In October 2016, Fred and I headed to the little island of Comino for a weekend of landscape and astrophotography. We packed our rucksacks, tents and cooking equipment and caught a ferry over to Comino on a Thursday afternoon. The ferry dropped us off at Santa Marija Bay, where there is the only campsite on the island. We set up our tents and had a quick swim before packing our camera gear, food and stoves and hiked the 30 minute hike to St Mary’s tower, on the South Western part of the island.
A Night shot of St Mary’s Tower in Comino.
We went to Comino in October for 2 specific shots that we had in mind, the first (And main objective) was to shoot sunrise at the little sea arch near St Mary’s battery, the second objective was shooting the Milkyway and Star trails from near St Mary’s tower. October and February are the only months where the sun would rise and be visible through the arch, but February would not be ideal since the weather is unreliable and the ferry doesn’t operate frequently.
A screen grab of the Photopills app used to plan the sunrise shot. The yellow line to the right of the pin indicates the direction of sunrise.
We planned to spend the first night here shooting star trails and the Milkyway. As the sun was setting, we set up our cameras (We had both brought 2 cameras with us, one for a star trail, and the other for the Milkyway). With the cameras set up, we started cooking our dinner. As darkness fell we began shooting our star trails and started trying to capture the Milkyway, but soon realised there was too much light pollution to get a good shot of the Milkyway from Comino. Instead, we decided to shoot a second star trail of the tower from a different angle since we had made the effort to carry our second camera with us.
As the cameras were shooting, we tried to get rest and get some sleep, but the ferocious mosquitoes didn’t allow us to do so! I lay on my foam sleeping mat admiring the clear night sky, just waiting for time to pass, as you do when shooting a star trail!
2 hours before sunrise, we packed up our sleeping mats and our camera gear and began the 40 minute hike to St Mary’s battery, on the South Eastern part of the island. We wanted to shoot sunrise at the little arch found beneath St Mary’s Battery. We had specifically come to Comino in October for this shot, the sun shining through the arch at sunrise.
Our first attempt at shooting sunrise at the sea arch near Santa Marija Battery on the south Eastern coast of Comino. This is a 4 minute exposure to smooth the water and blur the clouds.
The horizon was clouded over as the light began to get better. We realized we wouldn’t be able to get the shot that we had come for, but the clouds did capture some of the warm colors of sunrise. With our sunrise shot done, we hiked back to Santa Marija bay where we cooked breakfast, had an amazing early morning swim and settled into our tents to get some real sleep.
We spent the day resting and taking it easy. In the afternoon, I head out to shoot sunset from the cliffs above the Blue lagoon. There weren’t any clouds, which meant that the shot wasn’t as dramatic as I had hoped, but it did mean we would have another night of clear skies to shoot another star trail. I returned to our base camp after sunset and we packed our gear for another night of shooting star trails.
A 2 minutes exposure of the South Western coast of Comino with some lovely golden light at sunset.
We headed for the abandoned bakery and set up our cameras to shoot star trails here. We cooked dinner and explored the area in the pitch dark whilst waiting for our star trails. We didn’t dare lay on the ground here, as we spotted several huge rats whilst we were cooking dinner and thought the better of it. We shot till about 01:00 am, then we headed back to camp and got a couple of hours sleep before waking up to shoot sunrise again at the arch.
We hiked another 30 minutes to get to the arch, the conditions looked more promising this time, with the horizon being clear. We fought off the mosquitoes to shoot sunrise, with better results than the first day. We then headed back tour camp, had another quick swim before dismantling our tents and catching the ferry back to Malta.
The second sunrise that we shot at the sea arch near Santa Marija Battery on the south Eastern coast of Comino.
The trip was a great adventure, it was extremely tiring spending 2 consecutive nights shooting, including getting up early for sunrise and barely getting any proper sleep. We spent time on an island which is rarely visited for more than just a day at the beach (Blue Lagoon), which actually has some great potential for sea scape photography. We returned home with a couple of good shots from the trip and would love to go back to explore more of the island in future.