Key takeaways
- Snorkelling equipment and floats come with the boat, so nobody has to buy a mask before they arrive.
- The middle of the channel is beautiful and empty sand. The life is along the rocky margins and around the islet opposite.
- Shallow, clear and usually calm, which makes it one of the least intimidating places in the Mediterranean to put a face in the water.
- The Crystal Lagoon and the cave mouths are deeper and darker, and are the more interesting snorkelling of the two.
What the Blue Lagoon is actually like underwater
It is bright, shallow and sandy, and that is both its appeal and its limitation. The visibility is exceptional, the light reaching the bottom is extraordinary, and for a nervous swimmer or a child it is close to an ideal introduction to open water.
What it is not is a reef. The middle of the channel is largely clean white sand, and sand supports very little. People who arrive expecting a wall of fish are looking in the wrong part of the bay, and then conclude that the snorkelling is disappointing when in fact they were snorkelling over a car park.
Where the life is
Along the edges. Wherever the sand meets rock, wherever there is weed, and wherever a cliff drops into the water, there is structure, and structure is where things live. The margins of the channel, the rocks under Cominotto and the base of the cliffs on either side are all far more interesting than the open middle.
Expect the usual Mediterranean cast: shoals of small silver fish, wrasse working the rocks, the occasional larger fish moving along the drop-off. Octopus are present and hard to see. Sea urchins are present and easy to see, which matters if you are getting in anywhere near rock.
None of this is spectacular by tropical standards and all of it is more than you get over sand. The pleasure here is the clarity and the light rather than the biomass.
Clear water over pale sand, where the visibility is better than the marine life
Depth and getting in
In the channel, shallow enough throughout to see the bottom clearly and to stand in places, though standing on the sea floor is a good way to break coral elsewhere and a good way to meet an urchin here, so it is better not to make a habit of it.
Off a boat you enter down a ladder into water that is comfortably out of your depth, which is easier than it sounds because the visibility means you can see exactly what is beneath you. Floats are aboard for anyone who wants one, and using one from the start is a much better plan than deciding halfway.
Away from the lagoon, at the Crystal Lagoon and around the cave mouths, the water is considerably deeper and darker. It is more dramatic and it asks a bit more of a swimmer.
Currents
The Blue Lagoon is a channel between Comino and Cominotto, and channels move water. On most days this is imperceptible. On a windy day, or when there is a swell running through, there can be a noticeable drift from one end to the other.
The practical rule is the same one that applies everywhere: swim against any drift first, so that the tired half of the swim is the one being helped. And stay within sight of the boat, which on a private charter is easy because the boat is not going anywhere without you.
Children
This is a good place to introduce a child to snorkelling, provided they are already comfortable in water. The clarity removes the fear of the unknown, the shallow sand gives a visible bottom, and there is nothing in it that bites.
Floats and gear are aboard in a range of sizes, but a child's mask that actually fits is the single thing worth bringing from home. A leaking mask ends a child's interest in snorkelling faster than anything else, and borrowed masks leak.
Urchins are the one genuine hazard for small feet, and they sit on rock rather than sand. Getting in and out off the boat rather than clambering over the rocks solves it entirely.
Snorkelling around the caves
The cave mouths on the Comino coast are the best snorkelling on the trip, and they are also the part that needs the most sense. The water is deeper, the light comes from behind you rather than above, and the rock is close.
Go where the skipper says to go. Even on a calm day there is movement against a cliff face, and a cave that looks placid from the boat can be pushing water in and out of its entrance. With that respected, swimming at the mouth of a sea cave with light coming up off the bottom is the thing people remember from the whole day.
Getting the most from it
Go early, for the same reason as everything else here: the water is at its clearest before a hundred hulls have stirred the sand. Take the four-hour block if you can, because it allows more than one stop and the second one is usually better than the first.
And ask the skipper where to swim. He has been in this water more times than you will read pages about it, and the difference between a good snorkelling stop and a mediocre one here is a hundred metres.
