Porto Santo — Aida Maria Wreck

Porto Santo island (45 minutes by ferry north of Madeira) hosts one of the Atlantic's most accessible recreational wrecks: the Aida Maria, a 90-metre cargo ship deliberately sunk in 1998 as an artificial reef. She lies upright on a sand-and-rubble seabed at 28 metres with her superstructure reaching 15 metres, and 25 years of colonisation have coated her in soft corals, encrusting sponges, and orange cup corals. Dusky groupers patrol the holds, conger eels occupy the engine room, and schools of bream circle the mast. Loggerhead turtles feed on the reef growth around the hull year-round. Visibility is typically excellent on Porto Santo's sheltered south coast.