Key takeaways
- Comino is an island with no vehicle link of any kind. Every single visitor arrives by boat, without exception.
- The shortest crossing is from Cirkewwa at the northern tip of Malta, and from Mgarr on the Gozo side. Both are quick.
- Day boats run from Sliema, St Julian's and Bugibba. More sea time, far less driving, and they leave from where people stay.
- A private boat leaves from its own base at the hour you book, which is the only way to arrive before the crowd.
The one fixed fact
Comino has no road link to anywhere. There is no bridge, no causeway and no tunnel, and there are effectively no roads on the island itself either. Everyone who has ever seen the Blue Lagoon arrived on the water, and the only question is which boat and from where.
That sounds obvious written down and it catches people out constantly, usually in the form of a hire car booked for a day that turns out to involve no driving beyond getting to a quay. Plan the day around a boat and everything else falls into place.
Two practical consequences follow from that. The first is that the day is shaped by a boat timetable rather than by a road, so lateness is expensive in a way it is not on land. The second is that where you leave from matters more than where you are staying, and those are frequently not the same place.
The short crossing from Cirkewwa
Cirkewwa sits at the northern tip of Malta, and it is the closest point on the main island to Comino. Small ferries shuttle across the channel from there through the season, and the crossing itself is a matter of minutes rather than a voyage.
The catch is getting to Cirkewwa. It is the far end of the island from most of the places visitors stay, and the drive or bus ride out takes far longer than the crossing does. If you have a car, or you are staying in the north around Mellieha, this is the efficient option.
Whichever route you pick, the return is worth settling before you leave. On a scheduled boat that means knowing the last sailing and treating it as immovable; on a charter it means agreeing when the block ends and where it ends. Neither is complicated and both are easier to sort out on land than at four in the afternoon in a bay.
The channel between Malta and Comino, which every visitor has to cross
From Gozo
Mgarr, on the eastern corner of Gozo, faces Comino across a narrow channel and boats run from there too. For anyone staying on Gozo this is the obvious route, and it is comparably short.
It also opens up a nice possibility: a boat trip that takes in the Comino coast and some of Gozo's own cliffs in one outing, which is a considerably better day than a straight there-and-back.
Day boats from the resort harbours
Sliema, St Julian's and Bugibba all send boats north to Comino through the season. These are longer trips because the harbours are further away, and the sea leg does real work: you pass along the Maltese coast on the way, which is not nothing.
The advantage is that they leave from where visitors actually stay, so there is no transfer at either end. The disadvantage is that a good deal of the day is spent getting there and back rather than being there, and they arrive in the middle of the day along with everyone else.
0
There is no road, no bridge and no causeway to Comino, so every person who has stood at the Blue Lagoon arrived on a boat.
A private charter
A chartered boat leaves from its own base at whatever hour within the day you have booked. That is the practical difference, and on this particular bay it is the one that matters, because the Blue Lagoon at eight in the morning and the Blue Lagoon at noon are different places.
A charter also removes the return-sailing problem. On a scheduled boat you are committed to a particular boat home; on a charter the boat is yours until the block ends, and where it spends that time is a conversation rather than a timetable.
Where you actually land
This surprises people: mostly, you do not. The Blue Lagoon has a small area of shore and a jetty used by the scheduled boats, but a great deal of visiting Comino is done from the water rather than on the island. Boats moor or anchor in the channel and people swim from them.
If you do go ashore there is a path network across the island, a kiosk or two in season, and the walk up to the watchtower. There is no village, no hotel operating in the usual sense, and nothing resembling a town.
Timing and parking
Whichever route you take, earlier is better, and the size of that effect is larger here than at almost any other Mediterranean site. The bay fills through the late morning and empties again in the afternoon.
Parking depends entirely on the departure point. Charter operators often have their own parking arrangement at the base, which is worth checking when you book, and the public quays at Cirkewwa and in the resort towns are the usual mixture of paid and scarce in summer.
Allow more time than the map suggests for getting to any northern departure point in August, when the roads to Cirkewwa carry everybody heading for the Gozo ferry as well.
