Moray eel lurking in the wreck of dive site Tug Boat Rozi. But for how much longer?

The diving season is finally here – for the fair-weather diver. For hardened divers, it never ended as they’ve been out all winter, braving wind, rain and cold (well, OK, we just had a very mild winter for once).

But for both sets of divers, spring is the season to get underwater, especially at Cirkewwa, which, though a fantastic dive site all year round, just seems to blossom in spring.

As the sea takes a conciliatory attitude with the sun warming its surface and as the weather becomes more inviting, so divers are encouraged to take their first plunges after winter. This applies also to the thousands of divers escaping the last throes of a northern winter for week-long or short-break weekend diving holidays.

Unfortunately, the good weather also brings with it spear fishermen, with and without aqualungs, as well as the Gozitan and Maltese fishermen with their nets.

Under a by-law we inherited on joining the EU, all wrecks have become protected areas where no fishing, including spear fishing, is allowed within a given zone around the wrecks. Another law we inherited prohibits spear fishing with aqualungs.

Unfortunately, like all environmental good intentions in Malta, there is no firm enforcement of these laws. Because of this, we divers are often left frustrated and very angry when on the Cirkewwa dive site as we await the ALE (Administrative Law Enforcement ) officers after our call out.

They do get there, in their 4×4s and their inflatables, often within a half hour of our calling them. Then, they take the time to pull up hundreds of meters of paritii . But all the while we’re waiting, the spear fishermen are doing their worst and the nets are killing.

It makes no sense to have protected sites without enforcement. The only way that enforcement will work in relation to marine conservation is by having a 24/7 police (ALE) presence that can stop and, better still, prevent the laws’ infringement in the first place. For now, we see them wade in after the damage has been done.

Cirkewwa already has the infrastructure to house an ALE station at the dive site below the beacon tower there; at the cost of refurbishing the premises. This localised presence of the ALE would allow officers to take a proactive rather than reactive stance in protecting Cirkewwa. It is also an ideal place from which to launch their sea craft to patrol the northern and westerly coasts.

We often say that education is the best route to seeing change brought about. This is all well and good, but the problem with education is that it takes a long time to have effect and, as has been proven in other countries, education will only work if there is also legislative enforcement, and the threat of serious fines for those who infringe the laws.

As things stand, there is no education taking place here anyway. The areas out of bounds to fishing – of all kinds – should have in-your-face notices informing divers, spear and net fishermen of the zone’s no-fishing policies as well as giving details of the fines for law infringement.

One last point. The law needs to be amended to prohibit all types of fishing within the boundaries set by the Malta Maritime Authority, and should include a no-stopping and no-crossing the perimeter stipulation with exception of dive boats quickly dropping off divers. Above all, the law needs to give Cirkewwa legislative status as a marine sanctuary.

A young Grouper: saying 'Hi' to divers this time...

What you can do
Whether you’re a diver or not, the call for Cirkewwa to be declared a marine sanctuary deserves support. If you are interested in adding your voice, find out more on this Facebook group.

All photos courtesy of Paul Busuttil.

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A dive buddy is more than the guy next to you; it's also your dive centre of choice.

Every time divers plan a diving holiday, the first thing they have to decide is who is going to be their diving provider.

Here are a few tips to help with finding the best option.

Location. Where is the dive centre located? Ideally, it should be close to your accommodation because you don’t want to spend your precious time travelling. In Malta, some dive centres can offer transport and accommodation.

Type of dives offered. Not every diving centre can offer you all the dives available on the islands. Not everyone can offer boat dives. If you are planning specific types of dives, conduct a search. Bear in mind that these offshore dives are more expensive than the shore ones.

Range of services to meet your needs. Do you need to hire equipment? Do you only need dive guiding? Do you need transportation or are you going to rent a car?

Price is important but don’t go for the cheapest option. Sometimes a cheap price means not very good equipment. If you’re on a budget, it may sometimes be possible to negotiate discounts. Don’t skimp on equipment.

Reputation. This is very important and nowadays relatively easy to find. Learn through the experience of the others. Use Google, access dive forums and communities, specialised websites and Twitter to drill down to the information you need. Other divers will be more than happy to help you.

If you are experienced divers you might not need a diving center. The best option may be an experienced local diver to lead you and show you the best places for diving. Such people can also help you if you need to hire small bits of equipment, such as weights. Again, the Internet – including the authors of diving articles on this site – will help you find the right person.

If this is not your first diving holiday in Malta, and if you know the place and are experienced and confident enough, you can buy one of the few books for diving here and use them instead.

But in any event, don’t underestimate your planning. Although scubadiving is a reasonably safe sport, careful preparation is part of the game.

Photo: Dragan Donkov

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Eerily awaiting its next crew. Divers this time though.

This map is a quick, easy, visual reference to some of the most popular dive sites around the Maltese Islands. An ideal guide for those less familiar with the Islands, or planning a diving break here to include a range of dive challenges. The map accompanies our earlier post with our pick of top five dive sites for both novice and experienced divers.

Divers in the know about Malta have their own preferences so our list is not meant to be exhaustive. But there’s one thing everyone agrees on and that is that there’s something quite special about diving the Maltese Islands. See Antonio Anastasi’s post or Simon Jones’ write-up if you’re in any doubt about whether to learn to dive here, or are looking for somewhere different after having ’seen, dived and done’ the Red Sea and more!

View Malta Dive Sites Map in a larger map

Photo: Dragan Donkov

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Into the deep blue yonder. Wreck diving in Malta.

The Maltese archipelago, with its almost crystal clear waters, friendly and warm seas, is very popular as an all-year-around diving destination. Local and international divers have come to appreciate Malta’s excellent wreck and reef dives that offer teeming marine life as well as a kaleidoscope of underwater colours.

As an addicted diver, I spend most of my free time under the water. When I started diving two years ago I had to find the best dive sites in which to develop my skills and gain confidence. Now, as a more experienced diver, I can say that Malta and its sister island Gozo can offer a wide variety of wrecks and deep reefs with easy access from the shore

So, whether you’re a beginner or holiday diver working out which dives offer the optimum to get you to learn and experience more, here is my list of top dive sites. Enjoy your diving on the Maltese islands and remember – respect the sea, plan the dive and dive the plan!

DIVING SITES FOR THE LESS-EXPERIENCED

Madonna and the Arch – Cirkewwa
This is a brilliant dive for beginners and people that enjoy diving in the sunlight. The dive starts with drop off to 18 meters where you’ll find the statue of a Madonna situated and continues with the reef until it reaches a rock formation called the Arch. A lot of fish and marine life, such as shoals of jacks and barracudas, are common in this area.
Maximum dept: 18meters.

Wied iz-Zurrieq
This is a very nice dive with the opportunity to choose from two directions – the left or the right side of the reef. There’s a good variety of marine life including octopi. Here, you can also glimpse some barracudas on the prowl too. But be aware of the boat traffic in this area as you’re not at a great depth at times.
Average Depth: 9 metres
Maximum Depth: 30 metres

Ghar Lapsi
Located off the south coast, this dive is very popular on account of its navigable cave and the crystal sand. The cave is full of colors and a paradise for photographers.
Maximum depth: 18 meters

St Michael and Number 10 in Marsascala
The St Michael wreck is a ‘Tanac’ type 20-metre long vessel, built in 1944 by a Canadian company; the smaller Number 10 wreck is a ‘Melita’ type 16-metre long vessel. Both served for many years towing numerous ships around Grand Harbour. Both boats have been prepared for divers and are safe for penetration.
Maximum depth: 20 meters

HMS Maori in Valletta
Malta’s most famous and historical wreck, this World War II destroyer was launched in 1937 and saw considerable action in her life, and provided valuable assistance to the defense of Malta. However, in1942 she received a direct hit as a bomb exploded in her engine room while in the docks.
Depth: 12-16 metres

DIVING FOR THE MORE EXPERIENCED

Um El Faroud in Wied iz-Zurrieq
This wreck is 150 meters from the shore. The vessel is a single screw motor tanker. For those who like wreck diving, the Um El Faroud offers a lot of passages with relatively easy exits. You’re likely to see a lot of marine life and big fish such as barracudas, amber jacks and groupers Be careful of the boat traffic in the entrance and exit point and the currents that might occur. My advice is to do this dive early in the morning and with 15l tank.
Maximum depth: 37 meters

Tug boat Rozi – Cirkewwa
The Tug boat Rozi was scuttled in 1992 as attraction for the divers and became one of the emblematic dives in Malta. Close to the shore and easy for navigation this dive gives the unique opportunity to combine a wreck and reef dive in one. You’ll likely come across a range of marine life, including groupers and hunting barracudas, Moray eels and similar. After exploring the boat, approach the reef and enjoy the natural rock formation named the Arch.
Maximum depth 35meters

Patrol boat P29 – Cirkewwa
Located in Cirkewwa, the 51 metre Condor Class patrol boat was scuttled on 14th August 2007. Marine life including groupers and barracudas.
Depth: 33 meters

The Blue Hole – Dwerja, Gozo
Situated at the bottom of Dwejra Point in front of the one of the main attractions in Gozo – Azure Window. The dive does start with a long walk on the rocks, but believe me it’s worth it! Once you enter in the Blue Hole you can take the right or left side. If you take the right side you can dive under the Azure Window and if you have good visibility you can see it clearly from the bottom. On your way back as soon as you swim under the arch you can explore the large cave on left hand side.
Average Depth: 20 meters
Maximum Depth: Beyond 60 meters

Reqq point – Gozo
Located on the most northerly point of Gozo, this is a famous deep dive with clear water, great visibility and big fish on the reef. Very often you’ll spot large groupers, some over 1m in length. Dive there if the sea is calm because it is difficult to enter and exit when sea is choppy.
Average depth 25 meters
Maximum depth 70 meters

Photo of divers approaching the Tug Boat Rozi: Dragan Donkov.
See related posts: Globe-trotting divers rate Malta highly; and Underwater photography in Malta.

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'Eye, eye, who's this muscling in on my patch?' says the big Red Scorpion fish

I first arrived, and dived, on Malta over six years ago, and it didn’t take me long to realise the islands’ potential for great underwater photography what with its dramatic underwater scenery, drop offs, caves and wrecks. Plus, there’s an abundance of marine life; yes, I said ‘abundance’. You just have to know where and what to look for.

I recently ran an underwater photography course for two people and I over heard them say that they may have to cover a large underwater area to meet the performance requirements for the second dive of the course. Once underwater, they didn’t go any deeper than ten meters or travel further than 15-20 meters from the entry and exit point of the dive. Once they knew how to work the camera, they found plenty to photograph in a very small area.

Malta is great for someone wishing to learn how to shoot underwater photographs as the water is warm, clear and has lots of shallow areas where they can practice. The islands cater though for all types and levels of underwater photographer, whether a pro photographer from a dive magazine or a new diver wanting to share his new-found world with family and friends.

For people keen to shoot wide angle there are a number of great wrecks, from the old favourite the Rozi Tug boat to the new P29 patrol boat. The cave systems also lend themselves very well to wide angle as most of them have great light, allowing the photographer to capture the wonderful blue light shining in from the outside.

Great wide angle marine life is also possible on Malta as yellow tail barracuda are often seen above or near to the right arch at Cirkewwa, and dusky grouper also love to come in close and inspect themselves in their reflection in the housing lens.

For macro shooters, there are a number of Nudibranch (sea Slugs), all of which have wonderful colours from yellows and blues to violate and pinks. In and around the caves and swim through photographers can find hermit crabs and very often Morey eels. Not to mention all of the octopus, scorpion fish and Cuttle fish.

I’ve been shooting underwater seriously for the last couple of years and there are still shots I would like to get, from marine life to different angles on the wrecks.

So get out there diving and enjoy the Maltese waters. And remember, take only pictures, leave only bubbles.

Photo: Marcus Grant

Learn Underwater Photography
Marcus Grant runs undewater photography courses. For more info, see his site: racoonboyphotography.

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The more (divers) the merrier! Malta diving memories in the making

” Tonio, I have dived all over the world and this HAS to be one of the three best dives ever.”

This was said to me by a retired engineer who had dived every waterhole there is to dive in the world. After one particular dive, as soon as his head was out of the water, he spat his regulator out and said this with an urgency of one that has been keeping a feeling locked up.

What a sad contrast to the opinion of some of local divers who underrate Malta’s waters in preference to places like the Red Sea!!!

I’ve written this post to flesh out why Malta has the most incredible diving, to challenge preconceptions of what it’s like to dive here, and to encourage newcomers – both experienced and novice – to dive Malta. I draw on great memories of just some of my 30 years and 12,000 logged dives (and 48,000 man-dives). What strikes me is the camaraderie among divers… and that too makes Malta special.

You see, when one dives, one never, or rarely, dives alone, so that experience is enhanced and multiplied by the number of divers in the group. Sometimes, what blows my mind out is not so much what we are watching, but the expression of joy, incredulity, disbelief even, on the faces of the divers I am leading.

More often, these are divers that have many years globe trotting diving experience. Divers that have dived the most exotic place in the world, the Red Sea, the Great Barrier Reef, Maldives, Florida..yet little Malta, without coral reefs, without colorful fish, manages to leave them not only surprised but in awe of their experience.

I have been diving Malta’s waters most winter days and certainly all summer for the past 30 years. I’ve gathered countless dive memories; each obscured and then forgotten by yet another special, last memory, only to resurface while sharing a bottle of wine with friends or fellow divers at a bar.

We all have that special moment to share, and we all think we have a memory to ‘out do’ the last experience narrated. I don’t think there is a single diver that is not in awe when sitting in 6m of water surrounded by hundreds of Barracuda as they parade to and fro within arms reach. It’s a breath-taking sight.

Actually the only diver I do know that is not in awe is my love, Myriam, to whom they are just fish; she tends to prefer the smaller, more colorful creatures, like corals plants and the many invertebrates.

You see the problem with Malta divers is that as soon as we start going on about the things we have seen, it’s like we’ve unlocked a treasure trove of memories as each seemingly fantastic sight, reminds us of an even more fantastic experience. And so our tales of underwater life go on, resurfacing, and submerging again.

So if you’ve a few divers sitting together, drinking, then you’re going to experience a good few seasons of Sea Treck or National Geographic playing there in front of your eyes. So many experiences shared.

Hovering, (yes divers hover even if, as in my case, it’s the hover of a 95kgs dragonfly) on the edge of the reef watching a few hundred barracuda milling around, it is not uncommon to be distracted by Little Thunny shooting by, picking food like demented shoppers at Lidl while sardines try getting out of the way – not unlike Lidl’s employees on a specials’ day.

Or to glance a little to your right to see an approaching school of two hundred Crevalle Jacks coming in from God knows what journey to have a look at overweight dragonflies.

Or looking up from 16m to see a large ball of barracuda circling at 10m, my eyes wander to my left, to the open sea, where I spot some 50 large squid at my depth and 50m away from the barracuda. It looked like two opposing armies ready for battle, but apparently neither was in for a bit of a sushi take away that day.

I could go on and on, describing what I have seen, shared or experienced while diving in Malta but I think I will finish with the most common expression I have heard from some of the most experienced divers I’ve been with…

” This is just unbelievable!!!”

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Barracuda cruising. Join their world for a different perspective on Malta

This should whet your appetite for diving in Malta! Simon Jones, a qualified diving instructor, is still in awe of life below Malta’s waves even after 20 years’ diving off these shores. His first summer dive – the ’shakedown’ – is welcomed by a sea teeming with life.

I’d been looking forward to this dive all week, the first of the summer and only my second dive this year. My first was in April. Now, four months down the line, the rocky foreshore in front of my favourite dive centre is already packed with tanned kids. And it’s only 8am!

The weather forecasts all agree on a north-westerly force 3 to 4, so my buddies and I decide Wied Iz-Zurrieq would be ideal for a ’shakedown’ dive – where you make sure you’ve got the right amount of weight after shedding six millimetres of winter wetsuit, checking your regulator works as it should and so on.

A quick glance at the bottom confirms that the visibility is good at around 15 metres. It should get better as we leave the bay and head out over the sand. Once everyone is in the water, masks adjusted and watches set, I give the sign to descend and we glide gently down to the bottom.

Wied Iz-Zurrieq (Wied is Maltese for valley) in the south of Malta, starts off as a narrow chasm at the bottom and gradually widens out into a little harbour where fishermen moor their boats in the summer. It’s also the departure point for the popular Blue Grotto boat tours so one of the characteristics of a dive here is the constant drone of the “fregatini” transporting tourists back and forth.

At the harbour mouth, the rocky bottom drops from about 12 to 17 metres and gives way to sand. Once out there, it’s like another world. The bright white sand does wonders for the visibility and the drone of the boats fades away as they hug the shoreline to the east. The sea is an incredible shade of blue and shafts of sunlight stab through the surface giving the scene a surreal, quasi-religious ambience.

The sand is busy with lots of Trill (Red Mullet) flicking away at it feeding. Bulging eyes and a large, pug like mouth sticking out of the sand give away a Tracna (Weever Fish) and a metre or so above the bottom, small Kahli (Saddled Bream) and Sparli (Sea Bream) swim around seemingly aimlessly. To the left a pair of Pagell (Red Snapper) swim past, aloof in demeanour but for their eyes swivelling around to keep us in view. Above us scores of Cawl (Damsel Fish) are held in stark silhouette by the shimmering surface of the sea.

A glance at my dive computer informs me that we’re at 33 metres but with water this calm and clear, it feels like much less than that. We’re in a sandy patch surrounded by Posidonia (Sea Grass) and directly in front of us, the bottom gradually drops away into the blue. Quickly, we huddle to check our remaining air supply and then head off to the West towards the wreck of the Um El Faroud.

This is another beautiful dive but it isn’t in our dive plan today so I’ll document it in another post. Just as the wreck’s outline looms out of the blue, we turn north and start back to the shore. At this point we’re about a hundred metres to the west of the harbour mouth and the rocky cliff descends straight down to about 7 metres below the surface before sloping to 10/15 metres then dropping off to a sandy bottom at 27 metres.

The edge of the drop off is teeming with Cawl and Sardines and these are favoured food both for the school of Barracudas which hang out around the wreck of the Faroud and for the pelagic Accijol (Amberjacks) which swim in close to the shore to feed.

Today is a good day; we barely make it to the top of the drop off before two young Amberjacks flash past us, straight through the school of sardines. They circle them repeatedly, seemingly herding them into a tight shoal before dashing into their midst and picking their victims out at random. After a good ten minutes of hanging, neutrally buoyant, in the blue enjoying the spectacle, we notice a solitary barracuda on patrol. It hugs the shoreline, its slim outline masked by the rush of the waves breaking on the cliff face as, ignoring the Amberjacks’ antics, it makes its way past unhurried.

Finally, the first of the group signals that they’re on their last fifty bar and it’s time to head back. We cut across the harbour mouth, the drone of the boats above reminding us not to ascend until we reach the opposite shore. We then hug the shoreline at three metres all the way in to the slipway where we carefully ascend to the surface before crawling out of the water and trudging back to the vehicles.

All that’s left now is to get out of our gear and troop into one of the many bars in Wied Iz-Zurrieq to rehydrate with a lager and a hobza (Maltese bread with tuna, capers and tomatoes). It’s going to be a great summer!

Photo: Dragan Donkov

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