Fraggle rock or Piedra de la Higuera is a solitary underwater hill rising from the sloping sandy sea bed at the southern side of the Marina del Este bay in the depth of 16 to 24 meters. Its rock walls are split down with long fractures forming hideouts for resident conger eels and their accompanying cleaner shrimps, who happily pose for the perfect photo only to be disturbed by the mandatory cardinal fish blocking the view. Large octopuses hide in their dens near the sea floor where the rock merges into a sandy bottom. Schools of small bream circulate the rock and groups of red mullet sleep on the sand.
This area is a popular cleaning station for pelagic sunfish that are often seen here surrounded by hard working wrasse and bream that feed from the parasites off their skin. They can be easily recognized from their distinctive flat disc shaped body with pointy dorsal fins and a scalloped rudder-like small caudal fin. The specimens visiting La Herradura area are usually less than a meter long but sunfish can grow up to three meters.
South from the rock some unfortunate cars and an old fishing boat form small artificial reefs which have become home for a selection of fish, nudibranch and a large hermit crabs. The depth ranges up to 27 meters here so the dive can be finished in the shallower marina bay by taking a direction N-NW from the rock. This swim of 50 plus meters over a plain sandy bottom will be rewarded when you can complete the dive decompressing in a totally different landscape in the shallower are of the marina bay.
