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.
OtherSea conditions
Stay dry right now
Sea is up (3.3 m W) · Fresh W wind (32 km/h) · Gusts to 48 km/h
Done for today. Tomorrow: not looking good. Best it gets is 21 at 16:00: Sea is up (1.4 m W)
Forecast for the site, updated 19:45 · Models disagree
Measured at Delimara (6.1 km away, 20:29): 25 km/h from W, gusts 40. The next hours lean on it.
- Waves
- 3.3 m
- from W, biggest 4.8
- Wind
- 32 km/h
- W, gusts 48
- Swell
- 0.6 m
- 10 s period
- Sea temp
- 22 °C
- air 19 °C
Hour by hour
Next 7 days
0 3.3 m48 W
0 3.2 m46 WNW
57 0.8 m12 W
85 0.4 m13 ESE
78 0.5 m12 E
72 0.6 m17 N
77 0.5 m15 SSE
Sunrise 06:25, sunset 17:05
Waves: Copernicus Med-Waves 4 km + MFWAM 8 km + EWAM 5 km + ECMWF WAM 9 km. Wind: ICON-2I 2 km + ECMWF IFS 9 km + ICON-EU 7 km + UKMO 10 km + ARPEGE 11 km. Read a few km out on the side the site is open to, then blended.
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 · under the boat
- 2Car bodies tipped from the cliffs16 m deep · 35 m from the boat
- 3Large fallen blocks with swim throughs19 m deep · 60 m from the boat
- 4Sand channels between the rock22 m deep · 85 m from the boat
- 5Outer rocky shelf25 m deep · 120 m from the boat
A mix of tumbled limestone boulders, bare rock and pale sand patches.
Who you might meet
Almost always
Lucky day
Marked ones can hurt you. What they do and what to do about it is under Getting in and staying safe.
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
Marine life to respect
Common stingray · Boll Can hurt you
Whips a barbed tail if stepped on or cornered. Stay off the sand and give it room.
Mediterranean moray · Morina Can hurt you
Bites hard if a hand goes into its hole. Keep hands out of cracks and never feed one.
Red scorpionfish · Ċippullazza Can hurt you
Venomous spines, and it sits still on the rock. Look before you kneel or hold on; hot water if stung.
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