Merhba from Malta pet

[Steve S]

The tea time flight from Manchester on paper looked great so we were looking forward to a leisurely drive, this turned into a nightmare of Cecil B De mille proportions as we encountered accidents roadworks and every kind of farm vehicle and caravan known to man

Thank God for the pre booked late check in after an uneventful flight we touched down and as it was dark we couldn’t confirm if all the warnings we had heard of [after booking] about Malta were true.

Off to the apartments, the balcony was just wide enough to accommodate a chair and the view was another complex under construction that was so close even I could have jumped across.

Cue the retiring of the Summers clan muttering about being dragged to another cr*p hole by their selfish diver dad

Daylight even worse everywhere we looked was like a film set for Auf wiedersein pet

A day spent trying to placate the mutinous family to no avail.

Thursday I was picked up by www divedeepblue.com and taken for my first dives the first was the Um El Faroud in the Blue Grotto Jonathan the centre owner led me and 2 others round and through the wreck which was excellent not many big fish [it is the Med’ ] but enough for me to humiliate myself with using my cyber shot for the 1st time a jellyfish swarm helped to make the stop interesting

Dive time was 50 mins at a max of 32m, after an interval we dived the bell tower a cavern with a large Morey and a couple of octopus etc this was a cavern entered around 26m with basically a chimney that you can go up.

The family situation having now reached rock bottom I decided to hire a car for 5 days and explore the islands TBH this saved my rep’ with the loved ones as it became clear that the only way we would survive would be by my driving skills the saying “ brits drive on the left, the French on the right and the maltese drive in the shade” turned out to be spot on

In our 5 days we saw loads of accidents of varying degrees but saw most of the tourist stuff.

So pleased where they that I managed to sneak a couple more dives in

Dive 3 The Imperial Eagle a purpose sunk wreck off Qwara point, down the shot went I to be confronted by Jesus with outstretched arms then off to the wreck Its quite deep starts at 37m but is intact with some very nice swim throughs the hold at 42m was a little unnerving on a single and on the way up my buddy a fish anorak pointed out a “crown of thorns” starfish quite rare apparently, I was on 28% but still managed to rack up 15 mins deco.
The highlight of this dive was seeing a 6 to 8 inch turtle free swimming that disappeared before I could get a pic no-one else saw it and no I wasn’t narced before you ask

Dive time was 1 hour max depth 42.3m the next dive followed a drive to Valletta harbour that was a cross between Wacky races and death race 2000 to dive HMS Mouri this is more like the diving I’m used to with poor viz occasionally small holes to squeeze through, brass to polish and I even manage to see a seahorse for the first time along with 2 cuttlefish and a really cute small moray.

To keep the family on side I didn’t dive again just more tourist stuff.

I would recommend dive deep blue to anyone and parts of Malta were beautiful but offset by the building and if you are taking a non-diving family make sure the digs have good facilities.



The Um El Faroud




Jesus



Imperial Eagle



Crown of thorns starfish



Cuttlefish



Sea horse



Again



Scorpion fish



Like a puffer fish but spreads its wings instead of inflating



Moray



Safe diving,
Steve

[Adrian Kelland]

Nice pics Steve, I must go back there.

The puffer like fish is a Flying Gurnard IRRC, but I don't think the starfish is a 'crown of thorns', rather a 'spiny starfish'.

Adrian

[MATTBIN]

Nice report Steve.

Matt

[Janos]

Nice report. Mmm. Holiday.

Janos

[Conor]

Nice report and it looks like you all survived.

I agree with Adrian on the two fish Id points

Conor

[SCUBA Chick]

Nice report Steve!

Scubachick

[nigel]

Good trip then glad you enjoyed it I told you you will either love the place or hate it!
How was the weather I tried not to think about Malta and concentrated on Anglesea !!

Nigel