Mantamaria Dive Center
Rua dos Andradas, 1925, Santa Maria, Azores, PRT
About the Center
Mantamaria Dive Center is a dive center located on the island of Santa Maria, the southeasternmost island of the Azores archipelago in Portugal. Benefiting from a mild and sunny climate, the center offers a wide range of water and diving activities. Santa Maria's location provides excellent conditions for diving, with visibility that can reach 20 to 40 meters. The Baixa do Ambrósio Seamount is a notable site for observing manta rays and pelagic fish.
The center offers dive courses certified by PADI, SSI, and CMAS/FFESSM, including Discover Scuba Diving, Open Water Diver, Advanced Open Water, Enriched Air Nitrox, Snorkeling, and Boat Diving. Mantamaria also provides guided dives, night dives, and equipment rental services. The fleet comprises five boats suitable for both diving expeditions and island tours.
Mantamaria Dive Center is distinguished by a team specializing in maritime activities, ensuring maximum safety and adherence to all regulations. The center features a bar and offers air fills (including nitrox), providing a complete experience for divers in an exceptional natural environment.
Available Courses
6 cursosOpen Water Diver
Mantamaria has been an SSI dive centre since 2012 and runs the Open Water Diver course in both full format (pool plus open water) and open water only for those who already have pool skills. An online training option is also listed, with registration handled by the centre. The open water sessions take place in Santa Maria's network of protected marine areas — Pedrinha, Ilhéu da Vila, and other beginner-rated sites on the west and east coasts. Pedrinha in particular, with its 5-metre top and broad platform at 8–12 metres, is a well-structured site for the confined-water equivalent dives: clear water, reasonable currents, and enough marine life to hold attention without overwhelming a new diver. The SSI system, as the centre describes it, focuses on four components: knowledge, skills, equipment, and experience. The curriculum follows the standard SSI Open Water progression. Portuguese is the primary language of instruction at this centre, though the SSI materials are available in multiple languages for self-study. Upon completion, the certification is internationally recognised. Divers who finish as SSI Scuba Diver rather than full Open Water can upgrade later — that upgrade course is also listed in the centre's curriculum.
Advanced Open Water
The SSI Advanced Adventurer at Mantamaria introduces certified divers to a wider range of dive types around Santa Maria. The island's geology produces a variety of underwater environments within a short boat ride — lava formations, caves, sandy flats, walls, and seamounts — which gives the advanced course real practical range. Sites available for the deeper and navigation dives include Banco João Lopes on the north coast, where the top sits at 14 metres and the surrounding seabed drops to 40 metres, and the deeper sections of Ambrósio, which bottoms out at 46 metres. Both involve reading currents and managing depth — exactly the kind of conditions the advanced programme is designed to build confidence in. The SSI Advanced Adventurer is a direct stepping stone toward Dive Guide and eventually Assistant Instructor, both of which are in the centre's curriculum. Divers completing this course in Santa Maria leave with logged dives in Atlantic open-water conditions, including pelagic encounters that are hard to replicate in most European training locations.
Batismo mergulho/Discover scuba Diving
The intro dive at Mantamaria is offered in two formats: pool plus open water, or open water only — both run around Santa Maria's protected bays with an instructor in the water at all times. The session lasts approximately 30 minutes underwater. Before getting in, you cover the basics of the equipment and how to breathe from a regulator; the actual dive is in a controlled, sheltered environment suited to first contact. Santa Maria's south coast sites, including Pedrinha, sit less than a mile from shore in calm conditions and offer a broad sandy platform between 8 and 12 metres with good visibility — a sensible setting for someone handling a BCD and regulator for the first time. The marine life at these sites includes schools of pelagic fish and the occasional large grouper, which makes the experience more engaging than a featureless pool. Both SSI (Discover Scuba Diving) and PADI (Discover Scuba Diving) versions are available, meaning the experience can count toward a full certification if you decide to continue. The centre's instructors handle briefing, equipment fitting, and in-water guidance throughout.
SSI Dive Guide
The SSI Dive Guide programme at Mantamaria trains divers to lead and assist in the same waters where the centre's guided dives operate daily. That means practical experience on the actual sites — Ambrósio, Pedrinha, Ilhéu da Vila, Banco João Lopes — rather than generic textbook scenarios. Guiding on Santa Maria involves reading variable Atlantic conditions, managing groups around protected marine areas with strict conduct codes (the AMPs at Ambrósio and Formigas each have rules on proximity and maximum time in water), and communicating with mixed-experience groups on boat dives. These are real-world guiding skills, not sanitised training scenarios. The centre also offers an upgrade path from SSI Dive Guide to SSI Divemaster for those who hold the Dive Guide and want the full professional rating. Assistant Instructor is the next step after Divemaster on the SSI professional ladder.
Mergulho com ar enriquecido Nitrox nível 2 (40%)
Both SSI and PADI Nitrox specialties are available at Mantamaria. The SSI version is listed as level 2 at 40% oxygen, covering the full range of enriched-air diving. The centre fills Nitrox on site with the Bauer B Trox Membrana system. Nitrox is practically relevant at Santa Maria for anyone targeting repeat dives on sites like Ambrósio or Formigas. The seamount dives involve spending time at 15–30 metres to observe pelagic life, and reduced nitrogen loading matters when you are doing two dives in a day at those depths. The course is a short specialty — primarily theory, gas analysis, and planning — and can be completed quickly alongside other diving at the centre.
Fotografia subaquática
The underwater photography specialty is listed in both the SSI and PADI curricula at Mantamaria. Santa Maria's combination of large pelagics, manta rays, whale sharks, and clear water with 20–40 metre visibility makes it a genuinely productive location for this course. The manta aggregation at Ambrósio in summer, the schooling fish at Banco João Lopes and Baixa da Maia, and the cave systems at Pedrinha each present different photographic challenges — wide-angle pelagic shooting, macro work in the caves, natural light at depth. The course covers composition, exposure, and equipment handling in water. Candidates typically complete the theory and confined-water practice quickly, with the open-water sessions on whichever site conditions favour that day.
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Frequently asked
What people ask before booking
Both SSI and PADI — the centre has been an SSI dive centre since 2012 and a PADI Resort Member since 2012. You can choose which agency's certification you want to work towards.
July through September is the peak window at Baixa do Ambrósio. The site is a protected marine area, so there is a maximum permitted stay of 90 minutes and a specific code of conduct to follow around the mantas.
Yes — the centre runs a Bauer B Trox Membrana compressor station that fills both Nitrox (up to 40%) and Trimix. Courses for Nitrox level 2 (40%) are listed on the SSI side of the curriculum.
About 30 miles from Santa Maria, so plan for a longer boat ride each way. The upside is that cetaceans, turtles, and seabirds are commonly spotted on the crossing. Both sites are strict no-fishing reserves.
Yes, with caveats. The manta action typically happens between 5 and 15 metres, which is manageable for less experienced divers. The deeper sections of the mount reach 46 metres and involve moderate to strong currents — those are for experienced divers only.
Yes. Santa Maria is described as the Azorean island most visited by whale sharks, and the centre runs snorkelling trips for encounters. A typical outing also encounters large tuna schools, pilot fish, turtles, and dolphins.
Open every day from 08:30 to 18:00.
Five boats, all rated for both diving operations and island circumnavigation tours.