Boat tower

Boat Tower is an advanced dive on Fuerteventura's western coast, its name suggesting either a navigational structure — a beacon tower associated with maritime navigation on this exposed coast — or a formation that combines the silhouette of a boat with the vertical character of a tower. The western coast of Fuerteventura, facing the open Atlantic toward the Americas, has a dramatic and exposed character quite different from the island's more sheltered northern and eastern shores, and this advanced site reflects that exposure in its depth, current, and the pelagic wildlife encounters it can deliver. Fuerteventura's western coast is among the least visited sections of any Canary Island's coastline — the exposure to the prevailing Atlantic swell makes beach access difficult, and the dive sites here are exclusively accessible by boat from the nearest harbours. This isolation is exactly the quality that makes western coast diving exceptional: the marine life here develops with minimal human pressure, and the combination of productive Atlantic upwelling and low fishing pressure creates an underwater environment of genuine natural richness. The advanced characteristics at Boat Tower include significant depth — the western coast formations descend dramatically from the shoreline — and the variable current that the exposed Atlantic position generates. Current management is the primary technical demand, but when conditions allow effective drift along the formation, the wildlife encounters that current creates are the site's greatest reward. Large amberjack schools hunt in the current, barracuda patrol the reef face, and the open water beyond the formation offers the possibility of pelagic encounters that the productive western Atlantic delivers in this part of the Canary Islands. The basalt formations of the western coast are encrusted with the Atlantic community of sponges, gorgonian fans, and hard coral that flourishes in productive, current-swept water. Large grouper occupy deep crevices in the formation, and the occasional angel shark rests on sandy sections between basalt outcrops. Advanced western Fuerteventura diving at its most characterful.