Today — right on the edge — wave, wind and visibility.
Sources & confidence
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.
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.
Safety gates
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
Leave your email — and the moment a window opens at Leland, we'll send the go / no-go verdict. Email is all we need.
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Wind, wave and the swell windows — when to go and the best hours.
The day is picked above, in the hero. Here are that day's windows, the hour-by-hour map and the trends. Tap a window to break down the conditions.
Visibility and what drives it — post-storm clearing, river plume, temperature and the thermocline.
spearo.app folds wind, wave, swell period, visibility, tides, water temperature and risk into a single verdict — go to the spot or not. It computes 7 days ahead from open marine models (Open-Meteo, IPMA), with no sign-up and no accounts. Built for solo spearfishing off the rocks, where any mistake costs dearly.
Now live: 1391 spots across 205 stretches of coast — mainland Portugal, Madeira and the Azores.
See all spotsRelief and bottom type, tides, and the depths of each spot.
The models set the window. Whether you go in is read only at the water: count the sets, watch the surge on the entry. If in doubt, you don't get in.
Scouted entries, coloured by today. The colour is the sea state at the spot, not a guarantee: the wash and a slippery entry you judge on site.
Open the seafloor mapThree-masted schooner lost in the 1894 gale and found in 1990 between the Manitou islands, largely intact in 6-8 m with her cargo of steel billets. Shallow, bright boat dive; rigging and further artefacts lie 200 yards north-east.
Google MapsCameras, map and reference — to hand as you come up.
Check the cam BEFORE you leave. Foam, brown/green murk, or waves washing the entry rocks = No-go. At night/in fog the cam is useless — treat it as «unknown», NOT «green».
Spaintransparency ~8 m · satellite, yesterdaysatellite estimate · may differ right at the shore
A 265 ft wooden steamer that burned at South Manitou in 1904 and sank in 50 m, superstructure reachable near 41 m and the bow largely intact. Deep, cold boat dive with penetration potential; advanced divers only.
Ocean-going freighter aground on rocks off South Manitou Island since 1960, her broken hull standing out of water in under 6 m a few hundred yards from the beach. Novice site, boat access from Leland; fully exposed to south-west swell.
Google MapsWooden steamer lost in 1924 off South Manitou, lying in 11 m of clear passage water. An easy intermediate boat dive from Leland with good light, but the Manitou Passage builds a fast chop in any west wind.
Google MapsA 133 ft wooden steamer stranded north of Pyramid Point in 1917 and broken up, her wreckage spread in 2-4 m below the Sleeping Bear bluffs. Snorkel depth, shore-swimmable in flat water, inside the National Lakeshore.
Google MapsWooden steamer beached on South Manitou in 1911 and uncovered by shifting sand in 1996; the stern is intact and the site runs from 2 m at the beach to 14 m. Shore-accessible from the island, the passage's best novice wreck.
Google MapsA 235 ft wooden steamer stranded on South Manitou in 1903 and broken up when the Morazan grounded on top of her. Hull, boilers and fittings lie in 3-4 m - snorkel depth, bright and easy on a calm day.
Google MapsSOLO is the biggest risk: underwater you can black out from lack of oxygen silently and fatally, with no one around. Solo is never truly «safe». Below are the best weather windows; carry a buoy, tell someone your plan and exit time, and any doubt — don't go.
US spearfishing law is state-by-state. License, spearable species, powerhead rules and distances vary; federal sanctuaries (Gray's Reef, the Keys, Flower Garden Banks) ban spearfishing. Always confirm with the state agency and local ordinances.
Leland opens onto the Manitou Passage, which the Michigan Underwater Preserve Council calls one of the state's richest wreck-diving areas: North and South Manitou, the Francisco Morazan aground with her hull above water, the Three Brothers, and dozens of lumber-era piers off Glen Haven and Empire. The 2026 rules opened the whole Michigan Lake Michigan shore up to the 45th parallel, so lake trout, northern pike and walleye are open in the passage on top of the year-round list; Grand Traverse Bay next door is cut out of that water. Much of this shoreline is also Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and the DNR digest says fishing other than hook-and-line is prohibited in National Parks — the scope over a Lakeshore is unresolved, so ask the NPS first.
Depths are the ones published for each site; the level column is the dive, not a promise about the fish. On this coast the shallow structure is where a freediving hunter actually works — Michigan bans scuba for spearfishing, so anything under the thermocline is a dive to look at, not a place to hunt.
| Spot | Type | Depth | Level | Access | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Francisco Morazan | Wreck | 3-6 m | Novice, snorkel depth | Boat from Leland to South Manitou Island | Ocean-going freighter aground on rocks since 1960, her broken hull still standing out of the water a few hundred yards off the beach. Fully exposed to south-west swell. |
| Three Brothers | Wreck | 2-14 m | Novice, the passage's best beginner wreck | Shore entry on South Manitou Island | Wooden steamer beached in 1911 and uncovered again by shifting sand in 1996; the stern is intact and the site runs from the beach out to 14 m. |
| Alva Bradley | Wreck | 6-8 m | Intermediate, shallow and bright | Boat dive between the Manitou islands | Three-masted schooner lost in the 1894 gale and found in 1990, largely intact with her cargo of steel billets; rigging and further artefacts lie 200 yards north-east. |
| P.J. Ralph | Wreck | 11 m | Intermediate, good light | Boat from Leland, off South Manitou | Wooden steamer lost in 1924 in clear passage water. Easy in flat conditions, but the Manitou Passage builds a fast chop in any west wind. |
Legally yes, but with two limits stacked, and the second is the one people miss. Under the 2026 regulations this water is inside Michigan's Lake Michigan underwater-spear water — the MI/IN border north to the 45th parallel — so lake trout, northern pike and walleye are open here, on top of the year-round list. The federal one is unsettled. Sleeping Bear Dunes is a National Lakeshore, and the DNR's spear page states that fishing in any manner other than hook-and-line is prohibited in National Parks. Whether that sentence reaches a Lakeshore was not settled by the research behind this page. We do not say it is closed; we say it is unresolved — so confirm with the National Park Service before you carry a speargun onto that shoreline.
The Manitou Passage is a channel between the mainland and the Manitou islands, and it behaves like one: sheltered enough for shallow wrecks to sit undisturbed for a century, exposed enough that a west wind builds a fast chop over the P.J. Ralph. Harbours freeze January to March; the season is June to October, clearest August to October after the plankton drops. The water is bright and several wrecks sit at snorkel depth — the Walter L. Frost lies in 3 to 4 m — so a freediver can genuinely work here. There is no tide and no gauge nearby; the closest NOAA water-level station is Ludington, about 120 km away.
Michigan's Bow & Spear Fishing table — the Fisheries Order under NREPA Part 487 — is an enumerating list: whatever it does not name cannot be taken. The 2026 rules opened the whole Michigan Lake Michigan shore up to the 45th parallel, so the game fish are on the table here; Grand Traverse Bay and the November closures at the ports of Grand Haven, Muskegon and Whitehall/Montague are cut out of that water. Under that runs the year-round all-waters list — bowfin, bullheads, burbot, common carp, catfish, cisco, freshwater drum, gizzard shad, goldfish, grass carp, longnose gar, rainbow smelt, suckers and lake whitefish. Whitefish, cisco and burbot are real Great Lakes fish, so that is no consolation prize. Lake sturgeon is never a spear target.
Yes, and twice over. First the ordinary Michigan all-species licence: $26 resident annual, $76 nonresident annual, $10 daily, $11 resident senior, required from age 17, licence year 1 March to 31 March. Then the document most visitors miss — anyone spearfishing underwater must be issued a free annual underwater spearfishing licence, and it is still mandatory, though the monthly effort-and-harvest reports it used to carry were abolished for the 2026 season. That licence is a legal condition of the fishery, not a courtesy.
Exposure is the honest hazard. The Francisco Morazan sits fully open to south-west swell, and the passage picks up quickly in west wind, which turns a novice boat dive into a difficult exit. Cold and depth are second: the Congress bottoms near 50 m off South Manitou. Third is the shoreline itself — several sites are on island beaches inside a National Lakeshore, so a long swim, a remote exit and a legal question ride on the same dive. Cold is the constant: fresh water that stays cold below the first few metres, with the deeper sites under the thermocline. Tow a diver-down flag — but the rule forbids spearfishing where that flag would block boat navigation or access to a launch, and keeps you 150 feet off swimming areas, docks, boat access sites and power intakes, from 30 minutes after sunset to 30 minutes before sunrise. The gear is freediving gear, thicker than a sea diver expects: scuba and rebreathers are banned, so the whole day is breath-hold in fresh water that warms only at the surface, and a 7 mm suit or a hooded two-piece is the baseline for a June–October season, with gloves and boots for pier rubble and wreck steel. Legal gear is a hand-, rubber- or spring-propelled spear; a rubber or spring spear may be fired only fully submerged and must be tied to a line no longer than twenty feet, with the bands off and the safety on whenever you move between areas or enter and leave the water.
Yes. The 2026 rules opened the whole Michigan Lake Michigan shore up to the 45th parallel, so lake trout, northern pike and walleye are open here on top of the year-round list; Grand Traverse Bay next door is cut out of that water. Where the site lies inside Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, confirm with the NPS first.
Unresolved. The Michigan DNR digest says fishing other than hook-and-line is prohibited in National Parks; Sleeping Bear Dunes is a National Lakeshore and the superintendent's compendium was not read. Treat it as advisory.
The Three Brothers on South Manitou runs from the beach to 14 m, and the Francisco Morazan sits in 3 to 6 m with her hull above water. Both are novice sites on a calm day.
Michigan's 2026 underwater-spear waters are named lake by lake: Lake Michigan from the MI/IN border to the 45th parallel, a 2-mile strip in Green Bay to the Ford River mouth, a 5-mile strip from Point Detour to the Brevort River, Lake Huron from the Thunder Bay River pier at Alpena south to Fort Gratiot Light, Lake Erie to the Celeron Island line, and Lake Superior to the St. Marys River — with Grand Traverse Bay, Stannard Rock, Big Reef and the 4.5-mile ring round Isle Royale cut out of them. Under the 2026 regulations this water is inside Michigan's Lake Michigan underwater-spear water — the MI/IN border north to the 45th parallel — so lake trout, northern pike and walleye are open here, on top of the year-round list.
No. Artificial breathing devices such as scuba and rebreathers are prohibited while underwater spearfishing, and the diver must be fully submerged to fire a rubber- or spring-propelled spear. Michigan's underwater fishery is freedive only.
Portugal
