Gozo

Daħlet Qorrot

A small pebbly cove on Gozo's northeast coast with fishermen's boathouses cut into the cliff, a slipway to walk down and shallow Neptune grass meadows offshore. Gentle, easy and quietly lovely.

Open Water🌊 Other10 mShore access: easyPopularity: lowAlso called Dahlet Qorrot Bay, Dahlet Qorrot Beach, Dahlet il-Qorrot, Daħlet Qorrot Bay

Plan this dive

Sea conditions

Excellent right now

Flat, sheltered and calm

Forecast for the site, updated 01:47 AM

Waves: 0.3 m; from SE
Wind: n/a
Swell: 0.2 m; 5 s period
Sea temp: 29 °C

Next 7 days

Today🌤️100 0.5 m
0 N

Sat🌤️100 0.4 m
0 N

Sun🌤️100 0.3 m
0 N

Mon🌤️100 0.2 m
0 N

Tue🌤️93 0.4 m
0 N

Wed🌤️60 0.6 m
0 N

Thu🌤️63 0.6 m
0 N

Exposed to wind and swell from: N (0°), NE (45°), E (90°). The cove faces roughly northeast, so it is comfortable in a southerly or westerly and becomes messy with any north or northeast swell, which also stirs the shallows and kills the visibility. On a good day expect 20 to 30 m of visibility and effectively no current. It is a good bad-weather option when the wind is in the south. Best season: April to November. Spring is excellent for cuttlefish and the seagrass at its greenest; September and October give the warmest, clearest water..

The dive

Daħlet Qorrot is not a thrill ride and has no ambition to be one. It is a working fishermen's cove below Nadur, with rows of boathouses carved straight into the rock at the base of the cliff and painted in colours that suggest nobody consulted a committee. There is a slipway, a pebble beach, a car park a short walk away and a toilet block, which as Gozitan shore dives go counts as luxury.

Underwater it is a gentle slope out from boulders and rock into broad meadows of Posidonia broken by sand patches, with depths of around ten metres over most of the useful area and only a little more further out. That makes it about the friendliest training site on this side of Gozo: good visibility, no current worth the name, and nothing that can go wrong quickly. It is also the reason it is worth diving properly rather than quickly.

Seagrass is where the interesting small things live. Slow down, get your eyes level with the blades, and go looking: cuttlefish in spring, flying gurnards walking the sand on their finger-fins, octopus that think they are invisible, wrasse squabbling, pipefish pretending to be grass. Seahorses are present in this habitat in Gozo and occasionally found here, though you should think of that as a lottery ticket rather than a plan. Take a torch and look under the boulder edges where the rock meets the meadow.

Genuinely easy shore entry from a slipway, with parking and toilets
Wide Posidonia meadows full of small, well camouflaged things
Rock-cut boathouses with painted doors, one of Gozo's best bits of working coastline
Ideal training and refresher site, and excellent for a long relaxed macro dive
Rarely crowded, even in August

Typical plan

Walk in off the slipway, drop down the boulder shelf to 6 m and follow the western side out until the rock gives way to seagrass. Head out slowly over the meadow to 12 to 14 m, working the sand patches and meadow edges where most of the life sits, then turn and come back on a slightly different bearing so you cover fresh ground. Finish in the shallows under the boathouses at 3 to 5 m. Sixty minutes or more on a 12 litre cylinder is easy at these depths, air is entirely sufficient, and a torch plus a magnifier or macro lens will get more out of the site than a wide-angle setup. Surface marker buoy throughout, because small boats come and go from the ramp.

What the bottom looks like

1Slipway and boulder entry2 m deep · 10 m out
2Boulder shelf on the western side of the cove6 m deep · 45 m out
3Rock-cut fishermen's boathouses at the cliff base5 m deep · 60 m out
4Start of the Posidonia meadow9 m deep · 120 m out
5Sand patches between the meadows12 m deep · 220 m out
6Outer meadow edge14 m deep · 330 m out

Cartoon cross-section along the usual route. Depths are approximate.

Pebbles and boulders close inshore giving way to extensive Posidonia meadow with clean sand patches between the beds.

Who you might meet

Getting in and staying safe

Easy shore dive. Drive down Triq Wied Rihan from Nadur to the cove; there is a free parking area roughly twenty metres from the water and a boat ramp to walk down, which makes entry with kit straightforward. Toilets are available at the cove. The beach is pebbles rather than sand, so bring boots and expect the last few steps to be slippery. The slipway is in active use by fishermen, so keep it clear and do not block it while you kit up. No dive centre, no air fills and no kiosk at the site: come fully self-sufficient. Nadur village is a few minutes up the hill for food and drink.

Small fishing boats launching and landing at the slipway, stay clear and use a surface marker
Slippery wet pebbles and algae on the ramp
Sea urchins on the rocks either side of the entry
Discarded fishing line and hooks in the seagrass
Jellyfish drifting in during late summer
Limited depth and features, easy to run a long dive and get cold
No dive centre or air nearby if something goes wrong

A bit of history

The cove has been used by Nadur fishermen for generations, and the caves at the base of the cliffs were enlarged into boathouses and gear stores that are still in use today: it is common to find nets being mended or a luzzu being repainted while you are kitting up. The name refers to the inlet itself, daħla being the Maltese word for a cove or creek.

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Further reading: Divers Guide: Daħlet Qorrot · Visit Gozo: Daħlet Qorrot Bay dive site · Atlantis Gozo: Daħlet Qorrot · MaltaDives: Dahlet Qorrot