More than 1,345 different marine species have been collated there since Jacques Cousteau went scuba diving there and the Medes Islands ecosystem is deservedly classified as the finest natural reserve in the western Mediterranean.

Defence of the Medes Islands first began in 1983, and in 1990 the conservation was expanded to the seabed flora and fauna, encouraging an amazing recovery of the ecosystems and turning the area into a niche for numerous species facing extinction. The ecosystems supporting marine seagrasses like Posidonia oceanica are especially productive as they are the breeding habitats for many crucial species.

The Medes Islands Protected Zone covers an area of 93,2 hectares with another protected 418 hectare area stretching up to the Montgri coast. A new Natural Park has been announced by the Catalan Government to include the coast north all the way to Cala Montgo, L'Escala.

Caves at Medes Islands Marine Reserve
The various tunnels and caves indicate that this limestone archipelago was attached to the Montgri Massif over ten thousand years ago. Today caves around the Medes Islands and up the Montgrí coast towards L'Escala provide outstanding opportunities for divers to experience (with a dive leader) the distinctive species that opt to live in semi-darkness.

One of the most renowned sites at Illas Medes is Dolphin Cave, because of a statue at the southern entrance. Inside is a refuge for large groupers, meagres and shoals of silvery bream. Along the reef outside divers glide through shoals of bream and clouds of anthias at the same time looking out into the blue for cruising eagle rays and visiting sunfish and dolphins.

There's another cave system on one side with its groupers, always ready to pose for photographs, illuminated by a towering funnel. Yellow cup corals deck the walls and camouflaged scorpionfish perch unnoticed on ledges. Mediterranean moray eels and congers live in cracks in the rocks. From here a handy tunnel leads back through the island and out onto the reef again, past the most beautiful yellow and red gorgonian corals.

Scuba Diving at Medes Islands Marine Reserve
There are 10 buoyed dive sites, allowing diving during every season. A range of depths provides immersions for all levels, and even snorkelers can enjoy the amazing abundance of underwater marine life of the Medes Islands. In the shallow zones we can delve into a dense canopy of brightly lit seaweeds with over a hundred species hosting shoals of silvery bream, colourful wrasse, and exquisite nudibranchs. Below 10-15 meters we observe light-deprived algae and pretty pink sea perch, large predatory dentex, eagle rays, octopus, lobster and big, friendly groupers. Below 20 meters we enter an area of gorgonian corals inhabited by upwards of 600 species.

The Illas Medes Protected Area, with its 65,000 divers every year, is an example of good custodianship. Throughout 2009 scuba divers helped with an assessment of the the Medes Islands ecosystems by completing questionnaires following their dives. Questions asked about the abundance of different species counted and the number of divers, snorkelers and boats present at the dives sites.

This ongoing appraisal of the Medes Islands Reserve will direct the level of protection required to safeguard this little archipelago for future generations. An area of exceptional ecological importance, all the underwater environments to be found in the Mediterranean are represented in the sea around the Medes Islands, making the area one of the most exciting sites for Mediterranean scuba diving.