Caverna dos Peixes

Caverna dos Peixes — the Cave of Fish — is a dramatic basalt sea cave on Madeira's south coast where a narrow entrance opens into a cathedral-like chamber lit by a diffuse glow from the surface and packed with resting glassfish, cardinalfish, and bream in numbers that blur the boundary between reef and cloud. The cave ceiling hosts colonies of sponge and ascidian in shades of red and orange that only reveal their true colours under a torch, and the resident red scorpionfish occupying the entrance ledges are so accustomed to divers that they rarely move even at close range. The tropicbird fish — Atlantic tarpons and occasional Atlantic spadefish — gather in the cave mouth in summer, creating one of Madeira's most theatrical dives.