1963 as Europe's first marine park. Scuba diving in the park's protected waters is prohibited without an authorisation. Every individual diver and every dive centre registers online through the park's CaPeL system and signs the rules; the authorisation is free, covers both Port-Cros and Porquerolles, and runs for a calendar year. Anchoring is prohibited away from the mooring devices, and fishing is banned within 100 m of them. The park names the Gabinière islet and the Vallon and Croix points on Port-Cros, and the Donator and Grec wrecks off Porquerolles, as its dive sites.

Italy: Portofino and the Haven

Portofino's marine protected area is the easy entry point. In zone B you dive with guides from authorised dive centres, or on your own with an annual authorisation, in groups of no more than 5 per diver holding at least a second-level certification. In zone C you can dive on your own or with friends. The Christ of the Abyss statue stands in a small bay inside the park, with its top at about 13 m and its base at about 17 m. The park rates it a low-difficulty dive, with a site maximum of 30 m, and requires divers to stay within 50 m of the mooring inside the small bay.

The Haven, off Arenzano near Genoa, is the opposite: a technical dive. The tanker exploded at anchor on 11 April 1991 with 144,000 tonnes of crude oil on board, lost six crew and sank about 1.5 nautical miles offshore on 14 April. Portofino Divers puts the main deck at about 54 m and the seabed at about 80 m, asks for at least a normoxic trimix certification and notes a coastguard rule of at least one guide for every three divers.

Greece and Cyprus: ancient cargo and the Zenobia

Greece long kept divers away from its underwater antiquities. According to Divernet, archaeological sites could only be visited with qualified archaeological divers until a 2020 law opened them, along with shipwrecks more than 50 years old, to recreational divers, as long as a guide from an authorised Greek dive centre or club is present. The first showcase is the Peristera wreck off Alonissos, launched as an underwater museum in August 2020. The ship dates from around 425-420 BC and carried about 3,000 amphorae according to the museum (Wikipedia estimates 4,200). The museum gives its depth as 25 m and Wikipedia as 20 m; visits run in summer through authorised diving centres.

Cyprus has the Mediterranean's best-known ferry wreck. The Zenobia capsized and sank in Larnaca Bay on 7 June 1980, on her maiden voyage, about 1,500 m from shore. She is 172 m long and lies on her port side with her lorries still aboard: 104 according to Wikipedia, 108 according to the Cyprus Dive Center Association (CDCA). Depth figures are 16-42 m (Wikipedia) and 17-43 m (CDCA). The CDCA lists Open Water as the minimum, and Wikipedia describes beginners diving to 16 m along the starboard side while advanced divers go into the engine room and lower car deck.

Nitrox needs care here. With our nitrox calculator, EANx32 has a maximum operating depth of 33.7 m at a ppO2 of 1.4 bar, about 8 m above the Zenobia's seabed. The best mix for 42 m at 1.4 bar is 26%, so on a standard 32% fill the deepest parts of the wreck are out of bounds.

Turkey: Kaş, Gallipoli and the new wreck parks

Kaş, on the Mediterranean coast, is Turkey's best-known dive base. PADI gives May to October as the season, with water at 20-27°C, visibility that can exceed 30 m and easy shore access, and lists groupers, barracuda, moray eels and loggerhead turtles among regular sightings. A Douglas DC-3 (C-47 Dakota) that once carried Turkish paratroopers was sunk there as an attraction in 2009. DIVE Magazine gives its depth as 26 m, while a local dive blog puts it at 14-22 m.

In the north, the Gallipoli Historical Underwater Park opened on 2 October 2021 with 14 dive sites, according to the Çanakkale governorate, across an area TÜBİTAK gives as 150 km². The headline wreck is HMS Majestic, a 128 m battleship torpedoed by the German submarine U-21 on 27 May 1915, which lies at 18-23 m; Anadolu Agency puts the Lundy at 27 m and the Louis at 14 m. Turkey has also sunk aircraft as reefs, including an Airbus A330 off İbrice Harbour in Edirne province in 2019, at around 30 m.

The rules changed in 2024. An amendment published in the Official Gazette on 25 May 2024 allows tourist dives in areas with protected underwater cultural and natural assets only at places the Ministry of Culture and Tourism sets, with its permission, and in military zones only with the Defence Ministry's approval. In practice, dive with a local centre that knows which sites are open.