Anchor Bay Malta

A small picturesque bay to the west of Mellieha

Our Anchor Bay Malta page focuses on a small bay which is located approximately one kilometre west of the village of Mellieha.

Anchor Bay was named after the countless Roman anchors which were found in the bay. Some of these old anchors are today on display at the Maritime Museum at Vittoriosa.

Nowadays, Anchor Bay is mostly known for Popeye Village.

The so called “village” is the abandoned set for the 1980 Hollywood musical Popeye.

The musical starred Robin Williams as Popeye.

The Sweethaven village as it’s also known, occupies the hilly side of Anchor Bay.

The bay itself is quite isolated and is not very popular with swimmers. In fact, although the sea is often calm here, the bay is more suitable for good swimmers.

The village film set has since been transformed into a tourist attraction, targeted mainly at families with small children.

Although adults may not see the village as offering anything special, small kids do enjoy themselves, since Popeye Village offers some great entertainment with animators recreating scenes from the movie, puppet shows and much more.

If you’d like to try scuba diving in Malta, Anchor Bay offers some beautiful caves and passageways too. Some boulders inside the bay make for interesting swim throughs.

One cave here which is worth mentioning is the Scorpion Cave. The cave is only completely submerged for the first couple of metres. Some stunning underwater life is usually present in the cave.

Some of the fish which you might see at Anchor Bay are morays, scorpion fish, groupers and octopus.

If you’re interesting in getting to know more about other dive sites in Malta, visit our Diving in Malta page for more information.

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