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Ħekka Point

A north coast headland with two very different caves: a bright cavern split open to the sky at fifteen metres, and a fully submerged chamber further along whose walls are upholstered in untouched coral. Seahorses turn up here more often than they have any right to.

Advanced🕳️ Cave15 to 30 mBoat divePopularity: lowAlso called Hekka Cave, Hekka Point
Plan this dive

Sea conditions

86

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
0.3 m
5 s period
Sea temp
28 °C

Next 7 days

Today🌤️75 0.6 m
0 N
Sat🌤️85 0.4 m
0 N
Sun🌤️91 0.3 m
0 N
Mon🌤️98 0.2 m
0 N
Tue🌤️82 0.5 m
0 N
Wed🌤️60 0.8 m
0 N
Thu🌤️62 0.8 m
0 N

Exposed to wind and swell from: N (0°), NW (315°), W (270°). Needs a settled sea. North and northwest wind rules it out entirely and the caves make even a small swell feel personal. Southerly and easterly days are when to ask for it. Best season: June to October, with September and October usually giving the clearest water on this coast..

The dive

The dive opens in the easy one. A cavern cut into the headland is split all the way to the surface, so light pours in and bounces off the walls until the whole chamber is a colour chart of oranges, yellows and reds. Fifteen metres of water, no ceiling to worry about, and a lovely warm-up.

Out of that and hard right, the wall steepens and you follow it down to a second cave that is completely underwater. This one is the reason people who have been here keep mentioning it. The growth on the walls is pristine, the sort of untouched encrusting cover you only find where fins do not go, and from inside, the entrance frames a rectangle of pure north coast blue that photographers lose their minds over. Buoyancy discipline is not optional in here; a careless kick takes decades off a patch of wall.

Back outside, the ground is broken rock and boulder down past thirty metres, and the shallower shelf on the way home is the place to slow down and look properly. Divers report lobster and shrimp tucked into the cracks in unusual numbers, and this stretch of coast has a real reputation for seahorses. It is boat-only and it needs settled weather, which is why the site stays as good as it is.

  • Brilliantly coloured cavern open right up to the surface at 15 metres
  • Submerged cave with genuinely untouched coral growth
  • The blue window looking out of that cave into open sea
  • One of the better bets on Gozo for seahorses
  • Lobster and shrimp in the cracks, because nobody comes to take them

Typical plan

Drop into the open cavern at 15 metres, take ten minutes there while everyone settles, then follow the wall right and down to the submerged cave at around 28 to 30 metres. Go in one at a time, keep off the walls, shoot the blue window on the way out. Work back up over the broken ground to 15 metres and finish on the shallow shelf at 6. Forty-five minutes on nitrox 32 with a torch each and a spare, and a hard rule that the first person to touch a wall buys the beers.

What the bottom looks like

0112230m🤿123456360 m from entry
  1. 1Sunlit cavern open to the surface15 m deep · 45 m out
  2. 2Steep wall running right from the cavern22 m deep · 110 m out
  3. 3Fully submerged coral cave29 m deep · 195 m out
  4. 4Blue window framing the open sea from inside28 m deep · 212 m out
  5. 5Broken rock and boulder on the return20 m deep · 290 m out
  6. 6Shallow shelf for the safety stop8 m deep · 360 m out
Cartoon cross-section along the usual route from the boat drop. Depths are approximate.

Bare limestone and boulder along the wall, with fine silt collecting on the floor of the submerged cave.

Who you might meet

Getting in and staying safe

Boat only. Marsalforn is the closest launching point and most north coast trips start there; Mġarr charters also run this way when the weather is right. There is no shore access, no ladder and nowhere to sit it out, so it is a drop and pick-up dive with an SMB on the way up. Nothing at the site itself, so sort out food, water and toilets before you leave the quay.

  • Overhead environment in the submerged cave, with no natural light at the back
  • Fragile coral growth that a single bad fin kick can destroy
  • Occasional current around the point
  • Depth beyond 30 m on the wall outside the caves
  • Boat-only access with an unbroken cliff and no shore exit
  • Surge through the open cavern in any north swell
  • Silt on the cave floor, easily stirred into zero visibility

A bit of history

No wrecks, no battles, just the north coast doing what it has done for a few million years. The cliffs here are Lower Coralline limestone, and both caves are sea-cut features exploiting weaknesses in the rock; the shallower one has broken through to the surface along its joint, while the deeper one has not. The point sits in the stretch of coast between Wied il-Mielaħ and Wied il-Għasri, a run of headlands and gorges that includes Ħalq Ħamiem a few hundred metres west and Il-Margun and Forna Point to the east.

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Further reading: Visit Gozo: Ħekka Point · Atlantis Gozo: Hekka Point · Divers Guide: Hekka Point · Malta Dives: Hekka Point