Malta

Dornier Wal XI

The remains of an interwar Italian flying boat lying on open sand in the middle of Ġnejna Bay, shallow enough to snorkel and one of the oldest aircraft you can dive anywhere in Malta.

Open Water🚢 Wreck5 to 6 mShore access: easyPopularity: lowAlso called Dornier Do J, Dornier Do J Wal, I-AZEA, the Ġnejna seaplane

Plan this dive

Sea conditions

100

Excellent right now

Flat, sheltered and calm

Forecast for the site, updated 01:47 AM

Waves: 0.4 m; from ESE
Wind: n/a
Swell: 0.4 m; 5 s period
Sea temp: 29 °C

Next 7 days

Today🌤️96 0.5 m
0 N

Sat🌤️83 0.4 m
0 N

Sun🌤️93 0.4 m
0 N

Mon🌤️99 0.2 m
0 N

Tue🌤️78 0.4 m
0 N

Wed🌤️94 0.6 m
0 N

Thu🌤️100 0.6 m
0 N

Exposed to wind and swell from: W (270°), NW (315°), SW (225°). Ġnejna faces the open northwest, so a blow from that quarter fills the bay with surge and turns the sand to soup. In settled weather visibility is excellent, often 25 metres and more, and the bay stays flat with effectively no current. Check the swell forecast rather than just the wind speed. Best season: May to October. Early mornings in summer beat both the beach crowd and the afternoon sea breeze..

The dive

There is not a lot of aeroplane left. What survives is a section of hull with the stubby sponsons still attached, plus a scatter of cockpit hardware including a rudder pedal, all sitting on open sand in the middle of Ġnejna Bay. It is low, flat and very easy to swim straight past if you are not counting kick cycles.

That modesty is the charm. This is a 1930s Dornier Wal, a twin engine flying boat with a 22 metre wingspan, and the pieces in front of you were flying over the Mediterranean before the Second World War had started. Freedivers get as much out of it as scuba divers do, and on a bright day the whole thing is lit like a studio set.

The rest of Ġnejna is a gentle sand and boulder bay with seagrass patches in the gaps, so the wreck slots neatly into a longer wander. Bring a compass and a rough bearing from the beach, because the real skill here is finding a low wreck on featureless sand rather than diving it.

One caution on the numbers: published depths vary. Most current sources put the wreckage at around 5 to 6 metres in the middle of the bay, while some older guides describe aircraft remains further out at about 15 metres. Plan for a search rather than a guaranteed find, and do not be surprised if a local guide takes you somewhere other than where you expected.

A 1930s flying boat you can reach on a single breath
Sponsons and cockpit fittings still recognisable after ninety years
Beautiful shallow light for photography and freediving
Sand, boulders and seagrass in one easy bay
A proper navigation exercise wrapped around a historic wreck

Typical plan

Kit up at the car, walk in off the sand and drop to 3 metres as soon as you are clear of the swimmers. Take a compass bearing out into the middle of the bay and swim a slow search between 5 and 7 metres, zigzagging either side of the bearing until the sponsons appear. Forty five minutes to an hour on a single cylinder is plenty and gas is rarely the limiting factor at this depth. Finish along the boulders and seagrass at the southern side of the bay in 4 to 5 metres, which is where most of the life lives anyway, and walk out on the same beach you started from.

What the bottom looks like

1Scattered boulders on the sand near the shore4 m deep · 60 m out
2Posidonia patches between the rocks5 m deep · 120 m out
3Fuselage section with the sponsons attached6 m deep · 260 m out
4Cockpit fittings including a rudder pedal6 m deep · 268 m out
5Open sand toward the mouth of the bay8 m deep · 400 m out

Cartoon cross-section along the usual route from Ġnejna Bay beach, walk in off the sand. Depths are approximate.

Clean pale sand across the middle of the bay, broken up near the sides by boulders and patches of seagrass.

Who you might meet

Getting in and staying safe

Ġnejna Bay is reached from Mġarr down a narrow road that drops steeply to the shore, so take the descent slowly and think about whether your hire car wants to come back up it fully loaded. There is a free car park right by the beach which fills early at weekends, and the attendant will expect a euro or two. From the car it is a short carry across sand to a walk in entry, which is about as kind as Maltese shore diving gets. A restaurant, toilets and watersports hire operate behind the beach in season, and the boathouses along the sides belong to local fishermen.

Swimmers, kayaks and small boats all over the bay in summer
Featureless sand makes navigation the main challenge, carry a compass
Very little relief on the wreckage, easy to swim straight past it
Swell rolls into the bay from the west and northwest and stirs the sand
Shallow depth tempts very long dives, watch time, cold and sun exposure
Sea urchins on the rocks at either side of the bay
The wreck is a protected historic site, look but leave everything in place

A bit of history

The aircraft was a Dornier Do J Wal, a German design built under licence in Italy, roughly 17 metres long with a 22 metre wingspan, three crew and room for eight to ten passengers. This one carried the registration I-AZEA and flew for the Italian airline SANA. On 16 February 1932 an engine fire forced it down onto the sea near Malta. Everyone aboard was taken off by HMS Brillant and the flying boat was towed in. For decades the wreckage in Ġnejna was assumed to be a CANT Z.506B floatplane. The Malta Aviation Museum, working with the Dornier Museum in Germany, went back through the evidence and re-identified it as a Wal, with a surviving cleat clinching the case.