Scuba Diving in Malta

I often get questions about scuba diving in Malta from friends and colleagues and this article is an effort to provide an overview of Maltese diving. I will write about some of the areas covered in more detail in separate articles. Let me start off with the most common misconceptions: Malta does not have any coral reefs and it is not tropical diving at all. While the water may be warm enough in summer, the temperature drops down to 12 degrees in the winter making coral growth impossible. This also means that the pictures distributed by various dive centres and tourism authorities of happy divers in shorties is only partly true - I usually dive in a dry suit large parts of the year.

So, how can you summarize Maltese diving then? I think it is relatively simple - the main characters are:

• Good visibility

• Interesting underwater topography (including caverns)

• Wrecks

If this is what you are after you will not be disappointed. Let me also point out that Malta is made up of a couple of islands with Malta, Gozo and Comino being the largest ones. With the exemption of a handful of people on Comino, only Malta and Gozo are inhabited. Malta is the most hectic island with the best wrecks and Gozo has more dramatic scenery and often better visibility.

Visibility

Visibility is often very good or even excellent. In some areas anything below 20 meters can be considered bad. In the harbours it is of course less good and I would say that around 10 meters is rather normal on wrecks like HMS Maori and X Lighter. Visibility changes throughout the year and the best visibility is found in autumn and winter. Summer is the worst time for visibility (and other aspects such as crowds, marine life, heat etc).

Underwater topography

I didn't quite appreciate this factor until I dived in Malta but nowadays I think it is very important. What I am referring to is simply how a site looks and if there are any special features such as drop offs, boulders, caverns etc. There are many steep drop offs in Malta and Gozo (Zurrieq, Dwejra, Blue Hole, Inland Sea to mention a few) and there are also plenty of caverns and a few caves. Many people have an image of Malta as a good cave diving destination but I would disagree with this. Few caves are deep enough to be considered anything but a cavern. That said - they still make very pretty dives. Some interesting caverns are Anchor Bay, Ghar Lapsi, Blue Hole, Cathedral Cave and Billinghurst Cave. I recommend a Cavern Diver course to safely explore these - people have dies in these caverns so be very cautios.

Wrecks If you like wrecks and don't like to have too much fish disturbing the view you will be in heaven. Malta has several really good wrecks and most of them are rather accessible. Some of the wrecks are from WW2 and even WW1:

• HMS Maori

• X Lighter

• Blenheim Bomber

• Bristol Beaufighter

• Margurite (or Odile as it is also called)

• HMS Southwold

• Schnellboot S31

• Hellespont

• Eddy

• HMS Sant Angelo

• Le Polynesien

There are of course many more but this a selection of the most famous. In addition to this, new ones are being scuttled as attractions for divers. Here we have:

• Rozi

• Um el Faroud

• 10

• St Michael

• P29 Boltenhagen

• Xlendi

• Karwela

• Comino Land

• Imperial Eagle

Many of these dives are rather deep or perhaps I should say that few are shallow enough for beginners. Out of these I would say that only HMS Maori and X Lighter are suitable for Open Water divers. Some of the wrecks requires good experience and training - for example Imperial Eagle which has a max depth of 41 metres. Some dives are technical dives (Le Polynesien, HMS Southwold for example).

Marine life Don't come to Malta if your main interest is fish. There are much better destinations for fish spotting (Red Sea, Thailand etc) but that said, the marine life here is actually much better than one could expect. The number of species is not very impressive but there are some really interesting things to be seen.

• John Dory

• Bonitos

• Flying Gurnard

In addition to this, I have seen both Dolphins and Eagle Rays while diving here and friends of mine have seen Sunfish a few times. There is also a healthy growth of sponges and soft corals. One of my favourites is the Neptunes Lace which can be found in abundance in the caverns.

Dive Centres in Malta Malta is very well set up with dive centres for the visiting diver. There are up to 60 dive centres in Malta, Gozo and Comino of varying quality and ambition. Be careful when choosing your dive centre - many of them have sub standard equipment and strange price structures. There are of course good ones as well. Most dive centres don't dive by boat at all but simply drive to the dive site which is ok in winter when the sea is rough but not nice at all summertime. Traffic in Malta is awful so try to find a centre that focuses on boat diving - you will get a better selection of dive sites and a much more pleasant overall experience.

By Magnus Grinneback

If you have any specific questions about dive centres, feel free to email me - webmaster@independentscuba.com

Magnus Grinneback has been diving since 1990 and has many years of experience in the dive industry. Today he lives in Malta and has no commercial interest left in the industry.

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