Malta
Il Mara
A boulder and rock dive under the high southern cliffs, a long ride from anywhere, with a scatter of cars that were tipped over the edge decades ago now doing duty as reef. Quiet, sporty, and rarely crowded.
Sea conditions
Good right now
Some chop (0.5 m E)
Forecast for the site, updated 01:46 AM
- Waves
- 0.5 m
- from E
- Wind
- n/a
- Swell
- 0.5 m
- 5 s period
- Sea temp
- 29 °C
Next 7 days
Exposed to wind and swell from: SE (135°), S (180°), SW (225°). The southern cliffs take the full weight of anything from the southern half of the compass, and a southerly swell here shuts the site down completely. Northerly winds flatten it beautifully, which is exactly when the north coast sites are unusable, so it is a good card to keep in your pocket. Visibility typically ten to forty metres with twenty five as a fair average. Best season: May to October, on northerly wind days.
The dive
Il Mara sits on the stretch of south coast between Fort Benghajsa and Ghar Hasan, under cliffs that make the whole place feel considerably more remote than it is. The boat ride is the price of admission, often the better part of an hour, and it is the main reason the site sees so few divers.
Underwater it is a proper southern Malta landscape: big fallen boulders, clean rock, patches of sand between them, and depths that run from a shallow shelf around eight metres down past twenty five. The oddity is the ironmongery. Cars were pushed off the cliffs here over the years and what is left of them has turned into shelter, which means you get the usual boulder residents plus a few unexpected hiding places. Do not go expecting a wreck dive. Go expecting rusty surprises.
Because hardly anyone comes here, the fish are less jumpy and the odds of something larger passing through go up. Visibility on the south coast is habitually good, often well past twenty five metres, and the light on pale rock at this depth is lovely. It is rated for advanced divers mostly because of the remoteness and the variable current rather than anything technical about the terrain.
- Genuinely quiet water under some of Malta's biggest cliffs
- Car wrecks turned into fish apartments
- Big boulder terrain with plenty of holes to poke a torch into
- Good odds on larger pelagic fish because nobody is here
Typical plan
Drop on the mooring rock, descend the ledge at eight metres and work outwards along the boulder slope to around twenty two to twenty five metres. Spend the deep part hunting the car remains and the bigger blocks, then turn and ascend gradually back through the shallows on the return, finishing with a long safety stop on the mooring. Single 12 litre on nitrox 32 is plenty for a fifty minute dive.
What the bottom looks like
- 1Mooring ledge and first boulder field8 m deep · 10 m out
- 2Car bodies tipped from the cliffs16 m deep · 45 m out
- 3Large fallen blocks with swim throughs19 m deep · 70 m out
- 4Sand channels between the rock22 m deep · 95 m out
- 5Outer rocky shelf25 m deep · 130 m out
A mix of tumbled limestone boulders, bare rock and pale sand patches.
Who you might meet
Mediterranean damselfish
Almost always · Ċawl
Ornate wrasse
Almost always · Tirda tal-passa
White seabream
Almost always · Sargu
Starfish on the boulders
Almost always · Stilla tal-baħar
Common octopus
Often · Qarnita
Scorpionfish
Often · Skorfna
Common stingray
Sometimes · Rajja
Dentex
Sometimes · Dentici
Mediterranean moray
Sometimes · Morina
Atlantic bluefin tuna passing offshore
Lucky day · Tonn · Summer
Getting in and staying safe
Boat only, and a long one. Most trips run from the south or southeast and take around forty five minutes. There is a mooring on a prominent rock with an anchoring point on a ledge at about eight metres, which also makes a convenient place to start and finish the dive. No facilities of any kind, no shade, and no shore exit if things go wrong, so carry water and a proper surface marker.
- Long boat ride with no bail out point on shore
- Variable current that can pick up without warning
- No facilities and no easy evacuation
- Sharp corroded metal on the car remains
- Swell reflecting off the cliffs on anything but a calm day
- Boat traffic and fishing gear on the approach
A bit of history
No shipwreck story attached. The local colour is more recent and less romantic: cars dumped off the cliff tops, a habit common on this coastline before enforcement tightened, which left a scatter of corroded bodyshells on the seabed that now function as artificial reef. The cliffs themselves are Upper Coralline limestone sitting over softer beds, which is why they collapse in slabs and why the seabed below is such a jumble of boulders.
Divers say
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Further reading: Divers Guide: Il Mara dive site · Malta Dive Sites: Il Mara