Diving in the Mediterranean

[Modder Tekkies]

So it is finally time to take the dive and do my Adv OW.

Destination: Malta Mediterranean sea

According to reports visibility can be up to 50m and they have many wrecks to dive from old war plane to WWII ships.

I will take the GoPro and hopefully be able to post some pics with a short review of the island and dive centre.

Watch this space for all the bubble heads on the forum

[Froll]

Sounds very interesting, enjoy. Take some nice pics and post.

[Hoppy]

Ons eie "Ferdinant Koestou" :) , klink baie lekker, kom wys die pics

[Modder Tekkies]

Ons eie "Ferdinant Koestou" :) , klink baie lekker, kom wys die pics

o jinne

Ek het 'n diploma in stront praat, weet nou nie so lekker van die geskrewe gedoentes nie, maar ek sal my bes probeer en dalk spreek die fotos boekdele.

Oja, dit was diep in die 30 vandag hier

[pietpetoors]

Kannie wag vir daai fotos nie, moet iets besonders wees!

[Mud Dog]

Watching, waiting and anticipating!

[Modder Tekkies]

I am finally back from a week of sun and sea and had the opportunity to dive in one of the top 3 diving spots in the world.

The Maltese archipelago consist of three islands. Malta, Gozo and the smaller Comino. All three these islands are inhibited and lie only 93km South of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea.



As you will see on the inserted map, there is plenty of wrecks around the islands to accommodate divers and it takes less than 2 hours with good traffic conditions to drive from the one side of the island to the other side. The other good news is that the Maltese are highly educated and for that reason drive on the correct side of the road like we do in good old South Africa.

I would not recommend driving to the dive sites as road signs can be tricky to decipher and the boat trips with a local dive master is only around 10 euro p/p. There is plenty of dive shops on the island, so you can find out from each what they have to offer and compare their prices.

I opted to stay in St Julians (Sliema area) where you have all the tourist attractions and night live of the island. If you prefer something more quite and relaxed away from the shopping hub, I would recommend staying towards St Pauls Bay, which is more North towards the "tail" of the fish.

The Dive shop by the Westin Draganora resort is number one in Europe and you will get friendly and professional service, without feeling that you have to pay for it. Dives to be covered in short will be HMS Maori, P31 Patrol Boat, Bristol Beaufighter and the Comino Caves.

The first dive we made was the wreck of the British destroyer, HMS Maori, in St Elmo's Bay towards Valletta. The Maori was a 115m long destroyer with 8 x 4.7 guns, 4 x 21 torpedo tubes and a crew of 190. She sank two Italian destroyers during the end of 1941 and was finally bombed in February 1942, while she was moored in Grand Harbour.
In 1945 she was cut in two pieces and the forepart was towed to St Elmo's Bay, where she lies about 14 meters deep.

[Aquanaut]

Very nice, brings back memories.

[Modder Tekkies]

So the next dive in line where I remembered to take my goPro with a charged battery, was the Bristol Beaufighter.

The Beaufighter were a MK1 twin engine strike and torpedo aircraft with a wingspan of 18 meters and 13 meters in length. On the 17th of March 1943, Beaufighter 'N' took off to join a aquadron of fighters, but as she climbed the aircraft began to vibrate violantly with smoke coming out of his heating pipe. The pilot tried to steady the plane with no success and reported that he will have to ditch.

The Beaufighter now lies upside down on a sandy seabed at 38 meters and a great deep dive. There is a marker and it is a quick desent to the bottom with 15 to 20 minutes bottom time, before you have to start ascending for your safety stop.



The port engine with one remaining propeller.

Spot the moray

[Modder Tekkies]

One of the days we drove to St Paul's Bay and hopped onto a boat there that took us out to the small island between Malta and Gozo, Comino island. The first of the two boat dives we made for the day, was the P31 Patrol Boat.

The P31 was used by the Armed Forces of Malta from around 1991 to 2004. She also has a sister ship, the P29 and both of them is 52 meters in length, 7 meters wide and weighed 360 tons. They were both used a primarily mine sweepers.
It was made environmental friendly and scuttled as a divers attraction in 2009. She now lies on the seabed at 21 meters and offer a good wreck dive for easy penetration. There is entry place through the bow deck hatch, doors in the main structure and the two rear holds.

The mounting for the 14.5 mm AAMG

[Froll]

Very nice pics. Looks like you had a great time.

[Mud Dog]

Really cool! If the P31 was indeed scuttled as recently as 2009, it's amazing how quickly the plant life has established in just 4 years. Maybe its the level of nutrients in those temperate waters.

[Modder Tekkies]

Really cool! If the P31 was indeed scuttled as recently as 2009, it's amazing how quickly the plant life has established in just 4 years. Maybe its the level of nutrients in those temperate waters.

She was scuttled on the 24th of August 2009.

http://www.holiday-diver.com/Issue.11-W ... t.P31.html

Her sister ship, the P29 was scuttled on the 14th of August 2007 and lies at a depth of 38 meters. She offers quite a different picture as her mast is still attached due to her deeper depth.

http://www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/ ... 29-part-1/

Quite impressive, maybe it is the fish wee of the Mediterranean

[Modder Tekkies]

The last dive with pictures available were the Santa Marija Caves on the North East coast of Comino.

We started by feeding the saddled bream some bread and then continued to the caves. The dive has a max depth of 16 meters, but be careful when you are going in or coming out of some of the caves, as the local speed boats enter the caves to give the tourist traveling from Malta to Gozo a taste Comino.

It is a really amazing dive with shallow depths of only 5 meters in some parts of the caves.











Zorro dived here :wink2:





Malta has so many amazing dive spots and with 26 degrees of water, who can complain. I can't wait to go back to explore more dive sites and would recommend it to anyone.

Hope everyone enjoy the pictures. It was taken by an amateur and I am still waiting for my red filter

[chris.ellul.90]

Hi Modder Tekkies,

Have you been to Malta since your 2013 trip for additional dives? What were your experiences? Do you have more to share?

[Tarquin]

Looks stunning im definitely a bubble head just not with tanks...

[4x4BEES]

Those pics are amazing

What a lovely experience

[FIRSTGEER]

Great pictures.Thanks for sharing them and your experience.

[Aquanaut]

Nice cave dive!!