Dive Cruises Malpelo Islands Scuba Diving Sharks Colombia

The sinister and forbidding Malpelo Island is located 314 miles (506 Kilometers) off the coast of Buenaventura, Colombia in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. A small Colombian Navy garrison has been in place since 1986 and ten years later Malpelo was recognized as a Colombian Fauna and Flora Sanctuary, with a marine protected area of six miles around the island.

It is the peak of a large submarine volcanic ridge that stretches for 150 miles, from northeast to southwest. The Malpelo ridge rises from depths of 13,123 feet (4000 meters) to reveal itself as the tiny, solitary rock of Malpelo.

Malpelo was once eight to ten times larger than its present size of eight 8 square kilometers. The rocky outpost, known to many as “la Roca” or the Rock, has three distinct peaks. The highest of which, “El Cerro de La Mona”, stands at 1233 feet above sea level (376 meters).