Tabarca is a tiny island 11 nautical miles off Alicante and Spain’s first marine reserve (Reserva Marina de la Isla de Tabarca, established in 1986). For a spearfisher it’s a place with a twist: all fishing and spearfishing are completely prohibited in the reserve’s integral zone — and that is exactly why the underwater life here is what open waters lost long ago.

Why people come to dive

The island is ringed by dense meadows of Posidonia oceanica, the protected Mediterranean seagrass. It’s the nursery and canteen of the whole area: grouper that don’t fear people, schools of sea bream and saddled bream, dentex, meagre, rare large specimens. On a calm day visibility easily passes 15–20 metres, and fish let you come close — because here nobody hunts them.

What you can and can’t do

  • Not allowed: hunting or any fishing in the integral zone. Fines run into tens of thousands of euros, and it’s no empty threat — the reserve is patrolled.
  • Allowed: diving, snorkelling, watching and filming. The buffer zones around the core have their own restrictions — check the zoning before you enter the water.

The reserve’s boundaries and the status of each zone are on our zone map. Tabarca belongs to Valencia, so before any trip nearby, read the community rules.

What it actually looks like

A full underwater tour of the island is in the channel’s video. A reserve is the best place to see what the Mediterranean was like before us — and to understand why minimum sizes and no-take zones deserve respect: they are precisely the reserve of fish that keeps spearfishing outside possible.