Where can you spearfish in Maó?

The rocky ground southeast of town, S'Algar / Cala Rafalet and Punta Prima toward the l'Aire islet, plus Es Grau to the north. Cala Sant Esteve, in the harbour mouth, is semi-sheltered from the Tramuntana and the easiest way in.

When is the sea calm enough at Maó?

Late spring through autumn, on the mornings when the Llevant, the easterly, is down. The coast faces east-southeast, so an easterly wind or swell closes the outer rock and the one that still holds up is north-facing Es Grau.

Do I need a licence to spearfish in Menorca?

Yes, a Balearic spearfishing licence from the Govern (CAIB). It is freediving only, no night diving, and you cannot sell the catch.

Can you spearfish around Illa de l'Aire or s'Albufera?

Es Grau sits by the s'Albufera nature park; the data does not confirm a reserve at Illa de l'Aire, but spearfishing is banned inside Balearic marine reserves unless a named exception applies. Check whether a protected zone applies and where the boundary runs before you get in the water.

What is the easiest entry in Maó?

Cala Sant Esteve at the harbour mouth, under La Mola. It is semi-sheltered from the Tramuntana and the easiest way in, though you share the water with boat traffic there.

Maó spearfishing forecast — Spain

Maó · Spain

5.2

💧 Water should clear by Friday (~1d)

visibility2m

Today — right on the edge. 💧 Water should clear by Friday (~1d)

Sources: IPMA · buoys · Copernicus · Sentinel-2 — high confidence · data 19:22

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

Entry points with coordinates

Seabed relief — promising ground

This verdict — in your pocket. Open the app for the week's window.

Coming soon

Get the go / no-go verdict for Maó by email

Leave your email — and the moment a window opens at Maó, we'll send the go / no-go verdict. Email is all we need.

Just your email — nothing else needed.

Optional: city, channel, phone

City

What to send

Good windows / green daysStorm warningsMorning digestCrab season (santola)

Where to send it

WhatsAppTelegram

Phone

26 countries · all spots

Pick your coast

Every covered town has its own live forecast, cameras and entry points. Choose where you're diving.

Portugal

Portugal map →

North

Centre

Lisbon & West

Cascais

Feedback

Help us make it better

What's missing? Tell us what you'd like to see — new spots, species, data or features. We read everything.

S'Algar / Cala RafaletMaó

borderline

exposed head-on to the swell today (city-level)

window: Go early, before the afternoon sea breeze ruffles the surface and before the promenade ladders fill with swimmers. May to October the water is comfortable and September is usually the clearest month. Hunting at night is banned throughout Spain, from sunset to sunrise.
tide: There is barely any tide: Balearic springs are measured in centimetres, a quarter of a metre at most, so there is no tidal window to wait for. What moves the water is wind set-up and above all the rissaga, the Menorcan seiche that can shift the level inside a narrow inlet like Rafalet within minutes.
shelter: Sheltered from the N and NW tramuntana, which drops off the land and leaves the water flat by the S'Algar ladders. It is wide open between 50 and 170 degrees, worst on the 90 degree llevant, and a SE xaloc pushes swell straight into the Rafalet notch.
conditions: With a light easterly and three or four calm days the water over the rock and the meadow is clean and the place works. After an easterly blow the shallows fill with suspended sand and visibility drops; anything more than a light E wind is not worth the drive, and heavy rain sends the ravine down murky.
hazard: The boundary of the Illa de l'Aire marine reserve sits less than a kilometre to the south, roughly 870 metres away: past that line spearfishing is banned (Decret 41/2015 art. 6.1) and Menorca has no exemption. Check the chart before working south, keep the buoy up and stay within 25 m of it.
access: Entry is off the iron ladders on the S'Algar seafront, with parking in the village itself, while Cala Rafalet is reached on foot down the pine-shaded ravine path. The limestone is sharp, so wear booties. With an easterly running do not exit at the ladders: the surge slams against the wall.

Rocky ground SE of Maó; rock drop-offs and Posidonia, sea bream and dentex, exposed to the easterly (E).

Google Maps

Spot	Type	Depth	Level	Access	Notes
S'Algar / Cala Rafalet	Rock drop-offs and Posidonia, southeast of Maó	Rock veriles shelving into a Posidonia meadow; a Mediterranean coast, so no tide to time	Intermediate, open easterly coast	Shore entry over the rocky ground southeast of town, by the Cala Rafalet inlet.	Rock drop-offs and Posidonia holding sargo and dentex. It faces straight into the Llevant, so it fishes clean only when the easterly is down; once the E swell runs, that exposed rock is no place to be.
Punta Prima / Illa de l'Aire	Rocky ground facing the l'Aire islet, southern tip	Rich rocky bottom off the channel to the islet	Advanced, exposed and current-swept	Shore entry at Punta Prima, working toward the islet of l'Aire.	The richest ground here and the most serious water: very exposed to the E-SE and cut by current running the channel to the islet. Read the flow before you commit, keep the buoy up, and don't dive it alone when the current is running. l'Aire's reserve status is not confirmed in the data, so check for any protected boundary before you commit.
Cala Sant Esteve / La Mola	Rocky harbour-mouth cove under La Mola	Shallow rock at the mouth of the harbour	Easy, semi-sheltered fallback	Easy shore entry at Cala Sant Esteve, in the mouth of Maó harbour below the La Mola fortress.	The calm-day easy entry: semi-sheltered from the Tramuntana. You are in a working harbour mouth, though, so there is boat traffic here, keep the flag buoy up and stay clear of the channel.
Es Grau	Rocky ground north toward s'Albufera	Rock shelving off the north shore	Intermediate, north-facing and on a park border	Shore entry at Es Grau, north of Maó toward the s'Albufera lagoon.	North-facing rock that opens when the Tramuntana is down, not the easterly, so it can fish on a day the southeast coast can't. It sits by the s'Albufera des Grau nature park, the core of Menorca's biosphere reserve, so check where the protected zone begins before you hunt; spearfishing may be restricted there.

Maó spearfishing forecast — wind, swell, visibility & live cameras

Get the go / no-go verdict for Maó by email

Pick your coast

Portugal

North

Centre

Lisbon & West

Help us make it better

Windows, hours and the day's trends.

A marine instrument, go / no-go for solo hunting.

The forecast is the plan.The call is on the rock.

Where to get in off the rocks.

Look at the water right now.

What's in season, what the law says.

Setúbal · Arrábida

Alentejo

Algarve

Madeira

Azores

Spain

Galicia

Cantabrian coast

Andalusia (Atlantic)

Andalusia (Med)

Murcia

Levante

Catalonia

Balearics

Canaries

🇮🇹Italy

Liguria

Tuscany

Lazio

Campania

Calabria

Apulia

Sicily

Sardinia

Central Adriatic

Abruzzo

Emilia-Romagna

Northern Adriatic

🇬🇷Greece

Attica · Saronic

Peloponnese

Crete

Cyclades

Dodecanese

NE Aegean

Sporades · Evia

Ionian

Halkidiki & Thermaikos

Thrace · Kavala

🇫🇷France

Hauts-de-France

Normandy

North Brittany

West Brittany

South Brittany

Pays de la Loire

Charente-Maritime

Aquitaine (Arcachon)

French Basque Country

Occitania

Provence — Côte d'Azur

Corsica

🇹🇷Turkey

Marmara

North Aegean

İzmir

South Aegean

West Mediterranean (Turkey)

Central Mediterranean (Turkey)

Hatay (Gulf of İskenderun)

West Black Sea

Central Black Sea

East Black Sea

🇭🇷Croatia

Istria

Kvarner

Windows, hours
and the day's trends.

A marine instrument,
go / no-go for solo hunting.

The forecast is the plan.
The call is on the rock.

Where to get in
off the rocks.

Look at the water
right now.

What's in season,
what the law says.