malta diving 1st time

As you are staying in St Julians, i would say Divewise at the Dragonara complex in St Julians would be your best bet. As for eating out cant help you there as i always stay in St Pauls Bay. With an open water ticket you will get a lot out of diving at Cirkewwa where there are a number of dives in your range and access is good. Also Ghar Lapsi and even the reefs at Wied iz zurrieq. A trip over to Gozo is also worthwhile. To be honest there is lot you can do, and you will be hard pushed to do it all in one trip.

aks said:

am going to malta for first time end of may / june and hope you guys can give some advice as i have done nothing with my open water license since getting it :embarassed:

we are staying at st. julien complex - can anyone recommend a dive school nearby, will need to hire gear and do a few refresher dives too
is it easy to hire mopeds / car out there?
have been told hms mauri and the coral gardens are a must - any other suggestions?
any recommendations for foody places / vendors of alcoholic beverages!

am hoping this will be the first of many diving trips to the island!

cheers
aks

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Yep I can recommend Divewise too. They seem to look after the rental kit well. There's an easy reef right outside the shop to ease back into it. It should be busier in May so you will have more choice of dives.
Car hire is easy. Don't use the big companies do some googling for Maltese firms or ask Divewise who they would recommend. I've used Drifter Car Hire several times and they've been good. Avoid the jeeps though. All the companies will leave the car at the airport for you to collect and driving around is pretty easy. Make sure you get across to Gozo.

check with the dive center about local dive restrictions on ow divers.

Another vote for Divewise who are in Paceville, right next to St Juliens.

And a vote for Huggins in Paceville as a drinking establishment - if you dive with Divewise, you will get a discount at Huggins.

thanks for the advice guys much appreciated will give divewise a shout and see whats what.
not in a rush to see everything in 1 go as my sisters inlaws have a holiday home there... so will prob end up there uqite a bit from now on

Me and SWMBO are diving with Divewise during the 3rd week in May.

Its our first time with Divewise and our first trip to Malta so we are really looking forward to it. Divewise seems to have been recommended by a lot of people both here on YD and from my club.

Cant wait to go diving in some warm water for a change.

mala

check with the dive center about local dive restrictions on ow divers.
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when i spoke to divewise they mentioned the majority of the wrecks would be too deep for open water with a couple of exceptions - dont know if thats it ?

The two wrecks you could do with an OW cert that I know of are; X-127 and HMS Maori

Both are nice wrecks but the vis on them is not the greatest. The AOW wrecks, such as the Faroud and the P-29 are a lot more fun to dive and the vis on them is usually superb.

Why not get the other half to do her AOW with Divewise? If you speak to them, they may well let you buddy her on at least some of the dives? (Specifically wreck, photography and deep)

Add the beautiful little sea cave at Anchor Bay to your list. A safe OW level dive - it's only 8m deep - you can surface inside all of the caves and there's fresh air in there. Exciting and magical, you often see Cuttlefish in there. I would say the Inland Sea and Blue Hole on Gozo are also a must do for an OW Diver as well. Why not do you AOW while you're out there?

Strider said:

Me and SWMBO are diving with Divewise during the 3rd week in May.

Its our first time with Divewise and our first trip to Malta so we are really looking forward to it. Divewise seems to have been recommended by a lot of people both here on YD and from my club.

Cant wait to go diving in some warm water for a change.

What do you mean? SWMBO is OW and they didnt mention any restrictions .
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used to be that no ow diver could be in the water without direct supervision with an instructor.
if you are being guided then it wont make any odds but if you want to do your own thing then it is worth bearing in mind.

i hope the water is warm -sometimes it wont get to 20 untill june.

is there a manual to read before the aow dives?
was thinking of doing it next month but havent had time to do any prep or looked into it

Tilesey said:

The two wrecks you could do with an OW cert that I know of are; X-127 and HMS Maori

Both are nice wrecks but the vis on them is not the greatest. The AOW wrecks, such as the Faroud and the P-29 are a lot more fun to dive and the vis on them is usually superb.

Why not get the other half to do her AOW with Divewise? If you speak to them, they may well let you buddy her on at least some of the dives? (Specifically wreck, photography and deep)

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there are a couple of shallow tugs down south and also the wreck of the scott craig.

Was in Malta last year with a group from work, they were on a BSAC OD course and with a little arm twisting I managed to get to go along to.
We used maltaqua I think they are 1 of the oldest dive centres in Malta and pretty much cover everything you might want to do.
As for food, all the pubs at night tend to put on loads of pub snacks and they just kept on bringing it out, we hardly had to spend any money of grub.
Only sore point about the trip was the amount of jelly fish that were hanging around. Luckily I had my Posiedon xtreams with me and just blasted them out of the way! Other were not so lucky tho.
Anyway, enjoy your trip - I will defo be going back at some point.
ATB
John

There is also within the range of the open water diver the two tugboats (No10 and St Michael) at Marsascala, though entrance and exit can be interesting if there is a bit of a swell. There is the St Paul's Island wreck, it is a boat dive and the proximity to the fish farms means it can be quite silty. Why concentrate on the wrecks though there is plenty of other dives in the open water diver range around both Malta and Gozo not forgetting Comino and Cominoto if your boat diving.

I love a "shallow tug" Very little study with AOW, it's mostly practical and lots of fun. The Divewise Instructors are excellent.

aks said:

is there a manual to read before the aow dives?
was thinking of doing it next month but havent had time to do any prep or looked into it

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adventures in diving book.
you need to read the section about the dive you will do and fill out the knowledge review before you get the card.
its something you can do while you are there.

I'm so slow at typing, beaten to it.

Only sore point about the trip was the amount of jelly fish that were hanging around.

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arrggghhhh hope notmg: cant stand the things!

the other half might do her AOW in Malta, we will see??

just out of interest, how warm is the water now? We are hiring wetsuits there but I did think of throwing our hoods and gloves in the case?

Another vote for Divewise

and counting down the days to June 22nd When I fly