Franata di Ponente

The dive

Franata di Ponente is the western, seaward flank of the islet off Isola delle Femmine, inside the Capo Gallo — Isola delle Femmine marine protected area west of Palermo. The name is the one the local SSI centre uses for its own trip: it puts the site west of the islet, about ten minutes by boat from its base, and offers it across a wide span of experience. The marine protected area itself publishes the same flank as an itinerary called Parete di Ponente, in Zone B, 20 to 46 m, multilevel, visibility excellent, graded for medium to high level divers. Palermo dive schools describe it with a third set of names, Isolotto a Ponente and Ai Canyon, locally Ai Canaluna. Expect to hear all of them for what is essentially one piece of ground.

The shape is consistent across the operator descriptions. From the western shore of the islet, near the buoy that marks the edge of Zone A, the bottom runs out to a plateau at about 24 m, then breaks off abruptly into a vertical fall to 40 m before easing onto sand beyond 50 m. The wall is cut by a series of valleys flanked by large rock formations and hung with gorgonians, which is where the canyon nickname comes from. One school notes that the flank was historically home to dozens of lobsters and that they can still be found low on the wall, away from poachers, which is as close to a dated condition report as this site has.

What you can dive here is decided by your certification and by the reserve boundary, not by the topography. Orca Sub takes divers with Advanced Open Water or better along the rim; Mare Nostrum splits the same flank into a rim route for experienced Advanced divers, a wall route for Deep and Deco divers, and a base route for technical divers, and warns of possible strong currents and of vertical descents and ascents in blue water that need a reference line. Immediately north-west of the routes, the Arco — a wide gap in the wall reaching 49 m — lies inside Zone A and is closed to recreational diving altogether.

One caution on the pin. Zone A of the reserve covers the north-western and north-eastern sectors of the islet, and this pin sits north-west of it. The dived routes start from the western shore just outside the Zone A marker buoy. Follow the buoy and your guide, not the coordinates.

• Plateau at about 24 m breaking into a vertical fall to 40 m
• Valleys between large rock formations, gorgonian-hung, that give the site its Canyon nickname
• Lobsters low on the wall, a remnant of the flank's historic population
• Ten minutes by boat from the dive base at Isola delle Femmine
• Published by the marine protected area as a Zone B itinerary

Conditions

The marine protected area rates visibility on this flank as excellent and the profile as multilevel. Operators plan the route by certification rather than by conditions, but they attach a standing warning about possible strong currents and about descending and ascending in open blue water on a reference.

On current: Mare Nostrum Diving warns explicitly of possible strong currents on this flank, along with free descents and ascents that need a reference line and high gas consumption, and gives the same warning for the neighbouring Zone A arch. No source describes the site as a habitual drift. Depths are where the sources part company: the dive centre that sells the trip gives 5 to 50 m for the whole slope; the marine protected area's own sheet for the Ponente wall gives 20 to 46 m; and two Palermo schools describe a plateau at about 24 m, a vertical drop to 40 m and sand from beyond 50 m. The conservative maximum, 46 m from the park authority, is the one recorded here, but the practical answer is that the flank is multilevel and your route is set by your certification.