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Upwards of 1,345 different marine species have been listed there since Jacques Cousteau went scuba diving there and the Medes Islands ecosystem is justly classified as the best natural reserve in the western Mediterranean.

Defence of the islands began in 1983, and in 1990 the preservation was widened to the seabed flora and fauna, encouraging a spectacular recovery of the ecosystems and making the area into a shelter for numerous species in danger of extinction. The zones supporting marine seagrasses like Posidonia oceanica are especially productive as they are the breeding habitats for many important 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 declared by the Catalan Government to include the coast north all the way to Cala Montgo, L'Escala.

Caves at Medes Islands Marine Reserve
The plentiful tunnels and caves show 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 excellent opportunities for divers to experience (with a divemaster) the separate species that opt to live in semi-darkness.

One of the most well-known sites at Illas Medes is Dolphin Cave, named after a statue at the southern entrance. Within is a home for large groupers, meagres and shoals of silvery bream. Along the reef outside divers glide through shoals of bream and clouds of anthias whilst also scanning out into the blue for cruising eagle rays and visiting sunfish and dolphins.

There's a second cave system on one side with its groupers, always ready to pose for photographs, illuminated by a towering funnel. Yellow cup corals cover the walls and camouflaged scorpionfish perch unnoticed on ledges. Mediterranean moray eels and congers live in crevices. From here a further 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, providing diving all year around. A variety of depths allows immersions for all levels, and even snorkelers can enjoy the colourful spectacle of undersea marine life of the Medes Islands. In the shallow depths we can explore 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 find 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 Medes Islands Marine Reserve, with its 65,000 dives each year, is a model of good protectorship. Throughout 2009 scuba divers assisted with an assessment of the the Illas Medes ecosystems by answering questionnaires following their dives. Questions asked about the abundance of different species present and the number of divers, snorkelers and boats present at the dives sites.

The findings of the continuing assessment of the Medes Islands Reserve will direct the level of conservation required to safeguard this small archipelago for future generations. An area of exceptional ecological significance, 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 engaging sites for Mediterranean scuba diving.