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It's always good to get up early in the Mediterranean in summer. The air is fresh, the sea is often calm and you get a pleasant feeling knowing that everyone else is in bed, sleeping off their hangovers. The Mediterranean sky is as undiluted a blue as any sky can be. There is no tropical humidity or city pollution to clog the air. If you're going diving, there's a certain feeling of exclusivity too, especially if you choose a location that's not too crowded.
We are soon at anchor under the steep cliffs of Isla Dragonera, whisked there in a trice in a big RIB that cut a lonely wake across the otherwise undisturbed surface of the sea. The water has an inky blueness that hints at great clarity and depth, and by now the sun is rising in the sky, with the promise of pizza-oven temperatures to come.
Zipped into my woolly-lined wetsuit complete with hood, the refreshingly cool water beckons and we soon exchange the lap of small waves on hull, and the odd screech from a falcon wheeling under the cliff, for the sounds of our own inhalations and the whoosh of bubbles we leave behind us.
Our aim is to find the Golden Rock, a great obelisk thrust up from an Ice Age glacier when the Mediterranean was a dry valley. It perches on the steep underwater slopes of the Dragon.
Like Majorca itself, Isla Dragonera is simply the top of a dramatic under-water mountain
The Golden Rock is smothered in yellow coral. Parazoanthus axinellae are colonial and can be found densely packed and fused to their neighbours for almost all their height. The polyps are yellow, with golden-yellow tentacles.
Individually they are nothing to look at, but shine your light onto a mass encrusting a rock face at depth and the effect is extraordinary.
We head on down past feathery algae that smothers the shallow topography in its white blanket, through vast shoals of golden-striped saupe. These fish glint in the sunshine as they browse the boulder-strewn surfaces where moray eels poke their heads out, gulping water with a permanently menacing expression. Great clouds of saddled bream pile high and hang in midwater like silver cumulus in the blue above the thermocline.
Here the warm surface water meets the colder sea that never warms to the summer sun. It is this cusp between warm and cool that is the realm of the barracuda, and there are never-ending rivers of them. With their long, slim bodies and mean faces, they troop by in their thousands, in regimental glory.
An occasional individual breaks ranks in a sudden silvery rush to grab an unfortunate little chromis for a snack, but the others keep to order, subject to some unspoken military discipline.
We head across the flow of traffic, confident that we are a little large for their taste, onwards and downwards.
The water has a clarity that never ceases to amaze me. The great depth of the Mediterranean means that nutrients and the outflows from rivers quickly sink away, so that the plankton levels are unusually low. By now the sun is high, but it's very blue down here. At 30m and more, it's a brightly lit yet eerily monochrome world.
And there's the Golden Rock. It must be 10m high and hanging to the steep fell slope by a mere thread of luck, but it has probably been there for eons.
We shine our lights at it and it fulfils its promise. Smothered in tiny yellow flowers, it lights up like a Las Vegas billboard. We swim around it and look down. I spiral down to take a look at a sandy plateau below, hoping to spot a flying gurnard.
At 42m we're getting beyond the range of a single tank, so we don't hang around. Soon we're back at 30m and looking at a large, anemone-like cerianthus standing strangely alone, a '60s fibre-optic table lamp, its tentacles glowing in contrast against the stark rocks, and draped from its thick tube in a fountain of white.
We move back up through that river of barracuda to 18m, where octopus creep steathily back to their cairns, their night of stalking a meal of crabs and shellfish done. We take a brief look in the entrance to a cavern. A crowd of startlingly orange cardinalfish dot the gloom at the entrance.
Stalactites await examination but there's no time to explore the cave today.
Then it's slowly up to the shallows and the crackle of sea-urchins. This is where we exchange the chill of deep water for that warm bath experienced by summer bathers, the ones who express incredulity that we dress up in rubber suits merely for a swim.
Other divers bubble their way back along the underwater cliff face to the anchorline. The boat waits above.
"Zip", and we're back on land, gear rinsed and salutations made. I stroll through the village, buy freshly baked bread for breakfast and go to wake my family. I wonder what the rest of this glorious day will bring.
Majorca is part of Europe. The currency is euros. Your bank cards are readily accepted. The supermarkets stock familiar items. English is commonly spoken. Your E111 form covers you for treatment on the NHS if you need it. You can fly from Britain in a couple of hours.
This large island welcomes up to 20 million visitors a year. They enjoy the open sandy beaches; SunSeekers and other costly toys crowd up its rocky calas; restaurants are full, and yet few go diving. This is good news for those who do, because you'll see more fish than divers on every dive.
On the map you'll notice a range of mountains that sits along one coastline from south-west to north. At the two extremities lie the best areas for diving.
In the north is Porto Pollensa, with its Scuba Mallorca dive centre. Off the south-west point lies Isla Dragonera, its profile resembling a sleeping dragon in the sea, a lighthouse at either end.
The nearest point on the main island is the little village of Sant Elm, where you find the Scuba-Activa dive centre. It overlooks the channel between the islands. Sant Elm has only one small hotel, so you need to travel there from where you are staying. The nearest centre is Port Andratx, a 20-minute car ride away.
Scuba-Activa, open from April to the end of October, is run by Matthias Gunther, a personable young German who speaks perfect English and insists that all his staff do too. His Italian-built Joker carries only 12 passengers, so diving groups tend to be intimate. People like to hang out in the garden, drinking coffee and talking diving when the diving's done. I asked Matthias what he thought readers needed to know.
"I don't like it when diving magazines get the facts wrong," he told me. "For instance, one wrote that you needed to get a permit from the military to dive around Dragonera. This may have been true once, but although I need permits to operate from local authorities, permits are not needed on an individual basis.
A visiting diver needs divingcertification, holiday insurance to cover the activity, and a medical certificate or a signed disclaimer. There is also an 8 euro one-off payment towards the centre's contract with a hyperbaric treatment facility 45 minutes away in Palma.
Where is the best diving? "At either end of Isla Dragonera, at Punta Llebeitx and Punta Tramontana. You get to see a lot of wildlife, especially if there's a bit of a current running. Then there's the Conger Eel Wreck in the middle of the channel. Not much of a wreck but plenty of eels, both conger and moray, and other marine life to see.
But diving in Majorca isn't just about wrecks, diving in caves and deep dives. "It's a great island for family holidays and we teach a lot of courses. We can always anchor the boat in a place that gives us shallow water for beginners as well as deep exciting dives for experienced divers. Visibility is always excellent. When it's only 20m we call that really bad!"
Matthias says visitors can dive all day. "I'll take the boat out four times if needed but we restrict each trip to 12 divers." Majorca is big, so can you find places to stay nearby? "Another British diving magazine suggested staying in C'an Pastilla and diving in Porto Pollensa. That's a mere three hours' drive apart!
"If you can, stay in Sant Elm. Scuba-Activa can organise self-catering apartments and car-hire if you want it."
Do you get many British divers? "We get one regular diver, George, who tells me he lives at Scapa Flow," Matthias tells me. Say no more.
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Octopus are frequently encountered stalking the rocky terrain
Majorca is riddled with prehistoric caves
GETTING THERE: Fly to Palma de Mallorca from any number of regional airports.
DIVING : Scuba-Activa, www.scuba-activa.de Scuba Mallorca, www.scubamallorca.com
ACCOMMODATION : Self-catering in Sant Elm. Hotel or self-catering in Porto Pollensa. Check with the dive centre for a convenient location.
MONEY : Euros
HEALTH : An E111 form (from your local post-office) gives reciprocal NHS cover.
LANGUAGE : Spanish and Mallorqin, but English widely spoken..
WHEN TO GO : May to September.
COST : The cost of flights varies enormously depending on how you buy them, but budget flights are available. Expect to pay £300 per week for a two-bedroom (sleeps four) apartment.
FURTHER INFORMATION: 020 7486 8077, www.tourspain.co.uk
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