Key takeaways
- It sits on the other side of Comino from the Blue Lagoon, a few minutes by boat and a world away in atmosphere.
- Where the Blue Lagoon is shallow turquoise over sand, this is deep sapphire enclosed by cliffs.
- There is no beach, no kiosk and no ferry stop, so nothing scheduled goes there and almost nobody does.
- A large opening at the edge of the bay takes a small boat inside, which is the reason charters go.
Two lagoons, ten minutes apart
Almost everybody who comes to Comino comes for the Blue Lagoon. A short distance around the coast there is a second one, and the contrast between them is the most surprising thing about the island.
The Blue Lagoon is a shallow, sandy, blindingly turquoise channel with a beach, boats, kiosks and several hundred people. The Crystal Lagoon is a deep sapphire pool enclosed by high cliff, with no beach, no facilities and frequently nobody at all.
They are close enough that a small boat moves between them in minutes. The reason one is famous and the other is not has almost nothing to do with which is better.
Why it is so much quieter
Because there is nothing to land at. The Blue Lagoon has a stretch of shore, a jetty and space for a crowd to spend a day, so the ferries and the day boats go there and drop people off. The Crystal Lagoon has cliffs going straight into deep water and nowhere to put anybody.
That makes it useless as a destination for scheduled transport and perfect as a destination for a boat that intends to stay on the water. The only craft you see there are ones that chose to come.
It is one of the clearest examples anywhere of crowding being a function of infrastructure rather than of beauty. Build a jetty and a kiosk at the Crystal Lagoon tomorrow and it would be as busy as its neighbour within a season.
Deep water under cliffs, with no beach and usually no other boat
What it is actually like
Enclosed. Cliffs on most sides, a narrow way in, and water that is deep enough to read as a proper dark blue rather than turquoise. The light behaves completely differently: instead of bouncing off white sand it goes down and stays down, and the effect is dramatic rather than dazzling.
The rock is worked into overhangs, arches and openings, and there is a cave at the edge large enough to take a boat inside. Sitting in a small boat in a quiet enclosed bay under a cliff, with the engine off, is a very different experience from floating in a channel with a hundred other people.
Swimming here is deeper and cooler and, for anyone comfortable in open water, better than the famous bay. The rock walls hold far more life than the Blue Lagoon sand does, and the sense of being in an enclosed place rather than a thoroughfare changes it completely.
Can you reach it without a boat
Barely, and not usefully. There are paths across Comino and it is possible to walk to a point overlooking the bay, which gives a fine view down into it and no way of getting into the water.
In practice this is a boat destination. That is the whole reason it stays as it is, and it is also why almost nobody who takes a ferry to Comino ever sees it, even though they are a twenty-minute walk away.
Most people never find out. A visitor who arrives on a scheduled boat is deposited at the Blue Lagoon and collected from the Blue Lagoon, and unless they walk across the island in the middle of the day they will go home without knowing the second one exists.
2
Two lagoons on one small island, a few minutes apart, and only one of them ever appears in the photographs.
The cave
The opening at the edge of the bay is one of the larger accessible caves on the island, and going inside it is the part of the trip travellers describe most vividly. The light comes up off the bottom, the boat's engine echoes, and the temperature drops.
Whether a boat can go in depends on the day. Even a modest swell moves water through an opening like that, and the skipper makes the call. On a calm morning it is the highlight of the whole four hours.
Fitting it into a trip
This is where the length of the charter block starts to matter. Two hours is enough to reach the Blue Lagoon, swim and come back. Four hours is enough to do the Blue Lagoon early, run round to the Crystal Lagoon and the caves while the famous bay fills, and come back later if you want to.
Travellers who did both consistently say the same thing: the Blue Lagoon is the one they came for and the Crystal Lagoon is the one they talk about. That is not a criticism of the Blue Lagoon. It is what happens when you see a beautiful place with two hundred people in it and then see a comparable one with nobody.
A note on names
The names are not official geography and they are not old. They describe what visitors see, and both are English rather than Maltese, which tells you something about who they were coined for.
It does not matter, except that it explains why you will find the Crystal Lagoon marked inconsistently on maps and described loosely in guides. If you want to be sure of going there, say so when you book, because a shorter trip may not include it.
