Cova de Can Marçà

Useful Information

photography — In front of the cave. Image by **Jose Escandell**, Cova de Can Marça.

Location:	Carrer Port de Sant Miquel, 40, 07815 Sant Joan de Labritja, Illes Balears, Spain. North of the village Puerto San Miguel. In the north of the island, 20 km from Eivissa, 25 km from Sant Antoni and 23 from Santa Eularia. (39.0833726, 1.4418551)
Open:	MAY to OCT daily 10:30-19:30, tours every 30 min. NOV to APR daily 10:30-17:30, tours every 45 min. [2024]
Fee:	Adults EUR 14, Children (4-12) EUR 8.50. [2024]
Classification:	Karst Cave
Light:	Incandescent Coloured Light
Dimension:	A=12 m asl, T=20 °C.
Guided tours:	D=40 min, L=350 m, VR=28 m.
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Cova de Can Marçà, 07815 Port de Sant Miquel (Sant Joan de Labritja), Tel: +34-971334776. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1970	explored by the Belgian speleologist Jean-Pierre van der Abeelle.
1980	cave developed as a show cave.

Description

Located at the bay of Puerto San Miguel the cave entrance of Cova de Can Marçà is only about 12 m asl. The Spanish name is Cueva de Can Marçà (Caves of San Miguel). The tour crosses the through cave and leaves on the other side at a height of about 40 m asl. This exit offers an impressive view across the bay to the S'illa des Bosc. The building on this island is a secluded holiday retreat for famous people, it is so secret, even Google Maps does not know about it. This island is said to be the most expensive island of the world.

The cave is a nice karst cave with many formations, there are cave corals and rimstone pools. But this cave is very dry, and so the rimstone pools named Lago de los deseos (Lake of Wishes) are dried out. To offer the tourists some kind of attraction, the owners created a system of pipes and pumps and reactivated a small waterfall and the rimstone pools. The water starts to flow right when the tours arrive, activated by the guide. They use water dyed with fluorescine, which gives a really alien green colour to the pools. In other words, the green colour is not a result of green lamps, it's the colour of the water itself. However, the red, yellow and blue are a result of coloured lamps. Most visitors are impressed by this sight, but many find it kitschy, while several are exasperated by the sacrilege done to the fine speleothems. We do not know about animals in the cave, but we guess the coloured water is not really good for them. Fluorescine is one of the dyes used for dye tracing because it is not harmful to the environment, nevertheless, here it is used in high dosage and over a very long time. Most likely, the colour will stain the speleothems in the long term. The owners are quite up-front about the artificial water plays, they explain openly that there is no flowing water due to the climate of the island. And they are proud of their improvements. Despite the conservation issues, this cave seems to be the finest and best promoted show cave of Ibiza.

The cave also had a history of smugglers, which used the cave until the mid-20th century. They were first mentioned in the 19th century. They used the cave to hide the merchandise they trafficked, such as tobacco, coffee, and alcohol. The goods were hoisted from the ships to the cave entrance 12 meters above, which was only 40 cm wide at that time. In the explanations of the cave guides they are dubbed pirates, which sounds much better. They are said to have opened the upper entrance by digging out the cave sediment filling. At this time, most of the cave was too low to walk upright. It was their secret rear door, for cases of emergency. Red or black paint marks on the ceilings were made by them, to help orientate in the cave. The floor was deepened to its current state when the cave was developed as a show cave.

Despite being known for a long time and used over centuries, the cave was first explored scientifically in 1970, when the Belgian speleologist Jean Pierre Van der Abeelle arrived in the town of Sant Miquel. He asked the locals about the cave, and they were happy to help him to locate it in the cliffs above the port. He explored the cave and surveyed it. Jean-Pierre Van den Abeele is the co-founder of the Belgian Speleo Club. He is the author of several books about caving, and also writes adventure novels. Soon after his exploration, the cave was developed as a show cave and opened to the public in the early 1980s. How the development of the cave started is not published, also it's unclear who actually owns and operates the show cave. Unfortunately, the cave website is down for some years, and there is no sign of any alternative. Even the facebook page is operated by someone else. Before the website was shut down, it was unfortunately quite unhelpful. We are not sure if the email still works as the domain does not exist any more. But the cave is still open, as there are still reviews posted on travel portals.