Malta · North-east Malta
St Paul's Bay
San Pawl il-Baħar
One of the largest anchorages in the country, with good holding in sand and two uninhabited islands across the mouth of it.
St Paul's Bay is big, and for a boat that is the useful thing about it. There is room, the holding in sand is good, and there is more than one place to sit depending on where the wind is coming from — which is not true of most of this coast.
Across the mouth of the bay are St Paul's Islands, uninhabited, with the statue on the larger one visible from a long way off. Tradition puts the shipwreck of St Paul here in AD 60, which is where the name comes from and why the statue is there.
It is a working, lived-in bay rather than a beautiful one — Buġibba and Qawra are along the shore — and it is often used as an overnight or an early-start position rather than a destination.
Getting it right
- Getting there
- Fully developed shoreline with road access throughout.
- When
- Usable across a wide range of conditions, which is the point of it.
- How busy
- Moderate. It is large enough to absorb boats.
- Shape of the day
- A short run up the north-east coast; often a staging point for Comino.
Where it is
- Departure marina
- Destination
Sailing here
Boats we list that are berthed within reach of St Paul's Bay:
Also on Malta
- 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.
- Għar LapsiA sheltered rock pool under the Siġġiewi cliffs, with Filfla offshore and cave systems that divers come a long way for.