Gozo

Gozo is the second-largest island in the Maltese archipelago, 67 km² of limestone plateau ringed by cliffs and punctuated by three distinct inlets: Mgarr Harbour in the southeast (the ferry terminal from Malta), the Xlendi valley-inlet on the southwest, and Marsalforn Bay on the north. The island is quieter, greener, and geologically older than Malta — the Victoria Lines fault that runs across the northern end of Malta has an analogue in the stepped escarpments of Gozo's interior, where Globigerina limestone and the harder Coralline limestone alternate in the cliff sections. The shoreline is predominantly rocky with cliff-base platforms, sea caves, and arches formed by differential erosion of the layered limestone. Ramla Bay on the north coast is the anomaly: a wide sandy beach in a valley between the cliffs, its sand coloured red-orange by iron oxide minerals, fronted by calm shallow water in summer. Xlendi is the other type locality — a narrow inlet between 30 m cliffs, a small beach at its head, fishing boats moored in the channel, and the sea-cave and tunnel system at the valley mouth that makes it one of Malta's premier dive sites. The Mediterranean tidal regime throughout Gozo is microtidal: spring range 0.3 to 0.4 m, with a mixed diurnal character. Tide predictions come from Open-Meteo Marine gridded model.