Whales off the doorstep: the Teno-Rasca strip explained
Four hundred resident pilot whales, Europe's first Whale Heritage Site, and the rules that separate a good operator from a bad one.
The stretch of ocean between south-west Tenerife and La Gomera holds one of only four known year-round resident populations of short-finned pilot whales in the world, alongside Hawaii, California and Japan. Over four hundred of them live there permanently, together with resident bottlenose dolphins. Punta de la Rasca, at the end of Palm-Mar, is the southern marker of the protected area.
What is protected, and how
The Franja Marina Teno-Rasca is a Special Area of Conservation within the Natura 2000 network, covering 76,648 hectares along roughly eighty kilometres of coast and reaching up to twelve nautical miles offshore. In January 2021 the Tenerife–La Gomera waters were designated Europe's first Whale Heritage Site by the World Cetacean Alliance.
Twenty-three cetacean species have been recorded here: two resident and twenty-one migratory or occasional. Sightings are reported on roughly eight days in ten.
The rules boats must follow
Spanish law defines a moving cylinder of protection around the animals, 500 metres in radius. Inside it:
- 0 to 60 metres is an exclusion zone. No entry except in an emergency; if the animals approach you, engines go to neutral. Swimming and diving are prohibited.
- 60 to 300 metres allows a maximum of two vessels at a time, and none at all if isolated adults with calves are present.
- 300 to 500 metres allows two more vessels waiting to enter.
- Maximum four knots, never faster than the slowest animal in the group. Approach at an angle, never head-on or from directly behind. No circling, no abrupt changes of course, no separating a group or coming between mother and calf, no feeding, no underwater noise.
Encounters are commonly limited to thirty minutes. Anyone advertising swimming with wild dolphins here is selling something the law does not permit.
How to choose a boat
When to go
The residents are there all year, so winter is as good as summer — and the sea is calmer on the leeward side of the island in the morning. May and June add migrating species. Go early: the light is better, the water flatter and the boats less crowded.