The Inland Sea is my favourite site in Malta that isn’t made of rusting metal, and this week it has been showing off. Stunning visibility, fish absolutely everywhere, and a two-hour dive that still finished too early.
The conditions right now
Visibility is the first thing you notice — you come out of the tunnel at around 26 metres and the wall just keeps going, clear all the way down. It’s the kind of water that makes you stop and hang there for a second before you get on with the dive.
The temperature picture is worth knowing before you pack. It’s 18°C at depth at the moment, which is fresh enough to notice on a long dive. Above 20 metres it’s sitting between 24 and 28°C. That combination is close to ideal: cool where you’re working, and genuinely pleasant on the way back up. Deco is comfortable rather than something to endure.
Fish everywhere
Juvenile damselfish in clouds, thick enough that you’re swimming through them rather than past them. And then, further along, a big school of barracuda out in the blue, doing what barracuda do — hovering there looking unbothered while you slowly work out how close you can get.
Two hours, and not enough
I was on the X-CCR, which is the right tool for this. Two hours in the water, no bubble noise, no gas anxiety, just working slowly along the wall and back — and honestly it was a shame to call it. I could happily have stayed down there all day.
That’s the thing about the Inland Sea that people miss. It gets talked about as the tunnel, the novelty shot, the thing you do once for the photograph. Swim through, take the picture, go home. But the wall on the far side is a proper dive, from 5 metres right down to 55, and on a rebreather with time on your side it’s as good as anything on the island.
The short version
Site: Inland Sea, Dwejra — Gozo
Access: Shore, through the ~80m tunnel, out at ~26m
Depth: 5–55m along the wall
Water: 18°C deep · 24–28°C above 20m
Seen: Juvenile damselfish everywhere, a large school of barracuda
Worth the trip
If you’re coming over in the next few weeks, put Gozo on the list and put this one near the top. It suits almost everyone — you can dive the shallow end on a single cylinder and enjoy it, or go long and deep along the wall if you’re certified for decompression diving. Either way you’ll get more out of it than the tunnel photo everyone else goes home with.
Want to see it while it’s like this? Come and dive it with me — or if Gozo’s wrecks are more your thing, that’s a different list entirely.
Fancy a few days in Gozo while the water looks like this? Tell me your certification level and your dates.
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