Malta · Delimara, south-east Malta
St Peter's Pool
A natural pool in flat white rock at the end of the Delimara peninsula — the cliff-jumping one.
St Peter's Pool is a shelf of smooth pale limestone at the end of the Delimara peninsula, worn into a pool that holds very clear, very deep water. There is no sand. You get in off the rock, and the reason most people come is that you can get in off the rock from some height.
It is one of the few places on this list that is genuinely better from a boat, not because it is hard to reach — there is a track and a car park — but because the shore is crowded and the water is not. Anchoring off gives you the pool without the queue for the jumping rock.
It is on the south-east coast and it does not work in a Sirocco. When the wind is in the south-east the swell comes straight in and the flat rock that makes it pleasant becomes the thing that makes it dangerous.
Round the headland are Il-Ħofra l-Kbira and Il-Ħofra ż-Żgħira, two coves hidden by cliff and invisible from land, which is where crews go when St Peter's Pool is full.
Getting it right
- Getting there
- A rough track from Marsaxlokk with informal parking, then a short walk.
- When
- Not in a Sirocco. Early or late in the day for the pool itself, which fills up.
- How busy
- Heavy on the rocks in season; much lighter on the water.
- Shape of the day
- A south-east coast day out of Grand Harbour.
Where it is
- Departure marina
- Destination
Sailing here
Boats we list that are berthed within reach of St Peter's Pool:
Also on Malta
- St Paul's BayOne of the largest anchorages in the country, with good holding in sand and two uninhabited islands across the mouth of it.
- Coral LagoonA collapsed sea cave off the north coast — a circular pool of turquoise inside the rock, open to the sky, entered through an arch.
- Slugs BayA tiny pocket of sand between two rock arms below Selmun — too small to be busy and too awkward to reach on foot.
- Fomm ir-RiħThe wildest bay on the island — blue clay cliffs, a pebble shore, no development at all, and a land route that has been closed off.