South Malta
Quayside, market, sand and bare rock, all in one outing
Marsaxlokk and its harbour, Delimara Point and St Peter's Pool, St Thomas Bay, the promenade at Marsascala and Pretty Bay at Birżebbuġa.
A day in this corner of the island rarely stays on one kind of ground. A quayside, a row of market stalls, a bank of sand and an inlet of bare rock can all turn up between breakfast and the drive home. So open your message with the surface that was under your feet, and put the bay name second.
Ring Seekers is a lost ring and jewellery recovery service that connects people who lost a ring, wedding band, watch, keys or phone in south Malta with a metal detectorist who can search there.
Tell us what happened and where. We find a detectorist who can reach the coast, brief them with your map and photos, and tell you honestly if the odds are poor.
Bracelets, wedding bands, Oura rings, watches, phones and metal framed glasses are all worth writing in about. Tell us how yours sat on you and what fastened it, since a clasp that had been giving trouble for weeks belongs in the account too.
The whole outing, not only the moment it went
Set it down as a sequence rather than as one spot on a map. Where you left the car or stepped off the bus, where you sat, where you ate, whether you got into the water and where from, and the point in all of that where you first knew it was gone. Approximate times are fine. Flag the parts you are unsure of and we will read them that way, which is far more use to us than a blank.
After that, put the item in plain words, as closely as you can picture it, and mention whatever else was being handled at the same time, whether that was a towel, a bag or a pair of sandals. If it went in the last few minutes, send the message first and leave the ground as it is.
Where this page reaches
- Marsaxlokk
- Marsaxlokk harbour
- The Marsaxlokk waterfront
- The Sunday market at Marsaxlokk
- Marsaxlokk Bay
- Delimara Point
- The Delimara peninsula
- St Peter's Pool
- Il-Kalanka tal-Qali
- Xrobb l-Għaġin
- Ras il-Fenek
- The Munxar cliffs
- Birżebbuġa
- Pretty Bay
- Żejtun
- Marsascala
- Wied il-Għajn
- The Marsascala harbour promenade
- Żonqor
- St Thomas Bay
- Il-Bajja ta' San Tumas
The harbour, the headland and the bays
Names first, then the ground each one stands for.
Marsaxlokk harbour and its waterfront
Marsaxlokk is the main fishing harbour of the islands, and the best place to see the colourful traditional Maltese fishing boats, the luzzu, with the mythical eye painted on their prows. Its Sunday market pulls in visitors and locals alike for fish and seafood caught that same morning, alongside everyday items, and there are many seafood restaurants around the bay to sit down in afterwards.
Delimara Point and St Peter's Pool
The headland beside the bay is Delimara Point, and it carries secluded rocky inlets that are suitable for swimming, Peter's Pool among them, with another at the furthermost part of the headland. On the map Peter's Pool falls inside the Marsaxlokk locality. These are rocky inlets rather than sand, and at the tip of the peninsula, past Marsaxlokk, a small square rock marks out a shore diving area.
Xrobb l-Għaġin
The park at Xrobb l-Għaġin stands on a jutting limestone peninsula within the locality of Marsaxlokk, close to the sea. From inside it you can see the Delimara peninsula, the natural arch at Ras il-Fenek and the white cliffs of Munxar. That is worth putting in a message, because a view can be described when a name will not come.
St Thomas Bay
St Thomas Bay lies around the headland from Marsascala, a large natural inlet of the kind the southern coastline is made of. It is popular with local holidaymakers and has not developed into a tourist resort, so tell us what stood behind you on the land side, whatever that happened to be.
Marsascala and its harbour
Marsascala developed out of a small fishing village into the southern resort it is today. Fishermen work out of the harbour there to this day, their colourful luzzu sharing the moorings with pleasure craft, so the water side of the town is working ground rather than scenery. Żonqor is another locality of the same town, which is what a map check shows.
Pretty Bay at Birżebbuġa
Pretty Bay is the sandy beach in the town of Birżebbuġa, a seaside resort not far from Marsaxlokk. Bathers there once took to the water from the flat rocks or from platforms built on the shoreline, and the bay was later filled with sand recovered from the sea during dredging works. It is used for water sports such as windsurfing.
How we work with what you send
Nothing gets rewritten on the way
Whatever you send travels on to the detectorist in the state you sent it. We do not redraw your map, crop your photographs or boil your account down into a paragraph.
You hear our view before anyone sets off
Some accounts point at ground a detectorist can work, and some do not. Which of the two yours looks like is something you will know at the start, not once arrangements have been built around it.
The same place under another name
Marsascala also goes by Wied il-Għajn, St Thomas Bay appears on the map as Il-Bajja ta' San Tumas, and St Peter's Pool sits at Il-Kalanka tal-Qali. Use whichever name you were given and we will work out the piece of ground you mean.
A first message is not a booking
Sending one puts you under no obligation whatever. You read what comes back, and then it is entirely your call whether any of it goes further.
Sand that was brought in, and rock that never moved
The ground here is not one thing, and the difference changes the job.
Sand at one end, rock at the other
Pretty Bay is sand underfoot; the inlets out on Delimara Point are bare rock. A search across one has almost nothing in common with a search across the other. Tell us which of the two your day was spent on, and if it was both, say in what order.
Only partly sandy
At St Thomas Bay the beach is partly sandy and no more than that, with small sandy banks and shallow water over them that make the bay suitable for bathing. Saying you were on the beach there leaves the question half open, so add what was actually under your feet.
A quay is three surfaces at once
Paving, mooring and open water sit within a step of each other along a working quayside. Name the one you were on, and say whether you were handing anything across at that moment.
Questions about south Malta
A bracelet went somewhere around the Sunday market at Marsaxlokk.
A morning at the market is a line of stalls rather than a single spot, so give it to us as a run. What started out as a fish market now sells honey, fruit jams, wine, vegetables, souvenirs and clothes as well, so the stops are spread along the waterfront. List the ones you made, say how you arrived and where you first came onto the waterfront, and say what the bracelet was fastened with.
My watch was on the rock at St Peter's Pool and now it is not.
Start with the ledge itself. Tell us where your things were laid out, where you crossed to reach the water, and at what point you last remember the weight of it on you. If other people were settled near you, say roughly where they were, since that is often what brings your own spot back.
We were windsurfing at St Thomas Bay when it went.
The bay is used for windsurfing, and a board changes the shape of the question, because you were moving the whole time. Say where you launched, how far out you had got when you noticed, and whether you came back in at the same place you went out from. What you had in your hands matters too, so describe the rig and how you were handling it.
We spent the evening on the Marsascala promenade and an Oura ring is gone.
Life in Marsascala is centred on the long harbour promenade with its many open-air cafes and restaurants, so what helps is the stretch rather than the point. Tell us where you started walking, where you turned back, and which places you went into along the way. Then say what the ring is worn on, and whether it left your hand at any stage of the evening.
My phone went missing at Pretty Bay.
Pretty Bay lies right in the town centre, with shops and restaurants along the coastline behind it, so work back through everywhere you went after you left your towel. Then tell us who had the phone and what it was tucked into, and name the surface you were standing on the last time you used it.
We walked out to Xrobb l-Għaġin and something is missing.
A route is a thing you can retrace, which puts this in a better position than most. Xrobb l-Għaġin can be reached on foot or by bicycle from Marsaxlokk, from Żejtun, and from Marsascala and St Thomas Bay, as well as by car from Marsaxlokk, so the first thing to settle is which of those you set out from. After that, say how far along you got and where you turned round.
It went over the side of a boat in Marsaxlokk Bay.
Start with where the boat was sitting rather than with the item. On a mooring, alongside the quay, or already out in the bay: those are separate answers, and the first two give a search something to hold on to. Say whose boat it was and whether it has been back on the same mooring since. If it happened out where the bay opens up, that is a long shot, and you would hear that from us first.
Everyone in our group remembers the day differently.
Let us have every version rather than settling on one before you write. Several accounts give us a spread to work through, where one agreed answer might simply be the wrong one. Say who thinks what, and leave the weighing up to us.
South Malta
What to put in the first few lines
One thread on WhatsApp, start to finish.
Name the place as closely as you can manage and say what has gone. We will write back with where we think a search would begin, and with the questions still outstanding.