La Restinga

La Restringa is a Spanish hamlet that is part of the municipality of El Pinar on the El Hierro island. It is located on the Atlantic coast, at the southern tip of the island. One of the curiosities is that La Restinga is the most southern population center of Europe.

This district is a fully maritime location dedicated to fishing. Its black sand beaches and crystal clear waters are some of its most outstanding attractions. For diving enthusiasts this place is a must see since its depths have been declared r marine reserve since 1996 and have 1,180 hectares and constitutes the southernmost reserve in Europe .

Divers that delve into the depths of La Restinga can find rocky and abrupt backgrounds in which you can see caves, tunnels and falls, such as El Bajón, an underwater volcano that they say was explored for the first time by Jacques Costeau, or the Punta de los Saltos. In addition to having a subtropical climate there are species that are not seen in other points of the island; invertebrates such as lobsters, blinds, black and yellow corals, shrimp, anemones or sponges among others. Other species that can be found are groupers, old (parrot fish), sargos, jacks, selves, salemas, moray eels, rays, seagrass, tablecloths, on several occasions it is possible to see turtles, sharks, angels, devil blankets and much lucky whale sharks The vegetation cover is very dense and can reach up to 70 meters deep, predominantly calcareous and brown algae.

In addition, it is spectacular seabed of La Restinga has been hosting for some years editions of the Open Fotosub, a competition of underwater photographs that reaches this place a lot of fans of underwater photography.

In the waters of La Restinga a volcanic eruption took place between 2011 and 2012, even the population was evicted for safety reasons. From this eruption arose a submarine volcanic building 400 meters deep and stood at 89 from the surface of the sea surface with a height of 312 meters.

In May 2016 the volcano was officially named Tagoro Volcano