Country shortlist
The Double Fathom shortlist for Malta, ranked — 1 catalog destination. The grouping is ours; every rank and tagline is the catalog’s own.
Malta appears in our catalog as Gozo, the smaller and quieter of the two main islands. This is the Mediterranean at its clearest: pale limestone riddled with caves, arches and collapsed sinkholes, startlingly transparent water, and a famous swimming-pool-blue lagoon on Comino between the islands. The honest frame belongs at the top — there is no coral reef here. What you snorkel is rock, light and Posidonia seagrass, which is a genuinely beautiful thing to snorkel as long as nobody sells it to you as tropical. Malta is also small, low and wind-exposed, so a spell of wind decides which coast is workable, and its handful of famous sites carry the crowds that go with a Mediterranean summer.
What we cover — and what we don’t
Where we cover Malta: Gozo and Comino — one destination with five sites, from the Blue Hole at Dwejra and the Inland Sea on Gozo's west coast to the Blue Lagoon between Comino and Cominotto, the sheltered inlet of Mġarr ix-Xini and the north-coast shallows at Ramla Bay. The island of Malta itself, and its own dive and snorkel sites, are not in this catalog, and neither are the smaller islands. Malta is a Schengen country, so the 90-days-in-180 rule applies to short stays, and parts of the coast are protected seagrass where anchoring is restricted — that is a rule rather than a suggestion.
In catalog rank order. Rank, taglines and “best for” notes are the catalog’s own; each destination page and guide goes deeper.
The Med's blue hole
Malta's quieter island — Mediterranean limestone, a famous blue hole and a swimming-pool-blue lagoon.
Gozo is the Mediterranean at its clearest: limestone rock, caves and arches, a genuine blue hole at Dwejra and a lagoon on Comino that looks like a swimming pool. Be honest about what it is not — this is rocky seascape over seagrass and sand, with no coral reef, and the water is cooler and less forgiving than the tropics.
This country sits inside the Mediterranean — the wider grouping the ranked catalog uses.
Each country page groups the ranked catalog by country and states plainly what this catalog covers — and what it does not.
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