Exiles · Malta

Exiles Reef

The natural half of the Exiles site: a shallow limestone reef cut by narrow gullies and overhangs, wrapped in Posidonia and busy with small fish. Twenty metres is about as deep as it gets.

Open Water🪸 Reef14 to 25 mShore access: easyPopularity: highAlso called Exiles, St Julian's Point reef

Plan this dive

Sea conditions

100

Excellent right now

Flat, sheltered and calm

Forecast for the site, updated 02:18 AM

Waves: n/a
Wind: 3 km/h; SSW, gusts 6
Swell: n/a
Sea temp: n/a; air 25 °C

Next 7 days

Today☁️100 ? m
11 SW

Sat☁️100 ? m
11 SSW

Sun🌦️92 ? m
5 E

Mon☁️100 ? m
9 WNW

Tue☁️99 ? m
17 NW

Wed🌤️92 ? m
22 E

Thu🌤️100 ? m
10 NNE

Sunrise 06:46, sunset 19:04

Exposed to wind and swell from: N (0°), NE (45°), E (90°). Wants wind from the south or southwest. With any northerly or easterly component the shallow gullies surge and the visibility in them drops fast, even if the open water outside still looks fine. Best season: All year, at its best May to November. Water sits around 15 to 16 degrees in late winter and reaches the mid twenties by August..

The dive

Exiles Reef is the sort of dive people dismiss because it is easy, then keep coming back to. The rock runs seaward in low ridges with sandy lanes between them, and the ridges are undercut here and there into overhangs just deep enough to hide a grouper, a moray or a sleeping octopus. Between the ridges the Posidonia grows thick, and the meadow is where the interesting small things live.

Depth builds slowly, which is the point. You can spend the whole dive between 6 and 14 m, and if you need to bail out you are never far from shallow water and a fixed exit. That combination makes it Malta's default site for confined-to-open-water transitions, night dives and rusty first dives of the holiday.

Photographers do well here for the same reason: plenty of bottom time, decent ambient light through most of the profile, and enough texture in the rock that nothing looks like a bare desert. Bring a torch and start poking into the overhangs and the dive gets considerably better.

Gullies and overhangs worth a torch even in daylight
Thick Posidonia meadows with good small-critter hunting
Shallow enough for very long, very relaxed dives
A classic Malta night dive
Easy to combine with Tug 2 on the same fill

Typical plan

In off the platform, straight down to 5 m and out along the gullies on a westerly to northwesterly heading, dropping gradually to 14 or 16 m at the outer ridges. Work the overhangs with a torch, then turn and come back over the Posidonia, finishing 15 minutes in the shallows near the entry. Air is more than enough for 50 to 60 minutes. A DSMB stays on your harness for the whole dive, and a compass saves you a surface swim.

What the bottom looks like

1Shallow rock ledges by the entry4 m deep · 25 m out
2Posidonia meadow between the ridges8 m deep · 60 m out
3Narrow gullies running seaward11 m deep · 110 m out
4Undercut overhangs on the outer ridges14 m deep · 160 m out
5Reef edge dropping onto sand18 m deep · 230 m out
6Sand flats at the foot of the reef20 m deep · 285 m out

Cartoon cross-section along the usual route from Concrete platform and ladder at Exiles. Depths are approximate.

Ridged Globigerina limestone with undercut edges, threaded by sand lanes and dense Posidonia, ending in open sand around 18 to 20 m.

Who you might meet

Getting in and staying safe

Same as the rest of Exiles: seafront parking 50 to 100 m away, concrete steps down to a low platform, and a fixed ladder that is usually removed for the winter months. Without the ladder, divers enter and exit off the side of the platform. A rougher alternative entry over bare rock sits on the other side of the point. Toilets, kiosks, cafes and shops are on the promenade, and the parking is genuinely painful on summer weekends.

Boats and jet skis in summer, not all of which stay outside the marker buoys
Marker buoys lifted for winter, so carry and use a DSMB
Slippery algae on the platform and rock shelf
Surge through the shallow gullies when there is any northeast in the sea
Sea urchins on the shallow rock at the entry
Fishing line snagged around the point
Jellyfish in late summer and autumn

A bit of history

The reef has been dived and taught on for decades without any particular ceremony. Its one dated event is the arrival of Tug 2 on the sand beyond it in June 2013, an artificial reef project that gave the site a wreck to go with the rock.