Digger does Malta. It's about time.

[Digger]

Well, after sweet FA diving for ages, I decided to get myself off to Malta for a last minute deal. After a lot of poking around on the internet I decided we could either go all inclusive in Costa Del Pikey or go somewhere a bit nicer for a bit more. So off we went.

Last minute deal with Ryanair worked out at basically £75 each return. Which was good. Flies from Luton (nice and easy from Hemel) into Malta direct.

So off we pootle. Hotel was the Riviera Resort and Spa. £75 for the week. Lovely place, basically a big conference facility right in the north of the island. Which is still pretty close to everything, because Malta is smaller than Woz's penis on a cold day.

The original deal we saw was £135 for the flight and hotel with Air Malta or BA or something from Heathrow, but by the time I'd actually got the holiday sorted with work and we'd decided to do it it wasn't as easy to do or as cheap, so we had to get it sorted separately.

We asked around, and got some reccomendations. Fairly often reccomended was Deep Blue Diving in Buggiba.

Digger thinks he knows best so we ignore all the advice and off we go to the dive centre in the hotel, H2O. We saunter down the stairs feeling rather relaxed on the first day to see what was on. My requirements were simple - Mrs Digger needed to get in and do a nice easy dive to get back in the swing of things after a couple of years off, and I wanted to get into diving in a thick wetsuit again and sort weighting etc. We asked what they had planned for the week. They didn't have a plan. They told me at some length what we couldn't do. They told me how inconvenient it would be to try and do a series of sites that I didn't want to do. OK, I think, all we want is to do a nice easy dive first, and to go and do a couple of wrecks, one of which I wanted to be the Faroud. They still didn't come up with a plan. I pinned it down to we'd come down at 9am the next morning and they'd take us in for a dive, and we'd work something out from there. Sounded a bit too vague for me really. I could see myself swimming around crap viz crap sites at 15m for a few days, which I didn't want to do.

After half an hour of chewing the fat and trying to find out anyhting significant about Malta and diving there I had grown a little tired of hearing how crap a diver everyone they ever met were. Inside ten minutes (all this happened in about that time) they had slagged off:

PADI,
BSAC,
CMAS,
Divemasters,
Divers trained in Egypt,
Divers trained in Thailand,
Divers who hadn't done a thousand dives,
Previous customers,
Other dive centres on the island,
Some of the sites I might have wanted to dive.

Seriously.

We left after about another ten minutes of this. I got bored of hearing about how the divers trained at H2O were obviously the best divers in the world. That's my job. I also was most amused at making customers redo Open Water Courses, in one case against the customers wishes! Sorry H2O, but you managed to become renamed H2Obnoxious from there on for the holiday. Avoid.

So we decided maybe our internet friends and The Dude were right. And that we should see some friends of ours in Buggiba. They turned out to be divers would you believe, and ran Deep Blue.

I walked in after taking half an hour to find the place. Our previous internet research was sat on the printer at home. We got there, and walked into their yard.

After 2 minutes I had decided we had met the right people to dive with, and were in the right place. They asked us what we wanted to do, and asked us when we had last dived, what our qualifications were, and what sites I was interested in doing. I explained my requirements. They were very very helpful. I explained I wanted to dive as many wrecks as was feasible in the 4 dives planned. They were very very helpful. In fact so helpful that when we were all set and getting ready to leave they were still being helpful. And we were walking out the door they were still being helpful. Pretty much as helpful as dive companies get. We told them about H2Obnoxious. They were amused. We could laugh about it by then.

So we arrange for them to come pick us up at the hotel and dive a site right across from our hotel. Most of the diving in Malta is from the shore, with loads of accessible sites and wrecks sunk for divers to play on in easy reach.

Off we pootle. The plan was we will go for a dive, there was a DM (would you bloody believe it from Hemel Hempstead) who was to dive with us, and an Instructor doing some training with one other person. That ratio seemed good to me. We were told there was a wreck at the bottom of the wall/reef thingy, the Rosie. If we wanted we could go with the Instructor who was going to the wreck with his student, or cut off the depth any time it suited us. We had plans that we would do a shallowish dive first to get Mrs Digger back into it and check out the equipment, so reckoned on doing a 15m swim about. We dropped down, and everything was going nicely. At 18m me and Amy decided that we were as deep as we needed to go on this dive, and we were having fun on the reef. We signalled to level off to the DM, who moved to go around the corner a bit and swim around. Nice enough dive. We came back in and came back up the wall.

Entries and exits at most of the sites seem to be concrete steps, which are as easy as they could be. At the start of December it was a bit rough at times, but never rougher than getting in or out at St Abbs on a weekend!

We got our gear off and it was windy and a bit colder than is ideal for a summer holiday. But I guess it was December, so I can't complain. There's cafe's all over the place, and we had a nice lay about doing bugger all between dives.

Next dive we were planning to drop down further and provided we felt like it dive the Rosie. We knew where we were and what we were doing on site, and Amy was happy, the DM was a nice enough bloke so off we went. The Rosie is a tugboat sunk some years ago as an artificial reef. We swam a similar route to get to it, and dropped off to go see it. Max depth on the wreck is basically 32-35m, we landed on the deck at 30.0m. Which is good, because that's where the insurance ran out. We pootled around the site and had a look in the windows, a nice dive considering the only wreck Amy had spent any time on before was the bus in Gildenburgh. She's about the size of the Stanegarth, maybe a bit bigger, and a very similar structure, entirely intact, and at a slight angle on the sand.

So day one with Deep Blue went rather well. I didn't mention, but H2O after a last minute cancellation the day before were in the carpark. Oh well, customers lie to you sometimes, normally when you're H2Obnoxious. Ho hum. I'm sure the other customers diving with you were suitably impressed by your stories, we were not. I hope for their sake they didn't speak English.

We have a day of relaxing and lying about, go and see some old stuff, go and have some food (Malta does a very good line in Pizza, Pasta, and wine) and generally enjoy the spa facilities and not doing much. And not being at work.

Thursday was going to be Faroud day. Not to be. The weather in Malta seems to be controlled by the wind, and there's always somewhere to dive, but not always where you want to dive. We had the option of going and doing the Carolita (which the guys openly described as a secondary dive, and one which they could do if it came to it, but they'd rather take us somewhere better) which we didn't fancy. Other than that it was planned to take the boat out and do a site which was a bit deep for us. We opted out, and went out on the boat for the morning instead. We went and had a nice bit of lunch in Buggiba, and found our way back to the hotel in the afternoon.

The weather looked better for the Friday, so we made plans to try the Faroud again. We went down and the good news was the weather was on our side. It was looking a lot better to get on the wreck, so we went to the centre.

After a bit of a drive (there isn't much that's more than half an hour away) we were at the slipway.

Gear on, off we went to dive a wreck I had heard so much about. Pretty much all the divers I had talked to in Malta and who had been there liked this thing, and it seemed like a good option. They weren't wrong. We dropped in and swam out to the wreck. It's a big site, just over 100m long, and there's a lot to see. It had loads of opporunities to get inside the thing, we were taking it easy just looking around, but it does look like a decent idea to go back with rebreather and get right inside some of these wrecks. I think I'll do it when it's a bit warmer in the water, current conditions make a semidry and hood sensible, and many would be in drysuits for the temperatures.

The wreck was a good dive, and we came out and had the familiar cafe surface interval. The exit was a bit rough, but then there's not a lot we could do about that. I was happy to get on the wreck and do the dive I wanted to do.

The second dive was a pootle around a reef, we introduced Amy to cave diving as gently as possible, I was expecting a short swim through, it was actually a bit more intimidating than I'd expecting with the sand stirred up a bit, but then it was a quick pop out the top. Nice enough.

Anyhow, other than that, it was a good little holiday, and the diving was well worth at least another trip. I could easily do a week of diving out there in the summer or if we took drysuits along. Unfortunately Ryanair's 15kg doesn't leave much chance of heavy suits getting through, but other airlines are flying into Malta with cheap deals too.

Basically if I was doing it again I think I'd probably go toa hotel closer to the centre of one of the towns, there's loads and they seem to all be pretty reasonable. We did benefit from being about 2 minutes from the Gozo ferry, which cost all of £4 return and meant we could go exploring on the Saturday, and the hotel restaurants were very nice and pretty cheap too.

We did find a couple of really rather good restaurants in Melliah, the nearest town - Ta'Peter, which did fresh seafood and were extremely welcoming and served loads of food, and Giuseppe's, which did very posh food and wine in a nice place which I defy anyone not to like, if a bit more expensive. Just in case anyone's inspired to go for a last minute Malta trip up that way.

So, other than that all good really. We even got 3 seats between the two of us both ways on the flight. So I actually got some sleep!

Digs.

[purple vonny]

A nice little report there Digs. I was a bit confused by this bit.....

Originally Posted by Digger

a nice dive considering the only wreck Amy had spent any time on before was the bus in Gildenburgh. She's about the size of the Stanegarth, maybe a bit bigger, and a very similar structure, entirely intact, and at a slight angle on the sand.

Digs.

and had to read it twice because I thought you were referring to Mrs Digger. But then I thought "nah, he must mean the wreck".

Glad you had fun.

[ScubaSue]

Glad you had a good time .... eventually

I'm pleased Deep Blue came up with the goods for you in the end!

I did say that the weather (ie wind) determined the sites, but as you say, there is always somewhere diveable even if it means a drive . Chuffed you got on the Um El Faroud - it is cracking eh?

I hope you left Gozo in tact, do I still have a home to go to?

Sue

[Digger]

Originally Posted by ScubaSue

Glad you had a good time .... eventually

I'm pleased Deep Blue came up with the goods for you in the end!

I did say that the weather (ie wind) determined the sites, but as you say, there is always somewhere diveable even if it means a drive . Chuffed you got on the Um El Faroud - it is cracking eh?

I hope you left Gozo in tact, do I still have a home to go to?

Sue

Yep, bang on Sue. We walked from the ferry to Victoria, which was actually quite a long way, and just had a pootle about the place. We did go in the Gozo History Experience thingy which was informative, but it has to be said, a bit cack.

Oh, and I failed to mention in the sales pitch from the first lot he managed to include that there were more than 40 dive outfits on the islands, which helped me significantly in making a decision to go elsewhere.

Digs.

[Paul Evans]

So you dodn't do the Russell then

[lud228]

Hey digger,

i'm glad you loved our tiny Island. A lot of people have positive comments about deep blue. In summer I live two streets away from them but never dived with.

This november wind was really a pain ! during weekends the weather was even worse. Last weekend i managed to get a dive. at least!

If the wind is blowing N or NW a number of popular dive sites are doubtful ..... or even not suitable


lud

[ScubaSue]

Yep, bang on Sue. We walked from the ferry to Victoria, which was actually quite a long way, and just had a pootle about the place.

Bl**dy hell - a taxi is only three quid!

We did go in the Gozo History Experience thingy which was informative, but it has to be said, a bit cack.

Aah!

Oh, and I failed to mention in the sales pitch from the first lot he managed to include that there were more than 40 dive outfits on the islands, which helped me significantly in making a decision to go elsewhere.

[lud228]

Originally Posted by Digger

Yep, bang on Sue. We walked from the ferry to Victoria, which was actually quite a long way, and just had a pootle about the place.
Digs.

walked??????? oh my !

I am such a lazy bastad ! I would not even walk to the end of the terminal !

Next time you have to dive gozo !!!!!

Sue, am I still booked for the new wrecks?

lud

[Timbo]

Nice report
Pleased you enjoyed it Digs!!
Our gang went a few years ago in May and thoroughly enjoyed it,,,nice temperature..nice people..
The winds a bit of a bugger all year round but as with islands there's always somewhere to get in..
They were filming Troy when we was there,,the old boats were surreal to see when surfacing from a dive!
Most memorable dives were on Comino and of course the arch in Gozo,,
The most relaxing, easy, fun dive was from the jetty across from the Popeye village
Don't know what you thought, but we found the fish life a bit sparse,,probably down to the locals as with most of the Med..
but the volcanic tunnels and swim-thro's more than made up for it.......
And the local buses are something else.........

[Digger]

Well, the fish life was massively more than Cyprus or Turkey, which was what I was expecting. Not into fish, but there were plenty to look at at all the sites, especially around the wrecks.

Yep, I think I will go back. I can feel a long weekend coming on sometime.

Digs.