I realised it was the late summer bank holiday here in Gibraltar at the end of August and I still had some annual leave left. I’ve always wanted to visit Malta and the deep wrecks. Without little thinking, I booked everything online, and a few months later here I was! The flight was from Madrid in Spain. It was a 7 – 8 hour drive to get there from Gibraltar. But I love travelling and driving anywhere for hours.
I stayed in Paceville in St. Julians, in close proximity to the dive centre. The next morning I was picked up with all my heavy gear. The dive centre was just a 5 minute walk away. I was soon to realise that I had to do a check dive first, and all my equipment was wrongly configured for technical diving. This took almost all day to sort out and do the check dive, and I only got to dive a wreck called HMS Maori, which was in bad visibility and not at all impressive.
The next day we did one of the wrecks I have always wanted to do, the Um El Faroud tanker. It was a very nice dive, but unfortunately I had learned that I had come in the wrong season for technical diving. It was too hot and they only do one Tec dive a day in summer.
I spent most of my diving time in the nearby island of Gozo. Here the sea conditions were better. I dived the “Three Gozo Wrecks” multiple times. The Karwela was also on my list of wrecks I wanted to dive in Malta. One of the days we dived these wrecks with a scooter. We tried to dive the Inland Sea in Gozo too but weather did not permit this, so in total, I dived the Gozo wrecks three times.
I also did a dive inside a harbour to a wreck called SS Margit. With visibility at a very poor 1 metre, I was not impressed at all.
Unfortunately I did not get to see a few other wrecks that was on my list, so I will have to come back again in the future!