Grotta del Cabirol

The dive

The Grotta del Cabirol opens in the west face of the Capo Caccia massif, directly below the Escala del Cabirol, the staircase (654 steps, cut in the 1960s) that drops from the clifftop to the Grotte di Nettuno. Adventure & Diving of Alghero carries it on its Capo Caccia itinerary as a site in its own right, listed separately from the Grotta del Tunnel and the Grotta di Nereo a few hundred metres along the same cove, and grades it 0 to 18 m, three openings, "livello turistico", minimal difficulty, good for photography.

The cave is built on two levels. The upper one is a wide air-filled hall connected to the surface, which in a swell fills with wave slam and blowholes. The lower entrance, at roughly 15 to 18 m, gives into a large chamber lit through several openings in the vault; Capo Galera Diving Center puts the cave floor at 16 m and the run of the cave at about 50 m, with a second chamber sitting directly above the first and joined to it by a siphon. From inside the chamber a narrow chimney climbs to that siphon room, where stalactites hang and lobsters sit in the side niches; Adventure & Diving says it should only be entered with a flat sea. Turning right on the way in, a line of wide roof openings lets you pass into the upper level and back out to the wall. Capo Galera moors close to the rock at about 25 m and the wall outside the cave drops to around 30 m.

Encrusting growth here is thinner than in the neighbouring Capo Caccia caves, and Adventure & Diving is explicit about why: the site faces the western quadrant, and with a strong maestrale the mechanical action of the swell keeps anything bulky from taking hold. Sponges and parazoanthus carpet the walls and vaults instead. Inside and around the entrances there are seabreams of several species long since used to divers, scorpionfish and forkbeard; sometimes a moray, more often conger, and mostly after dark. On a night dive the centre also reports lobsters out walking, octopus, and occasionally large dentex and gilthead bream.

The cave sits inside the Capo Caccia - Isola Piana marine protected area, and that is the part of the planning that matters most. Under the 2025 disciplinare, diving in zones B and C is allowed only with the managing body's authorisation, in daylight, with at least a second-level certificate, four divers maximum per dive, within 50 m of the mooring or the surface marker buoy, and never solo. The AMP names fifteen underwater caves that authorised centres may run guided visits into, with a Cavern Diver certificate required and Cave Diver for the Grotta dei Fantasmi. The Grotta del Cabirol is not one of the fifteen: the Capo Caccia caves on that list are the four Nereo entrances, La Madonnina and the Porticati at Punta Salinetto. Ask the centre what it is currently authorised to run before you book this one specifically.

• Two levels joined by a chimney and a siphon, with stalactites in the upper room
• Openings in the vault that drop light shafts into the deep chamber
• Lobsters in the side niches of the siphon room
• Directly under the Escala del Cabirol, the 654-step stair down to the Grotte di Nettuno
• Sponges and parazoanthus rather than gorgonians, because the swell scours the walls

Conditions

A cliff dive on the exposed west side of Capo Caccia, reached by boat and moored on one of the park's buoys. On a calm summer day it is a short, shallow cave with light coming through the roof; the operator singles out summer afternoons, when the sun angle pushes light deepest into the cave. With any west in the forecast it turns into a surge dive and the siphon room comes off the plan.

On current: Adventure & Diving describes strong currents and wave slam as the defining feature of the site, because it is open to the western quadrant: with a moderately rough sea a back-and-forth surge runs through the cave, and with a hard maestrale the surface hall slams and blows. The two sources give different maxima because they describe different parts of the dive: the centre grades the cave itself 0 to 18 m, while Capo Galera moors near the wall at about 25 m and puts the rock face at up to 30 m. The deeper figure is the one to plan against.

Best months: Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep