Cala Granadella's limestone palisades drop ninety metres into cobalt water so clear that kayakers can track schools of bream four metres below their hulls. The cove opened to vehicular access in 1978, but for centuries before that, fishermen from Xàbia hauled wooden llaüts onto its gravel strand to shelter from the levante winds that rake the Costa Blanca each autumn. Today the beach draws paddlers seeking the network of sea caves notched into the cliffs — erosion galleries carved by millennia of wave action, their interiors lit by shafts of refracted light that turn the water electric turquoise. Granadella kayak rental operators work from a cluster of kiosks above the high-tide line, offering single and tandem sit-on-top models suited to the cove's sheltered conditions. The most popular route traces the coastline northeast toward Cova del Llop Marí, a cavern named for the Mediterranean monk seals that once bred inside its arched entrance. Though the seals vanished from Spanish waters in the 1960s, the cave remains a highlight of guided excursions, its ceiling dripping with calcite formations and its floor carpeted in Posidonia oceanica, the seagrass that stabilises the seabed and oxygenates the surrounding water. Paddlers often pause at the threshold to watch damselfish dart through the columns of sunlight. The geology here belongs to the Betic Cordillera, the mountain range that buckled upward during the Alpine orogeny thirty million years ago. Granadella's cliffs are Cretaceous limestone, riddled with karst fissures and undercut by tidal benches that form natural ledges just below the waterline. These ledges host colonies of sea urchins and ochre starfish, visible through the water's lens-like clarity. Early-morning paddlers frequently spot octopuses threading through the rock crevices, their chromatophores flashing russet and grey. Kayak rental tours from Granadella typically run two to three hours, departing between 09:00 and 11:00 to avoid the midday sun and the afternoon crowds that fill the cove's limited parking. Guides brief participants on paddle technique and navigation around the rocky headlands, where swells can amplify unexpectedly. The water temperature ranges from seventeen degrees Celsius in May to twenty-six in August, warm enough for most paddlers to forgo wetsuits during the summer months. Access to the beach itself is free; rental fees apply only to equipment and guided excursions, which start at twenty euros for a basic two-hour tour.