Los Arcos (Peñón de Ifach)

Los Arcos sits on the north face of the Peñón de Ifach, with the massive 332 m rock rising immediately to the south and southwest and completely blocking the S-SW sector, and the mainland and Calpe headland shielding the west. Across the NNW-N window the Calpe-Benissa shoreline lies only 1-2 km away, so northerly wind-sea arrives short and clipped; the genuinely open water is the east-north-east to east, past Cap d'Or and Cabo la Nao — the direction of the Levante, the region's dominant wind-wave with the longest open-water fetch, which is what builds surge and chop on this face and forces dives to be relocated to the sheltered south side of the rock. Southerly and westerly weather leaves the site calm in the lee of the Peñón; there is no true ocean swell in this part of the western Mediterranean, so conditions are driven by local wind-sea, and the site is essentially non-tidal.