Diving an old favorite....MALTA

[Tonio Anastasi]

Malta has been on the diving map for over 35 years being amongst one of the first Med conuntries to pioneer diving tourism.

The plus is that it is user friendly, mild weather, even now we alternate between rain to hot and sunny. It is only a three hour flight away.

Over the last 10 years the diving here has greatly improved not only from the variety of fish and additional dive sites but also the in roads it has made in sinking new wrecks around 5 new wrecks over the last 10 years and 3 more to go down by the end of this year.

The weather here is quite mild and the best time to dive the islands is by far between October and the beginning of may. Though the water is generally colder, for us Maltese wimps, at min12c it is much clearer and much more exciting due to the migration of fish like the Thunny or amberjacks and there relations.

Diving the islands offers a vast varaity of divesites, some 85 and counting, including, caverns, wrecks, tunnles, as well as archiological dives (with permission) and a fantastic seasonal diversity to keep it interesting.

I often lead divers who have logged many dives around Malta and yet we still happen to find New and often interestng dive sites often by simply taking the risk of simply exploring a new site. You do run the risk of being disappointed but for the greater part you have the reward of a good or great dive.

The last three where:

On the principal of lets try here we can across over 12 amphora necks laying there on the bottom in a cluster. A subsequent dive there with the archiological department divers we also found other remains of amphoras dating back to 700AD.

Point St. Elmo is another depths from 22m to 36m. Did a dozen dives there non less than great, the best of which we saw slipper lobsters, lots of large morays, sea horses and plenty of nudubrachs.

The last is the far northen part of Cirkewwa with a fantastic reef going from 30m to 40m+ Fantastic scenery and pelnty to see.

If you want more information check out www.matadiving.net for our website or go to www.pdas.org.mt, for a list of dive centers or www.marinefoundation.org for divewreck dive sites

[Chriz]

Looking at spending 2 weeks in August, can't wait

[Tonio Anastasi]

I hope that you enjoy it. You may want to dive with a shorty, but I do reccommend a one piece 3mm or 5mm suit, or a full shorty due to the termoclines we often get. The water temp would be in the mid to high 20c but the termoclines could be around 18c and rare 15c.