- window
- There is no seasonal window here: the ban runs all year, not just in summer. If you come to look or to film, remember that in Spain you may only fish from sunrise to sunset. In summer the Playa de los Muertos car park is paid from 1 July to 30 September, 09:00-21:00, six euros for a car; a free bus, line L3, runs from Carboneras.
- tide
- The level here is what it is all along this coast, around half a metre, and it settles nothing. Two things settle it: the cold water rising during a long Poniente, which can pull the surface down several degrees in a day, and the silt from the Carboneras rambla and the río Alías after rain, murky for one to three days.
- shelter
- Straight up: that place name is not confirmed on any map of this coast, so we are talking about the stretch south of Carboneras in general. There the shore runs under cliffs towards Mesa Roldán, faces east and south-east, and Levante hits it with no defence at all. Shelter appears only with Poniente, right at the foot of the rock.
- conditions
- Do not come here with a gun in any weather: south of the parallel 36 degrees 57.850 minutes — the Barranco del Hondo mouth by playa del Corral — the Cabo de Gata-Níjar reserve begins, where spearfishing is expressly banned (Orden ARM/1744/2011, art. 5). You shoot only to the north: Algarrobico, the rock by the port, Isla de San Andrés.
Carboneras spearfishing forecast — wind, swell, visibility, tides & live cameras
Dive today.
Sources: IPMA · buoys · Copernicus · Sentinel-2 — high confidence · data 12:50
Sources & confidence
- Sources
- IPMA · NDBC & IH buoys · Copernicus Marine · Sentinel-2
- Method
- spearo sea-state engine: 6-model consensus + satellite clarity (ZSD) + buoy-bias checks
- Freshness
- Re-read every hour, per coast
Compiled by the spearo sea-state engine · How it works →
The verdict comes from seven water factors and hard safety gates — not ten tabs. Go or stay.
How we score the water
Our own model
Our own forecast engine — not a third-party widget. It weighs these water factors into one go-or-stay verdict for this coast; the 0–10 dial is that verdict, read out as a number.
- Swell & wave memory
- Height, period and direction of the swell, plus the wake of recent storms — an old storm still stirs the water, and the engine remembers.
- Wind & gusts
- Speed and gusts, hour by hour — wind speed and an onshore push chop the surface and cut visibility.
- Tide phase
- Timing and range of the tide, calibrated per coast — big spring tides pull the verdict toward caution.
- Water temperature
- Sea-surface temperature — sharply cold water vetoes a green verdict.
- Currents & outflow
- Direction and drift of the current — it pushes you, and it drags turbid coastal water across where you dive.
- Rain runoff & air clarity
- Rain muddies the water inshore through land runoff, while fog and haze cut visibility at the surface.
- Coast shape & exposure
- How the coast faces the swell — a sheltered cove keeps the water clean; an exposed, head-on point takes a penalty.
Safety gates
- Thunderstorm forecast — an instant red, no exceptions.
- An official warning (MeteoAlarm / IPMA) — yellow, or red for the higher ranks.
- Missing input data — a would-be green is capped to yellow rather than overstated.
- Strong disagreement between forecast models — a green day is pulled back to yellow.
- Night hours — where night spearfishing is banned by law the window is forced red; where it is legal (Australia outside NSW, New Zealand, South Africa) it is capped at yellow, never green.
It all folds into a single 0–10 score and one verdict: go or stay.
A forecast, not a guarantee — the sea has the last word.
Where to get in, where to hunt
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