Dennis Bakhuis

Dive site · sea · The Var coast and the Îles d'Hyères

🇫🇷 Îlot de la Gabinière, Port-Cros

Port-Cros, Hyères, Var, France

A rock islet inside one of Europe's oldest marine national parks, where the groupers are large and completely unbothered by divers.

Dives here
1
Deepest
12.2 m
Water
salt
First · last
2019

Revision 2 · changed 18 Oct 2026

History
  1. r2 18 Oct 2026 Photo size matches the file · Dennis Bakhuis
  2. r1 10 Oct 2026 Imported from the personal log · Dennis Bakhuis

Site data © divelog-sites contributors (ODbL), descriptions and maps CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

1 map

Îlot de la GabinièreÎle de Port-CrosTombant Est, rock falls to sand at 45 mCalanque Sombre mooring (Gabinière Est)Groupers, Mérouland 15–25 m↓20 mBarracuda school 10–20 m↓15 mLe Dolmen, swim-through 33–35 m↓34 mSite Ouest mooringPlateau to 20 m, slabs and posidonia↓20 mN50 m
  • Entry / exit
  • Buoy
  • Point of interest
  • Shoreline
  • Wall / drop-off
  • Depth
Site map · 4 objects · max 45 m

The Gabinière islet off the south coast of Port-Cros; coastlines and the Gabinière Est dive-site point from OpenStreetMap. Layout from the Port-Cros national park site sheet and Saint P'Hyères Plongée: the east face drops over rock falls to sand at 45 m with the groupers at 15-25 m and barracuda at 10-20 m, boats moor in the Calanque Sombre on the north side, and the west face is a plateau to about 20 m with slabs and posidonia towards the south. The Dolmen lies about 60 m from the point above the Calanque Sombre (drawn off the north-east point, position approximate); the drift entry at the Calanque aux Loups is not placed because its position was not found. Wall, mooring and feature positions are approximate.

Map © divelog-sites contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

La Gabinière is a small rocky islet off the south coast of Port-Cros, inside the Parc national de Port-Cros — created in 1963 and among the first marine national parks in Europe.

Sixty years of protection have produced the thing people come for: dusky groupers, Épinephelus marginatus, in numbers and at size, sitting in the rocks and entirely indifferent to divers. The species was fished nearly out of the western Mediterranean; Port-Cros is one of the places it came back. Barracuda hang out in the blue off the wall.

Dived from 10 to 30 m. One dive, 5 July 2019, to 12.2 m — the shallow shoulder, which is where the groupers are.

Image: Îlot de la Gabinière, Port-Cros.jpg — Rémih, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Photos

Dived here with

Kim

Nearby sites

1 dive at Îlot de la Gabinière, Port-Cros

  1. 5 Jul 2019 with Kim boat date5 Jul 2019 depth12.2 m time58 min water—

Sources

  • First-hand observation (Dennis Bakhuis)