Azores vs Madeira: Which Island Base for a Month of Diving?

by Yannick SchrothOct 26, 202613 min read

Pico across the channel from Monte da Espalamaca on Faial, August 2010: the Azores side of this comparison, and the stretch of sea the Faial and Pico dive boats cross. Photo: José Luís Ávila Silveira and Pedro Noronha e Costa, Wikimedia Commons, public domain, cropped.

Water is NOAA's satellite sea surface temperature, averaged by month for 2021–2025; sea state is modeled significant wave height from the Copernicus Marine global wave model for 2023–2025. Rules, timetables and visa terms are as published by the issuing body and read in October 2026.

Azores vs Madeira diving: offshore banks against a reserve off Caniço

The two island groups sell different dives. In the Azores the famous ones are offshore. Decreto Legislativo Regional 14/2024/A rebuilt the Azores marine park as a network with four levels of protection, and two of its ten marine nature reserves are Banco Condor (PMA14) and Banco Princesa Alice (PMA15), the bank that operators on Faial and Pico run day trips to. A 2025 amendment, Decreto Legislativo Regional 22/2025/A, moved the start date to 1 January 2026.

Inside those reserves article 76 bans every kind of fishing, spearfishing included. Diving is allowed but not free. Article 80 lists diving, snorkeling, megafauna watching and mooring buoys among the uses that are "condicionados e sujeitos a autorização", conditioned and subject to an authorization. So the question to put to an Azores operator is whether its boat holds that authorization, not only whether it has seats left.

Madeira's signature dive is the opposite case. It sits off the town. The Reserva Natural Parcial do Garajau was created by Decreto Legislativo Regional 23/86/M in October 1986, on the south coast between Ponta do Lazareto and Ponta da Oliveira, out to the 50-meter depth line. The decree bans "quaisquer actividades de pesca, comercial ou desportiva, incluindo a caça submarina", and keeps swimming, amateur diving and non-motorized water sports allowed. Motor boats may not navigate inside it, except to land small craft on the beaches.

A 1997 regulation, Decreto Regulamentar Regional 1/97/M, adds the practical rules. A dive boat inside the reserve may tie up only to one of its mooring buoys. A diver or group of up to eight entering without a boat must tow a surface buoy flying a dive flag, with a white light at night. The park can require a ranger to accompany a dive. That makes Garajau a reserve you can reach on foot from Caniço de Baixo, and five of the eleven centers on our Madeira list are filed in Caniço or Caniço de Baixo.

The Princess Alice season: why an Azores dive month means July to September

The season for the Azores offshore banks comes from the operators that run the trips, not from the reserve decree. Three independent ones on Faial and Pico agree on the core of it, checked on 26 October 2026. CW Azores in Madalena runs Princess Alice "from the beginning of July to the end of September". Dive Azores in Horta gives "July to September, when the sea is calmer". Divers Club Azores in Lajes do Pico runs from the beginning of July to mid-October.

The trips are long and conditional. CW Azores puts the bank 45 nautical miles from its base on Pico, Divers Club about two and a half hours each way from Lajes. CW Azores asks for an Advanced Open Water card and 50 logged dives, Divers Club for an advanced card or 50 dives, and both want a check dive first. Prices on the three sites run from €250 to €350 a person, and Dive Azores currently sells its Princess Alice day to freedivers and snorkelers only. Two of the three tell you to stay a week, because weather cancels days.

Blue shark dives are a separate trip. CW Azores lists its shark dives from the beginning of July to mid-October, with the same 50-dive and Advanced Open Water minimum. The rules for baiting and group size come from a code the operators sign, covered in our Azores diving guide.

So an Azores month for diving is a summer month. Madeira's reserve dive does not hang on an offshore window. Garajau begins at the shoreline, and the coldest monthly average off Funchal in 2021–2025 was 18.9 °C, so the island works as a base in March as well as in August.

Swimming with dolphins in the Azores vs Madeira: two different laws

This is where the two regions' rules part ways. Both have their own regional law on cetacean watching, and the laws do not say the same thing.

The Azores work under Decreto Legislativo Regional 9/99/A, republished with amendments by Decreto Legislativo Regional 10/2003/A. Article 21 allows a dolphin swim and bans swimming with whales. Swimmers go in only on the skipper's decision, from a marked boat with a second crew member ready to swim. Each boat gets three attempts. Swimmers use snorkeling gear, never more than two at once, stay together at the surface within 50 meters of the boat and leave after 15 minutes, with the engine out of gear. Touching the animals is forbidden.

The same law keeps scuba away. Article 18 bans "a presença de mergulhadores com escafandro autónomo" in the approach area, which starts 500 meters from the nearest animal. Boats may not come closer than 50 meters, may spend 30 minutes at most in the approach area, and no more than three may stay within 300 meters of a group. Around whales with small calves the minimum is 100 meters.

Madeira regulated the activity later, with Decreto Legislativo Regional 15/2013/M, in force since September 2013 and run by the regional nature park service. During an approach it forbids "a natação com mamíferos marinhos", swimming with marine mammals, and any entry into the water to interact with them on purpose. Scuba diving to watch them is banned too, except for authorized science or filming.

What Madeira allows instead is called underwater observation. At most four people, holding on to the boat and supported by a line tied to it, may look at dolphins under water. Only two species qualify: the common dolphin and the Atlantic spotted dolphin. Boats may not approach closer than 50 meters, each may stay ten minutes, and all boats together share 40 minutes with the animals. Breaking the in-water rules is classed as very serious, with fines up to €40,000 for a company.

For someone choosing a base, the difference is concrete. In the Azores a licensed dolphin swim is a snorkel in open water. In Madeira it is a few minutes on a rope beside the boat. Our list of whale watching destinations sets both against the other coasts.

Azores vs Madeira water temperature: equal in August, apart in March

On water, Azores vs Madeira is a seasonal question. NOAA's sea surface temperature analysis, averaged by month for three quarter-degree cells:

Monthly means of NOAA's Optimum Interpolation sea surface temperature, version 2.1, 2021–2025, for the cells centered at 37.625° N 25.625° W, 38.375° N 28.625° W and 32.625° N 16.875° W, read from the monthly file NOAA's Physical Sciences Laboratory publishes.

From July to September the gap closes. In August the two Azores cells averaged 24.3 °C and Funchal 23.7, so a summer diver in the Azores is not giving up warmth. Winter is different. From November to May Funchal runs 2 to 3 °C warmer, and the Azores bottom out near 16.5 °C in March.

That gap decides the suit. Over a whole year Funchal averaged 21.4 °C against 19.6 to 19.8 in the Azores cells. A cell is about 25 km across, so it says nothing about a thermocline at 20 meters. Our travel wetsuit guide covers the choice of suit.

Sea state: why winter boat days are scarcer in the Azores than off Funchal

Dive boats stay in harbor when the sea builds, so wave height is a fair proxy for lost days. The Copernicus wave model, three years of three-hourly output for open water off each base:

Calculated for this page from Météo-France's MFWAM model, run for Copernicus Marine on a grid of 1/12° (about 9 km), January 2023 to December 2025. The cells are centered at 37.67° N 25.67° W, 38.42° N 28.67° W and 32.58° N 16.92° W. Shares of hours are shares of the model's three-hourly steps.

In July all three are calm. From November to March they are not alike. South of Faial the model spends more than half of the hours from November to March above 2 meters, three quarters in January. South of São Miguel it is 37 to 61%, off Funchal 10 to 29%. Across the year the means are 2.01 m, 1.72 m and 1.21 m.

Funchal's number belongs to Madeira's lee side, not to the whole island. A cell off the north coast, at 32.92° N 17.00° W, averages 1.88 m and spends 54 to 69% of hours from December to March above 2 meters, close to the Azores. Garajau and the dive centers of Caniço are on the sheltered side, which is a large part of why Madeira works in winter.

Getting to the Azores or Madeira, and moving between the islands

Madeira is closer. In a straight line Funchal's airport is 965 km from Lisbon's and Ponta Delgada's is 1,449 km; Horta, on Faial, is 1,697 km. The two archipelagos are 985 km apart, so combining them in one trip means a flight.

In the Azores, the islands are the logistics. Ponta Delgada and Horta are 278 km apart, and the dive banks are off Faial and Pico, not São Miguel. SATA Air Açores flies between the islands and gives diving equipment an extra 15 kg on its own flights, packed as one bag no larger than 150 by 75 by 50 cm, with the cylinder empty. Kit that was not booked may follow on a later flight. Ferries between the islands are run by Atlânticoline, and weather cancels sailings in winter; check its own timetable.

In Madeira there is one crossing that matters to a diver. Porto Santo Line's Lobo Marinho sails from Funchal to Porto Santo, about 58 km away, usually leaving Funchal at 08:00 and returning in the evening, with two round trips on some days. Its October 2026 timetable has no sailings from 15 to 22 October. A November 2026 fare starts at €33.90 per adult in tourist class, before a fuel surcharge. Our Madeira diving guide covers the Porto Santo dives.

The Azores ask more planning. A month split between São Miguel for work and Faial or Pico for the offshore season means one inter-island flight at least, and the flight after a dive day needs planning; the Azores diving guide covers the surface interval.

A working month in the Azores or Madeira: Schengen, the D8 visa and the desks

On paperwork, Azores vs Madeira is a tie. Both are autonomous regions of Portugal, and the European Commission lists both among the EU's outermost regions, "the most remote territories of the Union". For non-EU visitors, a Schengen short stay is "up to 90 days in any 180-day period", counted across all 29 Schengen countries.

For longer, the route is Portugal's residence visa for remote work, the D8. The consular checklist asks for average monthly income over the last three months of at least four guaranteed minimum monthly wages, and travel insurance of at least €30,000. DGERT records the 2026 national minimum wage at €920, so the test is €3,680 a month, as of October 2026. The Portugal D8 visa guide has the full list.

The desks differ more. Startup Madeira's digital nomad programme lists a free working space in Ponta do Sol, its "Nomad Village", with registration marked free and Funchal, Machico and Santa Cruz named as other official locations. In the Azores, Nonagon, the science and technology park of São Miguel in Lagoa, lets a new coworker try its space free for up to one month and offers contract desks to anyone staying a month or longer. The Azores nomad guide covers living in Ponta Delgada.

Dive centers on the Azores and Madeira lists, and the licence question

Neither archipelago appears in Portugal's national register of tourism activity businesses, the RNAAT. Its open data, read whole on 26 October 2026, holds 13,250 entries, and every one sits in a mainland region. So an RNAAT number is not the thing to ask for on the islands; the Azores diving guide covers the regional list of licensed dive boats. Our RNAAT page explains what the national register does show on the mainland.

Both lists come from SSI's register of affiliated centers: the Azores read on 23 September 2026, Madeira on 3 September 2026. A register entry says SSI lists the business. It does not show the reserve authorization in the Azores or the cetacean licence in Madeira, so ask for those directly.

Pick the Azores for a summer of pelagics, Madeira for the rest of the year

Pick the Azores if you hold an advanced card with 50 dives or more, can be there between July and September, and want blue water: the Princess Alice bank, blue sharks and a legal dolphin snorkel. Base on Faial or Pico for the diving, not São Miguel, and keep a week of slack for the weather. The Azores diving guide covers the reserves and the shark code. Do not pick it for a winter of diving.

Pick Madeira if your month falls between October and June, you are newer to diving, or you want one base with a short commute to the water. The south coast is calmer, the sea warmer in winter, and the reserve is a shore dive from Caniço de Baixo. Do not pick it to swim with dolphins.

If Azores vs Madeira is really a question about Atlantic islands in winter, Fuerteventura vs Lanzarote compares the Canaries, further south again. Before an offshore trip anywhere, check that your dive insurance covers an evacuation between islands.