SeaLogItaly · cave
Two tuff caves on Ponza's west coast that the island's operators sell as a boat and snorkel run, not as a scuba dive.
This catalogue entry bundles two separate caves under one name, and the ampersand in the middle is the giveaway that it came out of a list rather than off a dive slate. Both are on the western side of Ponza, in the white tuff cliffs between the beach of Chiaia di Luna and the Faraglioni di Lucia Rosa, with Punta di Capo Bianco between them; the catalogue pin sits about 380 m from the cape itself.
The Grotta della Maga Circe is the newer name for what Ponzesi call the Grotta del Segreto. A nineteenth-century traveller, Graeser, described it as an imposing cave with a high dark vault whose walls seem to show frightening figures by torchlight, and recorded that a monk seal pup had been taken there and sent to the Naples Aquarium, the first specimen the aquarium had managed to obtain in twenty-five years of trying. The local history blog Frammenti di Ponza, which reproduces his account, adds that a tunnel about 110 m long leads through to a small beach sheltered behind boulders inside the cave.
What is missing is any operator selling this as a dive. Odissey Diving, the SSI centre in the port of Ponza, publishes ten dive sites with depths and certification levels for each: Punta Madonna, Scoglio Rosso, Scoglio del Parroco, the two halves of the LST349 wreck, Scoglio Grosso, Scoglio della Botte, Le Formiche, Secca dei Mattoni and the Kastell Luanda. Neither of these caves is among them. Capo Bianco appears on the same centre's list of cales visited on the island boat tour, which it runs as a snorkelling and caving trip with masks, SUP boards and torches. The Ponza Viaggi diving page, which lists Odissey Diving as its contact, describes Le Formiche, Scoglio Rosso and the LST349 and does not mention either cave either.
So the honest description is: a pair of light-and-tuff caves worked from a dinghy with a mask, fins and a torch, on a coast with no land access, rather than a dive with a depth and a profile. The biological records around this pin are thin and mostly drifting animals - mauve stinger, by-the-wind sailor, barrel jellyfish, a sea butterfly - with a giant goby, a sea cucumber and an ornate wrasse on the rock. Treat that as a sign of how little anyone has surveyed here, not as a description of the caves. Ponza's diving season runs from 1 April to the beginning of November.
By boat only, on the western coast of Ponza between Chiaia di Luna and the Faraglioni di Lucia Rosa. Odissey Diving, at Via De Luca Sindaco in the port of Ponza, runs the island tour as a snorkelling and caving trip with a dinghy, masks and torches, and also offers a pick-up service to and from private boats for its own clients.
Access to the site runs through a local operator.
Ponza's diving and boat season opens on 1 April and closes at the beginning of November, per the island's own travel and diving page. Outside that window there is no scheduled operation on the water.
A stretch of vertical white tuff on the exposed western side of Ponza, reachable only from the water. The caves are visited on the island's boat circuit alongside Chiaia di Luna and the Faraglioni di Lucia Rosa, in the season that runs from April to the start of November.
Best months: Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct
Not as a published dive. Odissey Diving, the SSI centre in the port of Ponza, lists ten scuba sites with depths and minimum certification levels, and neither cave is among them; nor does the island's own diving page mention them. They are visited from a dinghy with mask, fins and torches on the cave and snorkelling tour instead.
No operator or guide publishes a depth or a dive profile for either cave, which is itself the answer: they are not run as scuba sites. What is documented is the horizontal dimension of the Grotta del Segreto, about 110 m of tunnel leading through to a small beach inside, and that is a surface passage rather than a descent.
Two caves, catalogued under one name. They sit on the same stretch of Ponza's western coast, between Chiaia di Luna and the Faraglioni di Lucia Rosa, with Punta di Capo Bianco between them, and they are visited on the same boat run. The ampersand in the catalogue name reflects a tour pairing, not two profiles of one dive.
The modern name for the Grotta del Segreto, near Chiaia di Luna on Ponza. A nineteenth-century traveller called Graeser described a high, dark vault with walls that seem to show frightening figures under torchlight, and recorded a monk seal pup captured there and sent to the Naples Aquarium. A tunnel about 110 m long leads through to a small beach protected by boulders.
Only from the water. The caves open in vertical white tuff cliffs on the exposed western side of the island, and there is no land access. Odissey Diving, based at Via De Luca Sindaco in the port of Ponza, runs the west coast on its island tour by dinghy, supplying masks and torches, and will also collect clients from private boats.
The island's diving and boat season runs from 1 April to the beginning of November, per Ponza Viaggi's own diving page. Outside those months there is no scheduled operation on the water, and this is an exposed western coast with no shelter, so the shoulder months depend entirely on what the sea is doing.
Very little has been recorded here, and that is worth saying plainly. The observations logged around this pin are mostly drifting animals - mauve stinger, by-the-wind sailor, barrel jellyfish, a sea butterfly - with a giant goby, a sea cucumber and an ornate wrasse on the rock. That reflects how little anyone has surveyed this coast rather than what is actually in the caves.
| Species | How often | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Pelagia noctiluca | occasional | 8 |
| Velella velella | rare | 2 |
| Hymetrichita rectirhaphis | rare | 2 |
| Pachygrapsus marmoratus | rare | 1 |
| Holothuria (Platyperona) sanctori | rare | 1 |
| Gobius cobitis | rare | 1 |
| Thalassoma pavo | rare | 1 |
| Diplodus sargus | rare | 1 |
| Rhizostoma pulmo | rare | 1 |
| Clathromangelia granum | rare | 1 |
| Cymbulia peronii | rare | 1 |
| Vermetus triquetrus | rare | 1 |
| Phorcus articulatus | rare | 1 |
| Gobius incognitus | rare | 1 |
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