Pirgo

The dive

Pirgo, which Rome clubs more often write as Pirgi, is one of the named rock dives worked out of the Porto Turistico di Riva di Traiano, on the coast between Civitavecchia and Santa Marinella. A Rome club's list of the points reachable from that marina describes it in one line as walls that form enormous steps, rich in fauna and flora, and that is a fair summary of the ground: not one continuous face but a set of rock terraces.

The worked profile is consistent across the outings that have been published for it. You go in with a giant stride, come down the anchor line onto rocky bottom at 8 to 9 m, and once the group is together head west to the little wall, which starts at 11 to 12 m and finishes somewhere between 15 and 23 m depending on where you cross it; below that a mixed rock and sand bottom slopes gently away. It is booked as an easy dive with an Open Water minimum, and the same club has also advertised it at a tighter 9 to 18 m. The instructor picks the line on the day according to the certifications in the group and the visibility, which here is genuinely variable. On the rock the reports list nudibranchs in quantity including the dotted sea slug and flabellinas, spiny lobster, sea bream, small groupers, salema and damselfish, with a good chance of finding branches of red coral.

Two things are worth knowing before you look at a map. First, the pin sits essentially on top of the Riva di Traiano marina, which is the departure port rather than the dive, so treat the position as the launch point and the dive as a short run west of it. Second, the naming on this coast is loose: a dive-site directory lists Pirgo as another name for the Parete Pierucci, but the Rome clubs that dive both keep them as separate entries on the same list, and our catalogue carries a Parete Pierucci pin about 3 km away. A club outing in 2024 was advertised as the Pirgi wall or the Canaloni from a single anchorage, with the guide choosing between them underwater, which tells you how close together this ground actually is.

One thing this is not: the Etruscan port of Pyrgi. That lies at Santa Severa, some 13 km down the coast to the south-east, and nothing published about this dive involves archaeology. Il Pirgo in Civitavecchia is the name of a stretch of the town's seafront, the surviving pier and terrace of a bathing establishment that ran from the late nineteenth century until 1941.

• Rock terraces described as walls forming enormous steps
• A short run from the marina at Riva di Traiano
• Nudibranchs in quantity, including the dotted sea slug and flabellinas
• A reasonable chance of red coral branches within recreational depth
• A profile between 8 and 23 m that works for newly certified divers

Conditions

A few minutes out of Riva di Traiano to rocky ground at 8 to 9 m, then west onto the wall. Visibility is variable and is what determines the route chosen; the water runs from about 14 C in winter to about 24 C in late summer, with a June outing logging 17 C at depth against 23 C at the surface. Diving on this coast runs year-round.

On current: No source reports current here. Visibility is the variable that actually governs the dive: the club that runs it says in every listing that the instructor chooses the route according to the visibility on the day, and describes the visibility itself simply as variable. Water on this coast runs between roughly 14 C and 24 C over the year; a June outing recorded about 17 C on the bottom and 23 C at the surface. Published depth figures for the site range between 8 and 23 m, with one listing quoting a tighter 9 to 18 m; below the wall the bottom keeps sloping, so the number you finish on depends on the route.