Diving in Pantelleria

Last updated: July 2026

Diving in Pantelleria, the volcanic island between Sicily and Tunisia, is not a coral-reef holiday. It is black basalt walls dropping into deep blue, shoals of amberjack in open water, and an underwater archaeology that few Mediterranean islands can match—Punic and Roman amphorae still lying where the ships went down, marked and mapped along guided trails.

This guide lists the dive centres operating on the island, the classic dive sites, the archaeological routes and what a dive actually costs. Every contact detail below comes from the operator’s own website or an official listing, verified in July 2026. For everything else the island offers above the waterline, see our guide to things to do in Pantelleria.

Dive centres on Pantelleria

• TGI Diving Pantelleria
• Green Divers
• Dive-X Active Sport (Cala Gadir)
• Cala Levante Diving
• Acquasub Diving Center
• Pantelleria Divers
• Big Khauna Diving

TGI Diving Pantelleria

TGI Diving is the Pantelleria base of TGI Diving International, which also operates in Marsa Alam, Zanzibar and Roatan. It is the only centre on the island that publishes a full price list online, which makes it by far the easiest one to budget for before you arrive, and it takes bookings through its own site.

Alongside diving, the base offers a lounge bar, a solarium, boat rental, guided boat tours around the island and canoe rental. TGI also runs its own accommodation under the name TGI Dammusi Preziosi, so dive-and-stay packages are possible.

Published rates (online booking / paid at destination, VAT excluded as stated on their price list):

• Check dive — free
• Single dive, air — €31 / €35
• Scuba Review — €28 / €30
• Bubblemaker — €62 / €70
• Discover Scuba Diving — €88 / €100
• Open Water Diver — €296 / €330
• Advanced Open Water Diver — €238 / €265
• Rescue Diver — €302 / €337

Equipment rental is listed but priced on request, and cancellation terms are published on the same page. Website: tgidiving.com ↗ · current price list ↗

Green Divers

Green Divers S.S.D. a R.L. is based at Località Mursia, on the north-west coast a short drive from Pantelleria Town. Training follows SNSI (Scuba Nitrox Safety International) programmes, from entry level through to advanced, and the centre dives from its own 14-metre boat. Rental kit is MARES throughout, and Green Divers is a DAN Europe partner, so you can renew dive insurance directly through them.

They are also one of the two centres that contributed to the island tourism board’s guide to Pantelleria’s underwater archaeology, which is a fair signal of how seriously they take the archaeological routes.

Contact. Antonello +39 339 646 6504 · Simona +39 393 976 5560 · [email protected] · Loc. Mursia 1, 91017 Pantelleria (TP). Website: greendivers-sub.com ↗

Dive-X Active Sport (Cala Gadir)

Dive X Active Sport A.S.D. operates from Cala Gadir on the north-east coast, the small harbour that sits directly above the island’s best-known archaeological dive. The centre dates its work at Cala Gadir to 1994 and takes bookings year-round, with a minimum of three people per outing—worth knowing if you are travelling off-season or solo.

Dive-X publishes detailed descriptions of twelve island dive sites on its own website, which doubles as the most useful free dive-planning resource for Pantelleria. Equipment rental is available on site.

Contact. +39 339 105 1878 · [email protected] · Cala Gadir, Pantelleria (TP). Website: pantelleriadiving.it ↗ · Instagram ↗

After the dive, the thermal pools built into the rocks at Gadir thermal pools are a two-minute walk from the slipway.

Cala Levante Diving

Cala Levante Diving sits on the east coast at Strada dell’Arco dell’Elefante 13, between Cala Levante and Cala Tramontana. That puts it within minutes of the Faraglione of Punta Tracino and the Elephant Arch, two of the island’s signature dives—you can see beach guide for what the arch looks like from the surface.

Directory listings describe it as a PADI centre equipped for nitrox and technical diving, including Trimix. We were not able to confirm the current course catalogue or rates from a primary source, so check directly before booking.

Contact. +39 320 550 5294 · Strada dell’Arco dell’Elefante 13, 91017 Pantelleria (TP). Website: calalevante.it ↗

Acquasub Diving Center

Acquasub Diving Center operates on the south-west side of the island, in the Scauri–Rekale area, and has a long association with Pantelleria’s underwater archaeology scene. Its website is Swiss-hosted and dates from an earlier era of the web, so it is easiest to reach the centre by phone or through the contact details published there.

Website: aquasub.ch ↗ · Reviews on Tripadvisor ↗

Pantelleria Divers

Pantelleria Divers is a long-standing island name—an Italian dive directory recorded it at Via allo Scalo 7 in Scauri, teaching PADI, GUE and ANDI, though that entry has not been updated since 2009. More recent traveller reviews describe day-long boat excursions around the island departing from the harbour in Pantelleria Town rather than a conventional dive-shop operation.

It rates 4.8 out of 5 across 53 reviews, so the operation is clearly active and well liked. Because we could not verify a current website or phone number from a primary source, contact them through their listing or ask at the harbour once you are on the island.

Pantelleria Divers on Tripadvisor ↗

Big Khauna Diving

Big Khauna Diving is listed among Pantelleria’s scuba and snorkelling operators and rates 4.4 out of 5 across 14 traveller reviews. We could not trace an official website or a verified phone number for the centre, so treat the Tripadvisor listing as the starting point and confirm locally.

Big Khauna Diving on Tripadvisor ↗

When is the best time to dive in Pantelleria?

June to October is the reliable window. Sea conditions settle, water temperature reaches around 25 °C and visibility often exceeds 30 metres. Morning light gives the best colour on the volcanic walls. Outside that window some centres still dive—Dive-X takes bookings year-round with a minimum of three people—but the weather calls the shots.

Pantelleria is a windy island, and that matters more here than the season does. The wind decides which coast is diveable on any given morning: when the north-west maestrale blows, the east coast around Cala Levante and Cala Tramontana works; when it swings south-east, centres move to the sheltered north-west. Every centre plans around this, so expect your dive site to be chosen the morning of, not the week before.

The island’s classic dive sites

Dive-X and TGI Diving both publish descriptions of the same twelve sites, which between them cover the whole coastline. The depths below are the working depths those centres quote.

• Il Faraglione (Punta Tracino) — dived on two difficulty levels and rated by both centres as the most exciting on the island: giant sea bream, brown grouper, corvina, astroides, nudibranchs and gorgonians.
• L’Elefante — moor in the shadow of the Elephant Arch and descend beneath it. The bottom slopes gently through posidonia to a large anchor at the foot of the trunk; sea bream and grouper, with amberjack passing fast.
• Cala Armani — the archaeological route. Punic-Roman finds and amphora shards, each labelled with its own marker tag. Easy, and the one to do if you dive only once here.
• Punta Spadillo — a sheer drop-off running to −185 m. Passing pelagics and sea fans; a wall dive with real exposure.
• Secca di Campobello — descend the anchor chain to the top of the shoal at about −14 m, then work down to −30 m past pink coral and sponges. Snapper, amberjack, bream, grouper, lobster.
• Punta Liscetto — two options: a ridge at −18 m for less experienced divers, or the landslide down to −40 m for the rest. Lobster, brown grouper, snapper.
• Martingana — a rockfall full of life, with giant moray, octopus and clouds of damselfish, plus old trawl netting on the sandy bottom now encrusted with sponges.
• Punta Limarsi — an undemanding wall to around −40 m, with a large mine sitting at about −32 m.
• Secca di Nicà — a demanding dive: strong surface current, descent on the anchor line, then the outer wall of the shoal where moray and lobster shelter in the cracks.
• Taglio di Scauri — a drift dive along a sand balcony to about −40 m, with amberjack and snapper hunting the edge.
• Cala Levante (“Il Panettone”) — a single huge boulder teeming with shrimp, octopus, lobster and nudibranchs. Gentle and photogenic.
• Punta Tre Pietre — easy boat dive on a rocky wall to about −20 m, known for the number of moray eels in the crevices; coral and axinella colonies, and sometimes big schools of amberjack in open water.

Diving into archaeology: Pantelleria’s underwater trails

Pantelleria sat on the crossroads between Africa and Sicily for centuries, sailed by Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans. What sank here largely stayed here. Four marked underwater routes are now open to divers, and all of them require a certified guide.

Cala Gadir. Three overlapping wrecks dating from the 3rd to the 1st century BCE lie in the small harbour where the sea stays warm even in winter. Marker buoys lead through a field of more than 100 Punic, Greco-Italic and Roman amphorae. A lead anchor at 30 metres marks the Roman phase. Shallow artefacts near the shore are reachable with just mask and fins.

Cala Tramontana. In 2011 divers here recovered more than 3,500 Punic coins from the 3rd century BCE, spread across roughly 16 square metres—oxidised but still legible, and probably destined to fund pro-Carthaginian forces in Sicily during the First Punic War. The route starts on a modern wreck and drops to 20 metres past millstones, amphorae and stone anchors.

Scauri. Between the piers of Scauri’s harbour, eight metres down, sits a Roman wreck from the 5th century CE carrying Pantellerian Ware—the local pottery once traded across the Mediterranean. Among the finds was a carnelian signet ring engraved with an anchor, an early Christian symbol.

Punta Tracino. From 12 metres, stone, lead and Byzantine anchors lie scattered alongside a Dressel 1B amphora, a Keay 25 vessel and a cache of lead ingots—a landing used across many centuries, layered on one seabed.

Do you need to be an experienced diver?

No. Every centre on the island runs guided excursions and entry-level courses, and several of the archaeological sites sit shallow enough to snorkel. If you have never breathed underwater, a Discover Scuba Diving session gets you in the water the same day; if you want a certification, an Open Water course takes three to four days.

Bring a swimsuit, a towel and reef-safe sunscreen—the centre provides wetsuit, tanks and mask. If you already hold a certification, bring the card and your logbook, and check your dive insurance before you fly: Green Divers can renew DAN cover on the island if you need it.

How much does diving in Pantelleria cost?

Only TGI Diving publishes rates publicly: €31–35 for a single air dive and €296–330 for an Open Water course, VAT excluded. The other centres quote on request, and prices vary with group size, season and whether you need rental kit. Ask for a written quote by email before committing to a multi-day package.

We deliberately do not publish estimated prices for the other centres. Dive pricing on the island moves year to year, and a wrong number in a guide is worse than no number at all—contact each centre through the links above.

Getting to the dive centres

The centres are spread around the whole coastline, so how you move matters. Most divers hire a car or scooter, but the island bus network reaches the main coastal villages and runs cheaply.

• The East Coast Line serves the Gadir and Tracino side, closest to Dive-X and Cala Levante Diving.
• The South-West Line runs down to Scauri for Acquasub.
• The Circular bus loops the island and is useful for shore-based visitors without a vehicle.
• Arriving by air, the Airport Shuttle connects the terminal to town.
• Full timetables and fares are on our bus network page.

Coming by sea, the Trapani fast hydrofoil is the quickest crossing, while the overnight Trapani–Pantelleria ferry takes vehicles. Every scheduled sailing leaves from Trapani — there is no service from Mazara del Vallo or Tunisia, whatever you may read. If you are bringing your own dive kit, the ferry is the sensible option: baggage travels free with no weight limit, while allowances on the flights are tight.

Reaching dive sites by boat

Several of the best sites—the Faraglione, the Elephant Arch, Secca di Campobello—are boat dives, and every centre runs its own RIB. If you want to explore the coastline on a non-diving day, or reach a cove that no road serves, the island’s boat operators and rental outfits cover the rest.

• La Rosa dei Venti island tour and the Pantelleria Island Boat Tour circle the island with swim stops.
• Nautilus Boat, Barca Santallegria and DadiGanTour run skippered trips.
• For self-drive, try Noleggio Gommoni, Noleggio Butterfly or Click&Boat.

One stretch of coast worth reaching by sea is Balata dei Turchi on the wild southern side—read cove guide before you go, as the road access is rough.

What to do on your surface intervals

Pantelleria makes the non-diving half of the day easy. Specchio di Venere, the lake filling an old volcanic crater, is a short drive from town and warm year-round. The Sataria Cave on the south-west coast has thermal water pooling in rock basins right at the sea’s edge.

One caution worth stating plainly: hot thermal water and diving do not mix well on the same day. Hot immersion after a dive affects how your body off-gasses nitrogen, so leave a generous gap—or save Pantelleria’s geothermal pools for a non-diving day. Ask your guide: every centre on the island knows the local advice.

Diving in Pantelleria: questions answered