Sign in
All sites

Dwejra · Gozo

Tal-Barba Cave

A long, straight cave running about a hundred and twenty metres into the Dwejra wall from an entrance near twenty five metres, with an air pocket at the back and the exit in sight the whole way.

Advanced🕳️ Cave🧱 Wall10 to 30 mShore access: mediumPopularity: mediumAlso called 200m Tunnel, Ghar tal-Barba, Għar tal-Barba, L-Għar tal-Barba, Tal-Barba, The Beard
Plan this dive

Sea conditions

100

Excellent right now

Flat, sheltered and calm

Forecast for the site, updated 01:33 AM

Waves
0.3 m
from SE
Wind
8 km/h
SSW, gusts 14
Swell
0.2 m
5 s period
Sea temp
28 °C
air 27 °C

Next 7 days

Today🌦️58 0.6 m
13 SW
Sat☁️79 0.4 m
14 SSW
Sun🌦️91 0.4 m
8 ENE
Mon☁️95 0.2 m
15 NW
Tue☁️55 0.4 m
26 NW
Wed🌤️55 0.7 m
22 E
Thu🌤️97 0.6 m
10 NNE

Sunrise 06:47, sunset 19:06

Exposed to wind and swell from: W (270°), NW (315°), SW (225°), N (0°). Deep enough inside to be untroubled by swell, but everything about getting there is exposed to the west and northwest. Flat water only, both for the swim or boat ride and for the pickup. Best season: June to September, when the surface is most reliably calm for the transit.

The dive

Barba means beard in Maltese, and the shaggy shape of the entrance is supposedly the reason for the name. The other name, the 200m Tunnel, is straightforwardly wrong: the cave is long, around a hundred and twenty metres, but it does not go through and it is not two hundred.

What it is instead is one of the more atmospheric swims on this coast. The mouth sits at roughly twenty five metres in a vertical wall. Inside, the passage runs dead straight, so the blue rectangle of the exit stays visible behind you the whole way in, which makes it far less intimidating than the numbers suggest. There is an air pocket towards the back where you can surface, although surfacing in a sealed pocket is a stunt rather than a plan.

There are actually two caves along this stretch, known locally as L-Għar tal-Barba and L-Għar in-Niexef, and the longer one is the beard. Getting there is the real problem: it is about two hundred metres north of the Inland Sea tunnel exit, which is a long way to swim on top of a deep cave dive.

Most people solve that with a scooter or by hiring one of the small boats from the Inland Sea for a drop off, then either getting picked up round the reef or diving back south and calling in at Whale Cave on the way.

  • A hundred and twenty metre straight cave with the exit in view throughout
  • Air pocket near the back, a curiosity rather than a plan
  • Quiet stretch of wall that hardly anyone dives
  • Combine with Whale Cave on the way back to the Inland Sea
  • Dramatic bearded entrance at twenty five metres

Typical plan

Boat drop outside the cave, descend the wall to the entrance at about twenty five metres, then swim in along one side keeping your fins off the floor and the exit light behind you. Turn on thirds at the latest. Back out, work south along the wall in the low twenties, look into Whale Cave if gas allows, and either meet the boat or continue to the Inland Sea tunnel. Nitrox 32 and twin torches at minimum, and the passage deserves cave or at least cavern training before you commit to it.

What the bottom looks like

0112230m🤿12345300 m from entry
  1. 1Vertical reef wall on the approach20 m deep · 70 m out
  2. 2Mouth of Tal-Barba, the beard25 m deep · 100 m out
  3. 3Straight passage running inwards, exit always visible22 m deep · 180 m out
  4. 4Air pocket near the back of the cave20 m deep · 215 m out
  5. 5Wall continuing south towards Whale Cave and the Inland Sea Tunnel30 m deep · 300 m out
Cartoon cross-section along the usual route from Inland Sea lagoon, for the boat drop or the long swim out through the Tunnel. Depths are approximate.

Rock and fine sediment along the cave floor, with bare limestone wall and boulders outside the entrance.

Who you might meet

Getting in and staying safe

No dedicated entry. Practical options are a boat drop from the Inland Sea, where the local boatmen will run you out and collect you, an underwater scooter, or a very long fin from the Inland Sea tunnel exit north along the wall. Whichever you pick, you park at the Inland Sea car park and kit up by the boathouses, where the cafes, toilets and showers are. Agree the pickup point and time with the boatman before you get wet.

  • Overhead environment about a hundred and twenty metres long, cave training and redundancy strongly advised
  • Entrance at around twenty five metres, so gas and decompression planning matter before you even go inside
  • Silt inside the passage, one bad fin kick and the exit disappears
  • Air pockets can hold bad gas, do not treat them as a breathing reserve
  • Long swim to and from the site, exhausting in any chop
  • Tourist and dive boats around the Inland Sea and along the cliff
  • No shore exit anywhere near the cave

A bit of history

The name comes from the Maltese word for beard, after the appearance of the entrance. The cave is another erosion passage exploiting the joints and bedding in the Lower Coralline Limestone that makes up this whole stretch of coast, the same rock that produced the Inland Sea, the Blue Hole and the arch that used to stand at Dwejra.

Divers say

Sign in to rate this site and leave a note for the next diver.

  • No reviews yet. First one gets bragging rights.

Further reading: Atlantis Gozo, Barba Cave · Greatest Dive Sites, 200 metre tunnel, Dwejra Point · Visit Gozo, Dwejra