Garajau Partial Nature Reserve

The Garajau Partial Nature Reserve is a strip of sea along the south coast of Madeira, running from the eastern edge of Funchal into the municipality of Santa Cruz. It follows about 7 kilometres of coast between Ponta do Lazareto and Ponta da Oliveira, from the high-tide line out to a depth of 50 metres, and covers 376 hectares. The shore is high and rocky, with seven open caves and nineteen small pebble beaches, two of them large enough to be used by bathers.

The reserve was created in 1986 at the suggestion of a group of local divers, who had seen how quickly marine life was disappearing from the island's coastal waters. It was the first exclusively marine reserve in Portugal. Fishing is banned throughout and boat traffic is restricted, so that the area can serve as a nursery from which fish spread to neighbouring waters. It is managed by IFCN, Madeira's institute of forests and nature conservation.

The seabed is rock down to about 22 metres and fine sand or crushed shell below, with steep walls where the two meet, and the water is clear enough to see more than 20 metres. The dusky grouper is the emblem of the reserve. Sea urchins and sea cucumbers are common on the rocks, turtles and bottlenose dolphins pass through, and the Mediterranean monk seal, the emblematic species of the Desertas Islands, has been seen here more and more often in recent years. On the cliffs above, the Pináculo area belongs to the Natura 2000 network and is important for Cory's shearwaters and common terns.

Most visitors come to dive or snorkel, and the reserve draws many amateur divers to Madeira. Access from land is by the Lazareto quay, at the Funchal end, or by Garajau beach, below the village of Garajau in the parish of Caniço. The Pináculo viewpoint, on the cliff top, looks down over the reserve. Educational groups can arrange visits through the reserve's environmental education programme.