The Island of La Palma is an impressive destination in many aspects, we recommend our article ‘A week in La Palma’. And one of the main attractions is undoubtedly the marine biodiversity that we can find all year round.
🚤 Boat trips from Tazacorte in La Palma
In the west of the island there is a small coastal town, known for its port and its fish restaurants.
We hired Ocean Explorer La Palma and it was a wonderful experience. The crew was very friendly and the explanations of the biologist were very entertaining and educational. It was two and a half hours, maybe a little longer, that flew by.
This company, although I imagine that the others also, offer a sighting guarantee. In the sense that, in the unlikely event that you don’t see cetaceans, they offer you to repeat the excursion another day.
There are several companies that operate this type of excursion, in the same port there are two of them. The important thing is to make sure that it is a “blue boat”, that is, that it has permits for whale watching.
📌 Tip: take a biodramina before boarding, to avoid getting sea sick. It is a long and bumpy ride on the waves.
Map of some places on the coast that we will see during the excursion
We saw the interesting thing offshore, the marine fauna, but during the excursion you can also see part of the coast, I leave you a map so that you can get an idea of the distances.
🐳 Whale watching in La Palma
The Canary Islands are an ideal place for whale watching. They can be seen all year round.
We saw bottlenose dolphins hunting in a school of fish, while a flock of seabirds (gray shearwaters and seagulls) tried to steal their feast.
We also sighted a lot of spotted dolphins, which accompanied us for a long time, jumping alongside our boat. It was wonderful to see them have fun with us!
In addition to these wonderful mammals, we also saw Portuguese caravels and a loggerhead turtle.
Porís de Candelaria, a town inside a cave
Porís de Candelaria can be accessed by a path of stairs, but it is much more charming to approach it by sea, from where you can see that the town itself is inside a cave. In addition, each of the houses are carved out of the rock.
The Cueva Bonita
La Cueva Bonita is only accessible by sea. It has three entrances and during the excursion we entered through one of them.
🍴 After the excursion: food and beach
There are several fish restaurants around the port, most with a terrace. I recommend asking for the fish of the day and being recommended. And for dessert, one of the typical of La Palma: the Bienmesabe, an almond and honey dessert. Most of the restaurants we saw were very well priced.
And after eating, a little while to the beach that is right in front. It is large and with fine sand, with showers and a lifeguard.
Next to the restaurants there is a bazaar of beach items, in case, like me, you forget your umbrella!
