Malta Trip Report by Rob Hilton

And so it came to pass on the 11^th day of the 6^th month of the year 2011, that 8 intrepid explorers made the pilgrimage to lands afar to seek their fortune and try to discover once and for all the meaning of life! Well............actually a couple of weeks back a mixture of 8 dodgy divers went to Malta to carry out a bit of vaguely controlled sinking and floating, often called diving.

The idea of mixing a Technical and Recreational trip to Malta (hence the name “Recnical”) was the brainchild of Tim Burge and JC and then all credit to Tim, whom I think all will ,came up trumps in organising a thoroughly enjoyable holiday. It turned out that the mix of a recreational and a technical group together worked out pretty well, allowing the reccies to take advantage of the superior knowledge of the techies over a beer or two (We're not worthy..........) and the techies to join the reccies dives on a day or two.......when we let them! One of techies even swapped his twinset for a single cylinder for a couple of dives, although I heard he was a little nervous about the lack of gas reserves and struggled in adjusting his dive computer to read 21%.

The techie team was made up of Nigel “Brrrr....I'm sticking to my drysuit” Stephenson, Tim “Oops....I was sure I could swim through that gap” Burge and Nora “I just love propellers” Holford. The reccies consisted of Tina “Could someone please help me with my wetsuit” Bunbury, Melanie “ I must remember to secure both fin straps” Adams, Jonathan “If my wetsuit had any more holes in it, I should just wear a shorty!” Hart, Kim “I'll get the hang of equalising one day” Pierpoint and myself, Rob “Cousteau” Hilton. The photo shows us about to enjoy a curry (as you do) along with tech guides Sasha and Irene.

The hotel we stayed in was located in the St Julian's area within easy walking distance of both the dive centre “Divewise” and the kicking night life zone where we headed each night for a full on party …..not! (We were all very responsible and mature individuals, carefully monitoring our alcohol consumption so as not to jeopardise our following days activities!). The hotel was called the Alexandra Palace, and although we weren't entirely convinced by the title, was clean and tidy, served breakfast and was incredibly cheap! If you're after just somewhere to lay your head, then you could do worse.

Divewise is well set up with a professional and friendly team, all guides being a minimum of OWSI instructor due to Maltese law technicalities. This was quite reassuring for 4 of the 5 reccies with less experience (2 of which undertook their AOW whilst there) even though one of the guides completely missed the wreck on one of the dives!

Recreational Dives – (from point of view of a less experienced diver!)

Day 1-As per usual, the first dive was a gentle bimble on the house reef just to remember not to hold our breath, we don't quite need 20Kg of weight......19Kg will do, and doing both fin straps up is a good idea otherwise we go around in circles. Although perhaps not the most amazing house reef, it did have interesting topography as we went further afield and it was very clean, as the reef clean up dive proved later in the week. It also revealed a couple of small morays and we were lucky enough to see a cuttlefish eating a small fry it had just caught.

The afternoon dive was on the Maori, with an interesting entry down some steps and rocks avoiding the scantily clad locals sunning themselves; not that I'm complaining you understand. It took a while for all of us to get in the water as there were 12 to 14 divers in total and there was a little swell making it a tad tricky; all part of the diving experience I say. Not having done too many wrecks, it took me a moment or two to realise it wasn't just rocks, confirmed later by one of my fellow less experienced rust hunting reccies. Having swum a short distance around the “rocks” it all became a bit clearer and I could see that it really was a boat, the overall shape coming more into focus (Note to self: Buy new prescription mask!). It was covered in growth and had some of the largest tubeworms I've seen, although they didn't seem to retract despite waving my hand at them like a madman. Several flatfish and a reasonable moray later we saw the largest nudibranch I have ever seen, way bigger than my hand. The guide was also extremely excited, so it can't just be my lack of experience.

Day 2 and we headed off to, what was for me, to be my first “proper” wreck, the Um El Faroud. The first thing I learnt was to make sure my integrated weight pockets were secured properly as a fellow diver dropped one and subsequently made it look really hard work getting his head under the water. Problem solved by Side Mount equipped guide, (He looked like a God!) we headed off. Being a little over 30m to the seabed, this was ideal for my first Nitrox dive (the Nitrox course incidentally worked out extremely cheap with Divewise). It was perhaps a 10min swim from the entrance point so we stayed at 10m to conserve gas and then dropped down and it all came into view........Wow! I can now see the attraction of wrecks. It was quite thought provoking to swim along the covered walkways around the end and see the other half of the ship in the distance and then start our return. The site was quite busy with other divers and tourists in boats, but a bit of a must see.

The afternoon dive was changed from a wall dive in the same location to a 63 min shallow dive back on the house reef, due to one of the divers not feeling so good and us all opting to have an easy dive on his behalf. Sadly he then dropped out anyway. Lucky he wasn't in our group as there may have been some ribbing later down the pub otherwise! During the long dive we navigated around the peninsula and back again, seeing the “Roman Bath” depressions along the way and being swept through the narrow gulleys by the swell, which was fun.

Day 3 was the compulsory P29 (pictured) and Rozi; at least the plan was to do them in that order. I had just been given a compass for my birthday, so thought I'd play on the way out to the wreck and see if I could navigate there and back. I was given the heading of 270 degs and tried following it, but thought it was broken as we seemed to be following 260degs, as led by the guide and his compass. Anyway, we duly missed the P29 completely (note from editor: the techies didn’t )and found the Rozi instead after much swimming around. All part of the game I guess. The second dive redeemed the guide to some extent and the P29 was re-discovered.....Hurrah! He claimed the heading he was given was a bit rubbish; I think he could do with attending the Underwater Navigation course again!

In the evening 4 of us undertook a night dive on the house reef, Mel and Jon completing part of their AOW course dives. This caused some amusement , as during the navigation part, Kim and myself inadvertently got in their way, causing them to veer off course. It's hard to communicate underwater at the best of times. It's even harder to communicate underwater in the dark!! (Sorry Mel & Jon, but at least we didn't make you fail).We were treated with a great sighting of a red octopus, cuttlefish, a type of pipefish, shrimp, various types of crab, nudibranch and a large sea conch happily sliming it's way through the sand. As usual the night dive revealed a totally different dive site and associated aquatic activity.

Day 4 was on the Scott Craig followed by a dive close to Popeye village. Teccies were permitted to join us this day, just as long as they didn't call the dive early due to high gas consumption! On the way out to the site a rope came loose from the rib and wrapped itself around the prop. Luckily we had a diver and a knife on board to free us! The skipper was great and landed us right on top of the wreck, making it a very easy and relaxing dive. I was somewhat jealous of the techies as we weren't allowed to penetrate the wreck, despite some areas looking quite spacious. I had to make do with poking my head in with a torch......didn't find any treasure though.

The second dive was a new experience for me as it was quite shallow but we swam up and into a cavern in the rocks, not visible outside from above the water line. We surfaced inside, removed regs and turned off torches. As the eyes became accustomed, the little light from the cavern entrance under the water just about illuminated the void. It was silent at times and very relaxing, perhaps the next best thing to a sensory deprivation tank.

Day 5 – for me we saved the best for last and headed off to Gozo for the blue hole and the inland sea. Wow. I'm sure most of you have seen photos, but as the saying goes these just don't do these sites justice.

Sure the walk to the blue hole is a bit of a drag and rather slippery underfoot as you near the water, but well worth it when you finally drop in and get out of the heat (also the people there seemed a little more fascinated by divers which is always good for the ego!). Dropping down in a hole followed by swimming out, round the corner and under the Azure window has got to be a memorable dive, the excitement of which is only added to by swimming up through and on the return back down through a fairly vertical “tunnel” in the rock face.

Note: Thanks to Nora Holford and Tina Bunbury for all above photos.