Sign in
All sites

Għar Lapsi · Malta

Crib

Life sized nativity figures cut from sheet steel, standing under a rock overhang at about 22 m on the outer reef at Ghar Lapsi. Getting there is a reef and sand navigation exercise, and finding it is half the fun.

Advanced🚢 Wreck15 to 22 mShore access: easyPopularity: mediumAlso called Crib Reef, Ghar Lapsi Crib, Presepju, The Crib
Plan this dive

Sea conditions

75

Good right now

Some chop (0.5 m ESE)

Forecast for the site, updated 01:46 AM

Waves
0.5 m
from ESE
Wind
n/a
Swell
0.5 m
5 s period
Sea temp
29 °C

Next 7 days

Today🌤️70 0.5 m
0 N
Sat🌤️79 0.4 m
0 N
Sun🌤️79 0.4 m
0 N
Mon🌤️94 0.2 m
0 N
Tue🌤️100 0.4 m
0 N
Wed🌤️100 0.8 m
0 N
Thu🌤️82 0.8 m
0 N

Exposed to wind and swell from: S (180°), SE (135°), SW (225°). South facing, so northerly winds are your friend and any southerly component puts swell into the entry and surge on the outer reef. Visibility is often 20 m plus, which helps enormously when hunting for the overhang. Check locally before travelling, the entry area took storm damage in early 2026. Best season: June to October for the calmest south coast conditions and the best visibility.

The dive

This is one of Malta's small collection of deliberate underwater oddities, and probably the most charming of them. The figures were fabricated from flat plate welded onto tube frames, so they read as silhouettes rather than sculpture, and after three decades on the seabed they have been colonised by sponge and algae until the outlines have gone soft and furry. Backlit against the blue under their overhang, they look far better than a set of welded plates has any right to.

The swim out is the dive as much as the destination. You leave the cove, cross seagrass and sand, and work outward across a series of reef fingers that gradually step down through the teens, with small caves and low swim throughs to duck into on the way. The bottom is broken enough that you need to think about where you are, and divers who set off without a bearing routinely spend the tank looking at perfectly nice reef and never finding the figures at all.

At 22 m under an overhang you are on borrowed time, so treat the crib as a two or three minute stop rather than a place to hang around. Most guides fold it into a longer loop that also takes in Finger Reef on the way back, which keeps the average depth sensible and gives the dive a proper shape: descend, navigate, find the thing, then drift home over the shallower reefs burning off gas.

  • Sponge covered nativity figures standing under a natural rock overhang
  • A find-it-yourself navigation dive rather than a guided conveyor belt
  • Caves and small swim throughs strung along the route out
  • Links straight into Finger Reef for the shallower half of the dive
  • One of only a handful of underwater statue sites in the Maltese islands

Typical plan

A single 12 or 15 litre on air or 32 percent works well. Head out on a south westerly bearing from the cove, step down the reef fingers to 22 m, spend two or three minutes at the crib, then turn and work back through Finger Reef and the shallow ridges, finishing the last fifteen minutes above 10 m. Fifty to sixty minutes total with an average around 14 m. Nitrox helps if you plan to make the trip twice in a day.

What the bottom looks like

081622m🤿12345380 m from entry
  1. 1Posidonia and sand on the outward leg8 m deep · 60 m out
  2. 2Small swim through on the middle reef14 m deep · 130 m out
  3. 3Step down onto the outer reef20 m deep · 205 m out
  4. 4Nativity figures under the overhang22 m deep · 240 m out
  5. 5Finger Reef on the way home15 m deep · 320 m out
Cartoon cross-section along the usual route from Ghar Lapsi slipway and cut steps at the head of the cove. Depths are approximate.

Stepped limestone reef fingers separated by sand channels and Posidonia, with boulder debris at the base of the ledges.

Who you might meet

Getting in and staying safe

Same approach as the rest of Ghar Lapsi: drive down from Siggiewi, park in the free car park above the cove, then walk down to the natural pool with its cut steps and slipway. Restaurant, kiosk and toilets are right at the top of the steps. Exit at the same point and watch the last metre, the rock gets slick. Boat divers are usually dropped directly over the outer reef, which cuts a long swim off the front of the dive.

  • Currents across the outer reef, sometimes strong and running east to west
  • Depth combined with a long swim, so gas planning matters more than it looks
  • Overhead rock at the crib itself, with silt that lifts easily
  • Getting lost among repetitive reef fingers
  • Boat traffic on the surface over the outer reef
  • Slippery slipway and steps at entry and exit
  • Jellyfish in late summer

A bit of history

The nativity scene was put in place in December 1992 by the Calypso Sub-Aqua Club, a Maltese diving club, as a seasonal offering that simply stayed. It sits within an island tradition of underwater religious statuary that also includes the Madonna at Cirkewwa and the figure of Christ off Qawra Point, and it gives Ghar Lapsi the strange pleasure of a man made silhouette framed by entirely natural reef.

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: Divers Guide, Ghar Lapsi Finger Reef and Crib · New Dimension Scuba, Ghar Lapsi site guide · Visit Malta, Finger Reef and Crib · Dive Shack Malta, Ghar Lapsi