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Azores
Seamounts in the middle of the Atlantic, with blue shark and mobulas in open water
Nine volcanic islands in the middle of the Atlantic, sitting where three tectonic plates meet. A few miles from the coast there are seamounts that rise from hundreds of meters almost to the surface, and that's where everything happens.
In this profile you'll find what the Azorean seamounts are and why they concentrate pelagics, what open-water diving with no bottom in sight is like, when the season is (which is short) what wildlife shows up, and what level the destination really demands.
It's one of Europe's best-known pelagic destinations and one of the few places in the Atlantic where divers go into open water with oceanic sharks.
Geography and access
The Azores are a Portuguese volcanic archipelago in the middle of the North Atlantic, sitting where three tectonic plates meet. They lie more than fifteen hundred kilometers from mainland Europe.
Their defining feature for diving is the seamounts: volcanic rises that start hundreds or thousands of meters down and whose tops sometimes come to within a few meters of the surface.
These seamounts interrupt ocean currents and generate local upwelling, concentrating plankton, pelagic fish, and their predators in what is otherwise open, empty ocean.
Diving is split between these seamounts, arches, and volcanic flows near the coast, and open-water dives with blue shark, which take place miles from land with no bottom visible.
Access is by flight to one of the main islands from Lisbon or directly from some European cities, with inter-island connections.
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