A shallow cave and swimthrough at the foot of the Rdum l-Ahmar cliffs on the north side of Marfa Ridge, with a boulder-strewn slope running out to 18 metres.
Cave
ReefSea conditions
Stay dry right now
Sea is up (3.2 m NW) · Fresh WNW wind (58 km/h) · Gusts to 89 km/h
Done for today. Tomorrow: not looking good. Best it gets is 22 at 17:00: Sea is up (1.3 m NW)
Forecast for the site, updated 19:45 · Models disagree
Measured at Ċirkewwa (5.5 km away, 20:29): 63 km/h from WNW, gusts 71. The next hours lean on it.
- Waves
- 3.2 m
- from NW, biggest 4.0
- Wind
- 58 km/h
- WNW, gusts 89
- Swell
- 0.5 m
- 10 s period
- Sea temp
- 22 °C
- air 18 °C
Hour by hour
Next 7 days
0 3.2 m48 W
0 3.0 m45 WNW
55 0.9 m16 W
87 0.4 m13 ESE
81 0.5 m12 E
76 0.5 m18 NNW
83 0.5 m15 SW
Sunrise 06:25, sunset 17:06
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: NW (315°), N (0°), NE (45°). Wide open to the north. Only worth doing in settled weather with the wind off the land; any northerly component puts swell against the cliff and rules the cave out even if the slope outside is still diveable. Best season: June to October, when northerlies are least frequent and visibility is at its best..
The dive
This one starts at the top rather than the bottom. Right under the cliffs there is a cave in about three metres of water with a small swimthrough at the back, and most dives either begin or finish in it, because bobbing about in a sunlit hole at the base of a cliff face is a good way to spend the shallow end of your air.
Beyond the cave the ground falls away in a gentle mix of sand and rock, down through boulder fields to a maximum of roughly 18 metres. The boulders are the point: big and small blocks tumbled off the cliffs above, each one hiding something. Work slowly along them and you turn up octopus, morays, parrotfish grazing in the shallows, damselfish clouds over the high points and a stingray flapping away from a sand patch if you are lucky.
It is an easy dive in good conditions, shallow enough for newer divers with a guide and varied enough that experienced ones do not get bored, which makes it a popular second stop on a north coast boat day. There is no shore option worth attempting, so you go with a boat or you do not go.
The catch is the exposure. This is the open north side of Marfa Ridge under a cliff, with nothing between you and the sea, so the cave is a delight on a flat day and a washing machine on a bad one. Surge in an overhead space is not a place for improvisation, so if there is any swell running, admire the cave from outside.
- A sunlit cave and swimthrough in three metres of water
- Boulder field that rewards a slow, nosy search
- Shallow maximum of 18 metres, so plenty of bottom time
- Good second dive on a north coast boat day
- Quiet site: rarely more than one group on it
Typical plan
Drop in near the cliff, head down the slope over the sand and boulders to 16 to 18 metres, then work parallel to the coast through the blocks for the middle of the dive. Come back up the slope, save ten minutes for the cave and swimthrough at 3 to 5 metres, and surface under a DSMB for the pick-up. An hour on a single cylinder is comfortable, air is plenty, and a torch makes the boulder cracks and the cave worthwhile.
What the bottom looks like
- 1Shallow cave at the cliff base3 m deep · under the boat
- 2Small swimthrough at the back of the cave4 m deep · 6 m from the boat
- 3Sandy sloping ground9 m deep · 42 m from the boat
- 4Boulder field of fallen blocks14 m deep · 102 m from the boat
- 5Rocky bottom at maximum depth18 m deep · 172 m from the boat
Sand and rock sloping away from the cliff into a field of large and small fallen boulders.
Who you might meet
Often
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 dive. Charters run from Cirkewwa, Mellieha or Marfa and it commonly appears as the second dive of a north coast trip, often paired with other sites along the l-Ahrax coast. The boat drops you close to the cliffs and picks you up in open water, so a DSMB is part of the plan. Nothing at the site itself: no shore, no facilities, no easy walk-out if the weather turns.
- Surge inside the cave and swimthrough whenever there is swell
- Overhead environment, shallow but still overhead, so keep it in daylight
- Falling debris ground under an active cliff face
- Boat traffic along the coast, DSMB needed for pick-up
- No shore exit at all, the boat is your only way out
- Jellyfish drifting along this coast in late summer
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
The name belongs to the folklore of this coast rather than to a documented event: the cliffs and hidden coves of the Marfa Ridge and l-Ahrax tal-Mellieha were long associated with smuggling and with landing places out of sight of the towers. The rock itself is the hard coralline limestone that caps the ridge, and the boulder ground divers swim over is the debris of centuries of cliff collapse along Rdum l-Ahmar, which translates roughly as the red scree slope.
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Further reading: Divers Guide: Smugglers Cave and Reef · Greatest Dive Sites: Smugglers Cove, l-Ahrax tal-Mellieha