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Reqqa Point · Marsalforn · Gozo

Bottleneck Cave

A natural rock shaft that takes you in at 37 m and lets you out at the foot of the cliff near 58 m. It is a geology dive first and a fish dive a very distant second, and it belongs to trimix divers only.

Technical Cave37 to 58 mShore Access: MediumPopularity: LowAlso called Bottle Cave, Bottleneck, Reqqa Chimney, The Chimney
Plan this dive

Sea conditions

0

Stay dry right now

Sea is up (5.1 m WNW) · Fresh WNW wind (41 km/h) · Gusts to 66 km/h

Done for today. Tomorrow: not looking good. Best it gets is 7 at 17:00: Sea is up (1.9 m WNW)

Forecast for the site, updated 19:45 · Models disagree

Measured at Mġarr, Gozo (10.7 km away, 20:29): 36 km/h from WNW, gusts 41. The next hours lean on it.

Waves
5.1 m
from WNW, biggest 8.4
Wind
41 km/h
WNW, gusts 66
Swell
0.3 m
12 s period
Sea temp
22 °C
air 18 °C

Hour by hour

2005.1 m
53
2105.1 m
41
2205.1 m
46
2305.0 m
50
0004.8 m
51
0104.6 m
51
0204.3 m
50
0304.1 m
48
0403.9 m
45
0503.7 m
43
0603.5 m
41
0703.4 m
38
0803.2 m
36
0903.0 m
34
1002.8 m
32
1102.6 m
30
1202.5 m
29
1302.3 m
30
1402.2 m
29
1522.1 m
27
1662.0 m
26
1771.9 m
25
18201.8 m
24
19211.7 m
23
20211.6 m
22

Next 7 days

TodayShowers0 5.1 m
55 W
TueCloudy0 4.8 m
51 WNW
WedCloudy26 1.2 m
18 W
ThuRain99 0.4 m
17 ESE
FriMostly sunny74 0.5 m
17 E
SatCloudy59 0.5 m
23 NE
SunUnknown67 0.5 m
21 ESE

Sunrise 06:26, sunset 17:06

Waves: Copernicus Med-Waves 4 km + MFWAM 8 km + EWAM 5 km + ECMWF WAM 9 km. Wind: ICON-2I 2 km + ECMWF IFS 9 km + ICON-EU 7 km + UKMO 10 km + ARPEGE 11 km. Read a few km out on the side the site is open to, then blended.

Exposed to wind and swell from: W (270°), NW (315°), N (0°), NE (45°). Reqqa faces the open north, so anything with north in it shuts the site down and a leftover swell from a blow two days earlier will still make the exit ledge a washing machine. A light southerly with a flat sea is the window you want. Visibility is often superb, thirty metres and more, because there is nothing but deep water upstream. Best season: May to October, with late September and October usually giving the calmest northern days and water still holding warmth down to about 25 m. Winter dives happen but need a settled spell and a hard look at the swell forecast..

The dive

Reqqa Point is the blunt little spur at the very top of Gozo, and most divers who go there are heading for Billinghurst Cave or the grouper-haunted reef. Bottleneck sits on the western flank of the same headland and asks a lot more of you. You follow the reef out and down until the rock opens into a hole barely wider than a diver in twin sets, and then the hole becomes a shaft roughly five metres across that simply drops.

Inside, the walls close around you in a cylinder. Torchlight picks out crack after crack packed with shrimp, their eyes throwing back the beam like scattered glitter. The floor arrives at about 58 m as a patch of coarse sand tilted gently seaward, and from there a low tunnel runs out to the base of the cliff. Coming out of that tunnel into open blue water with the reef wall soaring above you is the moment the whole dive is built around.

What there is not, is life. A grouper may drift past the shoulder of the reef on the way down and a few cardinalfish hover in the gloom, but the shaft itself trades biology for architecture. Bring the biggest light you own and a buddy who has been there before, because there is no natural light at the bottom and no quick way up.

Bottom line: gorgeous, serious, and utterly unforgiving of a casual gas plan.

  • Dropping into a five metre wide rock cylinder and watching the daylight shrink to a coin
  • Shrimp packed into every crack in the shaft walls
  • The low tunnel that fires you out at the base of the Reqqa cliff
  • Looking up through open water at the headland from nearly 60 m
  • Visibility that regularly runs past thirty metres

Typical plan

Trimix dive, nothing less. A common run is a twenty minute swim out along the reef on a travel mix, a descent into the shaft mouth at 37 m, five to eight minutes in the cylinder down to the 58 m floor, then the tunnel out and a slow drift back along the cliff base while you begin the ascent. Bottom time of fifteen to twenty minutes at an average of 37 m with a max of 58 m buys you roughly thirty five to fifty minutes of staged decompression on 50 percent and oxygen, so plan a total runtime of eighty to ninety minutes. Twin sets plus two deco stages, three lights, and a deployed SMB before you leave the wall.

What the bottom looks like

0214358m1234567185 m from entry
  1. 1Reqqa wall running west from the point18 m deep · 60 m out
  2. 2Reef shoulder above the shaft30 m deep · 95 m out
  3. 3Bottleneck entrance, about one diver wide37 m deep · 110 m out
  4. 4Cylindrical shaft roughly 5 m across47 m deep · 116 m out
  5. 5Sandy shaft floor with shrimp-filled cracks58 m deep · 120 m out
  6. 6Low exit tunnel to the cliff base56 m deep · 132 m out
  7. 7Gently sloping sand at the foot of the wall54 m deep · 160 m out
Cartoon cross-section along the usual route from Reqqa Point, rocky ledge at the tip of the spur. Depths are approximate.

Hard Coralline limestone reef and vertical rock, with a thin layer of coarse sand on the shaft floor and on the slope outside the exit tunnel.

Who you might meet

Marked ones can hurt you. What they do and what to do about it is under Getting in and staying safe.

Getting in and staying safe

Drive through Zebbug and take the lane that runs down towards Reqqa Point, then the last stretch of rough track to the parking area on the headland. From there it is a short but awkward carry over sharp, pitted limestone to the entry ledge, which is genuinely unpleasant in bare feet and worse with doubles and stages. A ladder is sometimes bolted at the usual entry, but do not count on it being there. There are no toilets, no shade and no facilities of any kind on the point. Marsalforn is the nearest place for fills, food and a shower, about fifteen minutes by car. A boat drop is much kinder on the knees if your centre offers it, and several tech operators run Reqqa that way.

  • Depth well beyond recreational limits, with narcosis and a mandatory decompression obligation
  • Overhead environment with no direct ascent from the shaft floor
  • Entrance at 37 m is tight, roughly one diver at a time in twins
  • No natural light below the shaft mouth, so a primary and two backups are not optional
  • Monofilament and lost tackle on the reef above, courtesy of the anglers on the point
  • Sharp, slippery limestone at the entry and exit ledge
  • North coast swell makes exit the hardest part of the day
  • Long, heavy carry from the parking area with technical kit

Marine life to respect

  • Conger eel · Gringu Can hurt you

    Crushing bite if a hand goes into its hole. Look in from a distance and keep fingers out.

  • Red scorpionfish · Ċippullazza Can hurt you

    Venomous spines, and it sits still on the rock. Look before you kneel or hold on; hot water if stung.

A bit of history

No wreck and no legend here, just water and time. Reqqa Point is Upper Coralline Limestone, the hard cap rock that armours most of Gozo's northern coast, and the shaft is a solution feature: rainwater worked its way down joints in the rock over tens of thousands of years, back when sea level sat far lower than it does now. When the Mediterranean refilled after the last glacial maximum, the drowned plumbing became a dive site. The headland above has been a favourite of local fishermen for generations, which is why so much monofilament ends up on the reef.

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Further reading: Visit Gozo, Bottleneck Cave · Calypso Sub Aqua Club, Reqqa Point · Atlantis Gozo, Bottleneck Cave · Divers Guide, Bottleneck Cave · Malta Dives, Bottleneck Cave