An unidentified steam vessel found in 2014 off Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, broken and twisted across the sand at around 38 to 40 m. A genuine mystery wreck with a boiler as its centrepiece.
WreckSea conditions
Stay dry right now
Sea is up (3.3 m NW) · Long swell (1.4 m every 10 s) · Fresh W wind (39 km/h) · Gusts to 61 km/h
Done for today. Tomorrow: not looking good. Best it gets is 21 at 17:00: Sea is up (1.3 m NW)
Forecast for the site, updated 19:45 · Models disagree
Measured at Fort St Elmo (8.2 km away, 20:29): 35 km/h from W, gusts 40. The next hours lean on it.
- Waves
- 3.3 m
- from NW, biggest 5.5
- Wind
- 39 km/h
- W, gusts 61
- Swell
- 1.4 m
- 10 s period
- Sea temp
- 22 °C
- air 18 °C
Hour by hour
Next 7 days
0 3.3 m49 W
0 3.2 m48 WNW
49 0.9 m17 WNW
85 0.4 m13 ESE
79 0.5 m12 E
73 0.6 m18 NNW
80 0.5 m15 SW
Sunrise 06:25, sunset 17:05
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: NW (315°), N (0°), NE (45°), E (90°). Sits on the exposed north coast, so anything with north in it kills the trip. Southerly and southwesterly winds blow off the land and give the flat, clear conditions you want for a dive this deep with no line down. Best season: May to October. Late summer and early autumn give the best combination of warm water, visibility and settled northerly free spells..
The dive
Nobody knows what this ship is called. A local dive school found her in 2014, nicknamed her Casper after the friendly ghost because of how she loomed pale out of the blue, and the name stuck while the real one stayed lost. What you get is not a postcard wreck. She is flattened and contorted, the midships torn apart, the bow either gone or swallowed by sand, and the stern lying over on its starboard side with a single propeller still attached.
The piece that makes the dive is the boiler, a fat cylinder well over three metres long sitting amidships, its maker's plate long missing. Around it lie steam pumps, lengths of steel pipe, scattered ladders and sections of decking, all of it colonised and all of it home to morays that seem quite happy in the confusion. Divers have recovered heavy calibre rounds from the site for dating, and the pattern of destruction looks more like shellfire than a mine, which has pushed the theories towards a German or Italian vessel lost in the First World War. That is still a theory, not a conclusion.
Treat it as a detective dive rather than a sightseeing one. At close to 40 m on a site with no mooring and little documentation, you are relying entirely on your skipper and your own gas discipline. Go with someone who has been, listen to the briefing, and enjoy the odd pleasure of swimming over a ship that has no name.
- A ship nobody has managed to name yet
- Big intact boiler surrounded by steam age machinery
- Stern and propeller still recognisable
- Very low diver traffic, so the growth and the fish are undisturbed
- A real chance to contribute to identifying a wreck
Typical plan
Down the shot to the boiler at around 39 m, work outwards along the debris towards the stern and the propeller, then back to the line. Nitrox 28 to 30 makes the numbers far more comfortable. Fifteen minutes on the bottom is a realistic target on a single set, with a slow ascent and a generous stop at 5 m. Carry a torch even in good light because the interesting details sit in shadow under the plate.
What the bottom looks like
- 1Boiler, the largest intact object on the site39 m deep · under the boat
- 2Steam pumps and pipework scattered around midships39 m deep · 12 m from the boat
- 3Stern lying over to starboard40 m deep · 25 m from the boat
- 4Single propeller still on the shaft40 m deep · 30 m from the boat
- 5Collapsed decking, ladders and plate40 m deep · 42 m from the boat
- 6Open sand where the bow should be39 m deep · 65 m from the boat
Sand with the wreckage part sunk into it, so the outline of the ship is more suggestion than structure in places.
Who you might meet
Lucky day
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
Boat only, out of Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, Qawra or Sliema depending on the operator. There is no buoy and no permanent shot, so the skipper drops a line on the sounder. Only a few centres run it, and it is usually sold as an advanced or light technical charter rather than a standard boat dive.
- Close to 40 m on a site with no mooring or permanent line
- Twisted plate and sharp torn steel everywhere
- Broken structure makes navigation confusing, so a reel or a good briefing matters
- Silt traps between the wreckage
- Snagged fishing line and nets on a rarely dived wreck
- Currents on this stretch of the north coast
- Open water ascent with boat traffic above
- Morays living in the pipework, so keep hands to yourself
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.
Mediterranean moray · Morina Can hurt you
Bites hard if a hand goes into its hole. Keep hands out of cracks and never feed one.
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
Unidentified. The structural evidence points to a steam driven vessel built somewhere between roughly 1880 and 1920, and the way she is broken up suggests she was shot to pieces rather than mined. Two heavy calibre rounds recovered from the site were sent for analysis in the hope of narrowing the date. Local technical divers found her in 2014 and the coordinates were shared quietly with researchers rather than published. Until someone finds a builder's plate, a bell or a datable piece of fitting, Casper keeps her nickname.
Divers say
Sign in to rate this site and leave a note for the next diver.
- No reviews yet. First one gets bragging rights.
Further reading: Tech Diving Malta: the Casper wreck · Malta Dive Sites: Casper · Techwise Malta technical dive sites