| Zona Balnear das Cinco Ribeiras | Lava-pool entry to a reef wall (old port, SW coast) | Wall and lava arches off the old-port pool; the cave mouth sits at 14 m, with visibility to 25-30 m on a flat day | Advanced, high solo risk | Road down to the leisure area at the old port, with a ramp and a natural pool; enter via the pool, then follow the underwater wall out. | Terceira's premier dive site and the one genuine hunting entry here: work the wall out to the lava arches and tunnels, well clear of the pool swimmers. It earns its rating. The cave runs into long galleries and tight corridors where you can snag, so it is never a solo dive, and the open wall can grow swell and drift once the south comes up. |
| Zona Balnear do Negrito | Basalt-slab bathing area (São Mateus da Calheta) | Flat basalt slabs at the shore, a calm entry on flat seas | Intermediate, bathing zone, no hunting | Park by the Negrito fort in São Mateus da Calheta; about a dozen stairs and ramps drop straight to the water. | An official bathing zone, so you don't hunt inside it. Its use is as a quieter, sheltered entry for freedive training or scouting the ground. Watch the exit, where the basalt slabs turn slick and a building south swell can wash shorebreak over them. |
| Zona Balnear da Silveira | Blue Flag bay beach (Angra waterfront) | Sheltered bay entry off the old-port pier, the most sheltered entry in Angra | Easy, sheltered fallback entry | 1.5 km from the centre of Angra, with parking, showers and a bar; in by the old-port pier stairs or the ramp. | A Blue Flag bathing beach on the east side of the bay under Monte Brasil, so hunting is banned, but it is the safest entry in the area. This is the place for a gear check, some breath-hold work or a scout before you commit to open coast. Little to worry about beyond boat traffic by the pier and the occasional southeast swell. |
| Zona Balnear do Porto Martins | Breakwater bathing bay (Porto Martins, east coast) | Sandy shallow inside the breakwaters; deeper off the breakwater steps | Intermediate, east-coast scout and fallback | Parking, a bar and restaurants in Porto Martins, about 5 km and ten minutes east of Angra in the Praia da Vitória municipality; in from the sandy shallow or off the breakwater steps. | A bathing zone with an artificial bay behind breakwaters, calm and safe inside, not a place to hunt. Its value is the swap: when a south swell shuts the Angra side down, this east coast can still be diveable on a west wind. Scout from land first, and mind the shorebreak on the exit rocks outside the walls. |
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