Reqqa Point · Gozo
Billinghurst Cave
A vast dark tunnel bored into Gozo's north cliffs, entered at around 28 metres and running roughly 100 metres into the rock before opening into a domed chamber with a gas pocket at the top.
Sea conditions
Excellent right now
Flat, sheltered and calm
Forecast for the site, updated 01:33 AM
- Waves
- 0.4 m
- from ESE
- Wind
- 6 km/h
- SSW, gusts 15
- Swell
- 0.3 m
- 5 s period
- Sea temp
- 28 °C
- air 27 °C
Next 7 days
Sunrise 06:47, sunset 19:06
Exposed to wind and swell from: NW (315°), N (0°), W (270°). Flat calm only. The entrance faces the open north west and the whole plan rests on being able to use the ladder at the end. Local clubs are blunt about it: if there is swell, do something else. Best season: June to September, when the north coast settles and the water is warm enough to make a long, dark dive comfortable..
The dive
Billinghurst is the big one. The entrance is a great rectangular mouth in the cliff face, wide enough that the first few divers through it look like ants, and once you are inside the daylight behind you shrinks to a pale blue rectangle and then to a postage stamp. The main passage is long and startlingly regular, which is how it earned the nickname Railway Tunnel, and it runs perhaps a hundred metres into the headland before opening into a domed chamber where the roof rises above the waterline.
Up in that dome there is a pocket of gas and a plateau of rock where divers have surfaced for decades, regulators still in, to look at each other in torchlight and at the visitors' book people have left there. Treat that gas as scenery, not as air. It has been sitting in a sealed rock chamber a long way from any fresh supply and it is not something to breathe.
The dive itself is technically straightforward and psychologically anything but. Depth is modest, around 28 metres at the entrance and shallower as you go in, but you are in a real overhead with no direct route to the surface. Every guide insists on the same things: redundant lights, redundant gas, a line if you are the kind of team that runs line, immaculate buoyancy because the floor is fine and loves to bloom, and a hard headed look at the sea state before you get in.
The walls themselves are worth the trip even without the theatre. Sponges, false coral and encrusting life in colours you only see under a torch, with crustaceans tucked into every crack and cardinalfish hanging in the dark near the entrance.
- An entrance roughly 30 m wide and 20 m high, one of the largest in the Mediterranean
- A hundred metre straight tunnel that genuinely looks engineered
- Domed chamber with plateaux at 7 m and 3 m and a long standing visitors' book
- Cave wall life in colours that only exist under torchlight
Typical plan
Kit up with twin cylinders or a sidemount set, two lights each and a plan everyone has agreed out of the water. Ladder entry, swim west along the cliff for about 150 metres, and turn the corner around 28 metres to find the entrance. Run the tunnel in a tight, single file trim well off the floor, reach the dome, surface with the regulator in if you want to see the chamber, then reverse the route exactly. Thirds on gas at minimum, no decompression obligation for most teams, and a careful look at the sea before you commit to the ladder on the way out. Around 40 minutes total.
What the bottom looks like
- 1Cliff face on the swim west13 m deep · 60 m out
- 2Entrance, roughly 30 m wide and 20 m high28 m deep · 160 m out
- 3Railway Tunnel, the long straight passage25 m deep · 200 m out
- 4Domed chamber at the end of the tunnel10 m deep · 290 m out
- 5Gas pocket and plateaux at 7 m and 3 m, not breathable5 m deep · 315 m out
Hard coralline limestone floor and walls under a layer of fine, easily disturbed silt inside the tunnel.
Who you might meet
Cardinalfish
Almost always · Re tal-Mullett
Encrusting sponges
Almost always · Sponża
False coral
Almost always
Cleaner shrimp
Often · Gamblu
Slipper lobster
Sometimes · Ċikala
Spiny lobster
Sometimes · Awwista
Mediterranean moray
Sometimes · Morina
Dusky grouper
Sometimes · Ċerna
Scorpionfish
Sometimes · Ċippullazza
Nudibranchs
Sometimes · Spring
Getting in and staying safe
Drive through Marsalforn towards Qbajjar and Il-Qbajjar, then follow the coast road past the salt pans towards Reqqa. Vehicles park on the open rock near a salt pan and divers walk to a small indent in the shoreline where a ladder, around five metres, gives access to the water when the sea allows. The rocks are sharp and the walk is awkward in full cave kit, so hard soled boots and a second pair of hands are both welcome. From the water it is a swim of roughly 150 metres west along the cliff, turning the corner at about 28 metres, before the entrance appears. If the ladder becomes unusable during the dive the fallback is a surface swim of around 25 minutes back around the point, which is a very good reason to check the forecast twice.
- True overhead environment, cavern or cave training and experience required
- Redundant lights and redundant gas are not optional
- Fine silt on the floor and ledges, one careless fin kick blacks out the passage
- The gas pocket in the dome is not breathable, keep your regulator in
- Complete darkness beyond the first stretch, total light failure is disorienting
- Sea state can change during the dive and close the ladder exit
- Sharp rock on the approach and a heavy walk in cave kit
- Around 150 m swim each way along an exposed cliff
A bit of history
The cave was explored and named in the late 1980s by divers from the Billinghurst branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club, and the spelling has been drifting ever since, which is why you see both Billinghurst and Billingshurst in print. Locally it is Ghar ix-Xih, the old man's cave, and it has also long been called the booming cave for the noise winter swell makes when it drives into the entrance. The rock is Lower Coralline Limestone, hard enough to hold a hundred metre unsupported tunnel roof.
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Further reading: Alert Diver Europe, Exploring Billinghurst Cave · Calypso Sub Aqua Club, Billinghurst Cave · Calypso Sub Aqua Club, Reqqa Point · Dive Shack Malta, Reqqa Point