Azores
Gruta das Cinco Ribeiras (Terceira)
- Max depth20 m
- CertificationCavern
- Water temperature≈ 14–22 °C, varies with the seasonestimated, no reports yet
- SpecialExperienced divers
Diving and fills
Dive here with
Fills nearby
- Scubazores Divers (Angra do Heroísmo)Air and nitrox
What it looks like
All 1 videos and posts
Videos and posts
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Other people's footage, not advice: how someone else dives here says nothing about what suits your team. Dive within your training.
The dive
You start in the tide pool and descend over sand, where the boiler of a sunken boat lies at 5 m. With the rock wall on your right you see large common stingrays and schools of salema until you reach the entrance.
Profile and sections
You start in the tide pool and descend over sand, where the boiler of a sunken boat lies at 5 m. With the rock wall on your right you see large common stingrays and schools of salema until you reach the entrance. The first cave holds moray eels and nudibranchs, its walls covered in narwal shrimp; it opens into two larger chambers, where forkbeards hunt the shrimp and red cardinalfish swim. You explore the caves to an exit on the other side and return along the wall outside or back through the complex.
The tourism board calls this one of the most interesting cave dives of the Azores. Per Wikipedia the caves are dived by day and by night.
Practical: the outer part also suits beginners and snorkellers, the cave complex only more experienced divers.
- Depth and profile
- Plan for 20 m (Scubazores); the tourism board and Wikipedia give max 16 m, average 12 m. Several galleries connected by corridors and small spaces, with an exit on the other side.
- Configuration
- Shallow galleries with narrower passages: backmount and sidemount, with a primary and backup light (estimate).
- DPV: Not DPV-suitable (estimate)
- Shallow complex of small chambers — not a scooter dive.
Who can dive where
- At least Cavern
- Configurations: Backmount / twinset / Sidemount / CCR / Small cylinders / no-mount (speleo sumps)
- Goes down to 20 m (trimix or deco may be needed)
- Experienced divers only
This is how the planner decides who in your team may dive this cave. Rules your own trip adds (organizer, a mail, the AI) show with your trip.
How to get there
Shore dive from the Cinco Ribeiras tide pool on the south-west coast, a quarter of an hour's drive from Angra do Heroísmo and 35 minutes from Praia da Vitória. Scubazores Divers dives here.
Around Gruta das Cinco Ribeiras (Terceira)
Fills1 fill station · 9 km
Scubazores Divers (Angra do Heroísmo)
Estrada Regional n.º 1 (Hotel do Caracol), Silveira, 9700-193 Angra do Heroísmo
Air and nitrox
Contact page: 9:00–12:00 and 13:30–17:00 (ask)
SSI dive centre at the Hotel do Caracol in Silveira, with a kiosk in Angra do Heroísmo marina. Its own site describes the Gruta das Cinco Ribeiras as a shore dive, with the cave complex for more experienced divers. Fills air and nitrox.
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