Diving in Gozo

Gozo's diving comes from two things: a limestone coast eroded into arches, a shaft, a tunnel and caverns, and a run of deliberate ship sinkings off the south shore. The island sorts itself into a few very different dives.

Off Xatt l-Aħmar lie four wrecks, all sunk on purpose as artificial reefs. MV Karwela, scuttled in August 2006, sits upright at about 39 to 41 m and keeps a staircase lit through its portholes. MV Cominoland, a Captain Morgan Cruises passenger ship when it went down that month, was built as the Royal Navy minelayer Miner VI in 1942; it lies upright at about 40 m, between 20 and 60 m from Karwela. MV Xlendi, a former Gozo Channel ferry sunk in 1999, settled upside down and reaches 42 to 44 m, and going inside is hazardous. The fourth is the tanker MT Hephaestus, scuttled on 29 August 2022 at about 45 to 46 m after running aground near Qawra, Malta, in 2018.

At Dwejra on the west coast, the Blue Hole opens through a limestone arch onto an open-sea wall, beside the boulder field left when the Azure Window arch collapsed in March 2017. The Inland Sea is a natural tunnel from a shallow lagoon out to open water. The north coast has the Reqqa Point wall, the Cathedral and Billinghurst caverns and the twin arches off Xwejni, and the Ras il-Ħobż pinnacle off Mġarr is where technical divers go. Marine life is temperate Mediterranean, and the wrecks, sunk as artificial reefs, give it structure to settle on.

Fly into Malta International Airport, drive to Ċirkewwa and take the Gozo Channel car ferry to Mġarr. Gozo is small enough that each side is about 20 minutes from the other, so centres react to the wind and swell and choose the coast on the day. Xatt l-Aħmar is protected from the prevailing north-west winds, which keeps the wrecks diveable on most days. Malta requires every dive centre to hold a Malta Tourism Authority licence. Its rule for divers is that you may dive independently only if your certification allows a depth of 30 m; otherwise a licensed instructor must accompany you.1 All four Xatt l-Aħmar wrecks lie below that line, so for a diver certified to 30 m they are guided dives. Karwela and Cominoland sit at the edge of the 40 m recreational limit. MV Xlendi and the tanker pass it, which makes them deep or technical dives that call for training beyond a standard card, and the centre will set its own requirement. The Phoenician wrecks in Xlendi Bay lie far deeper and are reported to need government approval.

The sheltered bays at Mġarr ix-Xini and Ħondoq are the easy end of the island's list. Dwejra's Blue Hole is rated advanced, and its tunnels, like the north-coast caverns, are overhead environments that call for cavern or cave training and a guide.