Key takeaways
- Every sailing anchors off the Blue Lagoon first. What happens after that is decided by the weather and the state of the sea on the day.
- A six-hour day holds the lagoon plus one or two more anchorages, which is enough time in each to swim properly rather than to tick it off.
- Crystal Lagoon, Anchor Bay, Mellieha, Golden Bay, Ghajn Tuffieha, Ramla, Imgiebah and Half Rock are all possible, and none is promised.
- At no point does the boat land. Every bay is experienced from the water, which is a different and in several cases a better view of it.
Why the itinerary is not a list
The operator is explicit that the stops after the Blue Lagoon depend on the weather and sea conditions, and that is the honest position rather than an evasion. Malta is a small island in an open sea, and which side of it is comfortable on a given afternoon is decided by the wind that morning.
A northerly makes the north-facing bays untenable and pushes everything to shelter. A calm day opens the whole coast. A crew that promised a fixed sequence would either be breaking the promise regularly or anchoring somewhere unpleasant to keep it, and neither is what you want from six hours on a boat.
What is fixed is the shape: the lagoon first, then one or two more anchorages, with enough time at each to get in the water properly. The variability is in which bay, not in how much of the day you spend swimming.
The Crystal Lagoon, and how it differs
The most likely second stop is the Crystal Lagoon, on the far side of Comino from the famous one. It is a narrower inlet surrounded by steep cliffs, and the water in it is considerably deeper than the Blue Lagoon's shallow turquoise channel.
Depth changes the colour and it changes the swimming. Where the Blue Lagoon is bright and shallow and full of people standing up, the Crystal Lagoon is dark blue, cold underneath and genuinely deep, with cliff walls dropping straight into it and caves around its edges.
For anyone who snorkels, this is usually the better stop of the two, and it is also where the barbecue is often served. Being anchored under cliffs with lunch and deep clear water is a fair description of the best hour of the day.
Low limestone cliffs between the bays, undercut at the waterline
The northern bays of Malta itself
Between the departure point and Comino the boat passes the best of Malta's own north-west coast, and on the right day it stops there. Mellieha Bay is the largest sandy bay on the island, a wide shallow scoop that is busy from the shore and much emptier a few hundred metres out.
Golden Bay and Ghajn Tuffieha sit together further round, two red-gold sandy bays separated by a headland, both backed by low cliffs and both considerably more dramatic from the water than from the car park above them. Ghajn Tuffieha in particular is a long descent on foot and an easy arrival by boat.
Further along are Ramla and Imgiebah, smaller and harder to reach by road, which is exactly why a boat is the right way to see them. Half Rock, the last of the named possibilities, is a rock formation rather than a beach.
Seeing a coast from the water
Malta's coastline is mostly low limestone cliff, undercut in places, punctuated by the handful of sandy bays that everybody drives to. From land you see the bays. From a boat you see the cliffs between them, which is most of the island and the part almost no visitor looks at.
The undercutting is the interesting part. Soft rock at sea level erodes faster than the harder layers above it, so the coast is full of overhangs, arches and small caves that are invisible from the top and obvious from a deck.
It also puts the bays in proportion. Golden Bay from the water is a small notch in a long wall of rock, which is a truer sense of the island than the one you get standing on the sand looking inland.
8
Eight anchorages are named as possible stops after the Blue Lagoon, and which two you get is decided by the wind on the morning you sail.
Not going ashore, and why that is fine
At no point does this catamaran stop on land. That is stated in the conditions and it is worth understanding as a design decision rather than an omission: the boat is the venue for the whole day, and every bay is a place to swim from it rather than a place to visit.
The practical effect is that you never queue for a tender, never wait for stragglers to come back from a beach bar, and never lose forty minutes of a six-hour day to a landing. The time goes into the water instead.
It also means you should not book this expecting to walk on a beach. If setting foot on Comino matters to you, a different kind of trip does that, and this one deliberately does not.
Which bay is the best one
The honest answer is that it depends on the day and on what you want from it. The Blue Lagoon is the famous water and it earns the reputation; the Crystal Lagoon is better for swimming and snorkelling; the Maltese bays are the ones that feel like a discovery rather than a destination.
Most people finish the day naming the second stop rather than the first, which says something about how much crowding affects the experience of a beautiful place. The lagoon is more photogenic; the quiet anchorage is more memorable.
Ask the crew what they are planning once you are aboard. They decide it on the morning based on the forecast, and they are usually happy to explain why today is a north coast day or a Comino day.
