Malta Blue Lagoon Tour, Anchored Clear of the Crowd

What the six hours are actually made of

You board a modern sailing catamaran on the north coast and spend a full day working along the top of Malta and across to Comino. There are two or three stops, the first of which is the Blue Lagoon, and the rest of the day is spent at whichever bays the wind and sea allow. Between stops the boat sails, there is music on deck, and the bar is open.

The important structural fact is that this is not a transfer. Nothing on this trip involves being dropped somewhere and collected later: at no point does the catamaran stop on land. Everything happens from the boat, which is why the ladders and the swimming matter more than any itinerary.

Six hours is long enough to stop being a passenger. Most people describe a day that starts as an excursion and turns into something closer to a day out on a friend's boat, which is a fair description of what a catamaran full of sun beds and nets encourages.

Anchoring outside the lagoon, on purpose

The Blue Lagoon is a narrow channel of shallow, extraordinarily clear water between Comino and the islet beside it, and in high summer it fills with boats and people to a degree that has become the single most common complaint about visiting it. Anybody who has seen a photograph of it empty and then arrived at two in the afternoon in August knows the gap.

This boat does not anchor inside the channel. It drops anchor slightly further out, in the same water, away from the concentration of hulls and swimmers, and you swim from there. That is a deliberate operating decision rather than a compromise, and it is the single thing regular travellers mention most often about the trip.

The trade is straightforward and worth understanding before booking. You do not get to step off onto the small beach in the lagoon itself. What you get instead is the same water without the crush, and a boat to come back to that is yours for the day.

Where else the day goes

After the lagoon the stops depend entirely on the weather and the state of the sea, which is stated plainly rather than hidden. On a calm day the boat can work along a coastline that holds a remarkable number of good anchorages; on a windy one the choices narrow to whichever side of the island is sheltered.

The possible stops are the Crystal Lagoon, which is deeper than the Blue Lagoon and ringed by cliffs, and Anchor Bay, where the film set built for a musical in the late nineteen-seventies still stands above the water. Beyond those, the northern bays of Malta itself come into play: Mellieha, Golden Bay, Ghajn Tuffieha, Ramla, Imgiebah and the rocks known as Half Rock.

Nobody can tell you in advance which of those you will see, and an operator who promised a fixed list would be promising something the sea does not allow. What is consistent is the number of stops and the amount of time in the water.

The boat, and why the shape matters

A sailing catamaran is two hulls with a deck between them, and the practical consequence is space. There is a large flat deck, trampoline nets slung between the bows that turn out to be where most people spend the day, sun beds available on a first come first served basis, and a bar.

It is also stable in a way a single-hulled boat of the same size is not, which matters for anyone who has been put off boat trips by an uncomfortable one. Two hulls resist rolling, so a catamaran at anchor in a bay sits far flatter than a monohull doing the same job.

Three separate ladders is the detail that sounds trivial and is not. On a boat where everybody wants to swim at the same moment, the difference between one ladder and three is the difference between a queue and no queue.

Food, drink and the barbecue

Drinks are not included and can be bought at the bar on board. The barbecue is the same: optional, ordered and paid for on the boat on the day of the trip rather than in advance. The meal is chicken kebabs, halal, with a choice of couscous, pasta salad, green salad and bread, and a drink with it.

Outside food and drink are not permitted on board, which is worth knowing before you pack a cool bag. This is a standard arrangement on a boat that runs its own bar and galley, and it is stated in the conditions rather than sprung on anyone at the gangway.

Practically, that means you should decide before you sail whether you are eating on board. Six hours is long enough that the question will arise, and the barbecue is by a distance the most praised part of the day in traveller accounts.

Who this trip suits

It is sold as a lively boat with music, a bar and a young crowd, and that is an accurate description rather than marketing. If you want a quiet sail with commentary, this is the wrong booking and there are others that will suit you better. If you want a day of swimming, sun and noise with people in the same frame of mind, it is exactly right.

There is a minimum age of twelve, and the boat is not suitable for wheelchair users. Shoes are not worn on deck, smoking is not permitted, and oversize luggage cannot come aboard.

Bring swimwear, a towel, sunglasses, a sun hat and considerably more sunscreen than you think you need. Six hours on open water with almost no shade is a different exposure from six hours on a beach with a parasol.