17 UBUCers ventured all the way to Gozo, Malta for our yearly international dive trip! I wonder how they got on….
Friday – Alex
Eager and raring to go, Lewis, Alex, Sophie and Steph arrived before the main group. This gave us time to pick up the vehicles – the perfect diving transport. We had four in our fleet. First: ‘The Compensator’, as it was the largest vehicle being driven by the world’s smallest man – guess who!
Second: ‘The Inheritance’, the kind of car you get handed down from your Grandad who insists it will be a great first car but couldn’t be further from practical.
Third, ‘Lady Liberty’, a vehicle that looks like it would fit in more on a New York taxi rank than roaming around a Mediterranean island.
And finally, ‘The Talivan’, a proper 90s-era Toyota Hilux on 360,000 miles – a machine loved by terrorists across the middle east. In another life, this vehicle would have been perfect to be fitted out with a DShK heavy machine gun and driven around Helmand Province by a man with some strong viewpoints on women’s rights! All the vehicles were characterful in their own way, having some combination of floppy steering, no clutch, dodgy gears, useless handbrakes, or missing seatbelts. But all were perfect for the job of hauling around heavy dive kit.
After picking up the vehicles, we realised that we had everything we needed to go diving! So, before the chaos of the trip began, the four of us grabbed some cylinders and went for a cheeky dive at the Inland sea. This was very much needed due to the lingering heatwave.
Once done, it was finally time to pick up some supplies for dinner and of course stock up on the famed Cisk before getting entry to the AirBnB. And this villa was beautiful. Three floors, a pool, and 6 bedrooms, there was more than enough space for everyone. Little by little everyone made it into Gozo from their flights, ready for the first sip of their Cisk.
Saturday – Georgia
After many arrivals during the night we all woke up for a quick breakfast and an early start, eager to hop in the water for a first day of diving. After all the kit was put in the cars we headed off to Xwejni Bay (pronounced however feel right). The conditions were amazing with visibility as far as you could see and fun underwater rock formations including a random statue courtesy of the Maltese government. After an excellent non-briefing from Lewis, wave 1 headed in and enjoyed a nice shallow check dive whilst wave 2 soaked up the rays. After both waves had dived we enjoyed some gourmet lunch on the side of the road (name a more exotic spot).
For our second dive of the day we went over to reqqa point to enjoy a deeper dive and a fun chimney that you could swim up through at the end. A highlight of this spot was also the cliff jumping during the surface interval.
After the dive we returned back to the Airbnb with a stop off at Lidl to stock up on Beers and BBQ items. The day ended with a lovely BBQ and chill evening chatting over a couple of cisks.
Sunday – Dom
Our first dive began with a treacherous entry – clambering over some boulders down towards the sea. It was well worth it though, the water gently sloped off to knee depth before plummeting into the blue hole – perhaps the most famous dive site in Malta. Descending, there is a large cavern to explore behind you, which once inside gives some striking views as the divers following are silhouetted against the light filtering down.
Leaving the cavern again, there is a swim through out into open sea. Here is where the azure window used to stand but has since fallen into the sea creating a large boulder field. We had a great time finding holes to squeeze through and chimneys to ascend. I was with Sophie, and as we rounded the boulder field we saw the familiar sight of two red drysuits in the distance – it was Alex and Lewis with their swanky scooters. They flagged us down, and we held onto their ankles as they zoomed us around the boulder field. After that exhilarating ride we exited on the coral beach.
Our second dive was just round the corner at the inland sea. This is an incredible dive where you start in a small inland lagoon and descend into a large open-top cave that again heads out to sea. As Sophie and I are about to enter the cave, we again hear the whir of a scooter and Alex and Lewis pull up along side us. They give us a very scenic ride through the cave and out into the open sea, where we swim back round the peninsula to the blue hole where we just were. Again, exiting on the coral beach. I stacked it on the way out.
That evening, we were treated to a whole Lidl oven pizza each. This was for good reason, as we needed a quick turnaround for the night dive! We promptly headed back to Xwejni bay. During the night dive, I was with Lewis. Lewis decided we were going to turn off our torches and sneak up on Will. Unfortunately, we were spotted immediately. He spent the entire rest of the dive staring at seagrass in the hopes of finding a seahorse, alas we had no such luck. Fortunately, others saw many octopus and small sea critters. Of course, as is tradition we had packed a beer in our BCD. In the UK, this means we have a lovely cold beer to look forward to after our night dive. In Malta, it meant we had a lukewarm beer to look forward to. Despite this, it was very much enjoyed as we bobbed around the landing stage after the dive.
Monday – Alex
After a quick pitstop at Lidl for food, we once again headed down to Xewjni Bay but this time to dive double arch. This site is exactly as it sounds, two rock arches stacked on top of each other which rise from a max depth of 40m to 20m. However, these arches are quite the swim out which takes roughly 20 minutes each way and take some effort of using the transits. Of course, it wouldn’t be responsible to do all that exercise without warming up first, so we limbered up with “Amazon Prime ™ approved” exercises.
After our first dive had passed much quicker than we wanted and we had to wait for the dive centre to open again before we could fill the second wave’s cylinders. This meant that we split into two groups for the second dive. One headed over to the south of the island to dive middle finger, a giant pinnacle rock formation descending to 45m, whist the other stayed and waited for the cylinders before diving at Xwejni bay once again. However, this time, the group dove Calypso cave which is a giant over hang a few hundred meters along form double arch. In the evening we had a delicious pasta bolognaise for dinner followed by many Cisk!
Tuesday – Ben
Tuesday, and at last, a day of wreck diving! We’d all been excited to see some lumps of metal again (poor Alex was getting withdrawal symptoms), to vary things after the amazing underwater landscapes of the previous days. So, two big, albeit deliberately sunk, boats were on the cards, first the MV Karwela and then the Hephaestus, both sitting upright on a sandy bottom between 35 and 45 metres deep!
I’d been lucky so far with wildlife sightings (having seen a few moray eels, barracuda, and cornetfish), but sadly all I could conjure up for my buddy Steph was a chonky Scorpionfish sitting on the prop. However, the underwater scooter fairies, Alex and Lewis, did appear at 40m in the middle of our Karwela dive, offering a propulsion-assisted wreck tour for the small price of holding on for dear life to their fins!
The Karwela was also Insta-famous due to its staircases which you could float up and down through the bowels of the wreck. Those not doing any decompression had quite the bounce dive for the Hephaestus (overheard mispronounced as ‘hepatitis’ -suppose ‘tetanus’ would have been more fitting with all the rusty metal on show). Everyone complained about the long surface swim out, and ideally back. Some buddies were closer than others at getting back to our entry point, whilst some buddies, not-to-be-named, were reportedly seen swimming in circles… dodgy compass readings or a bad case of nitrogen narcosis, I wonder?
After a morbid but medically-informative discussion of how bubbly all of our carotid arteries would be right now whilst decompressing from two 40m dives (I was told to picture shaken fizzy drinks by Georgia, learnt from autopsies…), a few of us made the most of the last access to the underwater scooters, with a little play around in the shallows and in the AirBnB pool. Undeniably fun toys. A bit out of the price range for now. But what other outdoor pursuit lets you cosplay a torpedo??
Wednesday – Duncan
After gruelling, tiresome days of having to actually expend physical energy finning out to each dive location, unless you were blessed with a scooter… enough was enough.
“I hate swimming!” one cried.
“Not all of us are qualified or possess the correct insurance policy for Diver Propulsion Vehicles!!” shouted someone from the infuriated and rather tired crowd of divers which had reconvened at the AirBnB
“I can hardly walk”, whimpers another. It’s mayhem.
“WE DEMAND A BOAT DAY TOMORROW!” cuts one shrill voice through the cacophony of yells.
A boat day. That’s… that’s… simply genius. Then we would hardly have to swim. Why hadn’t we thought of this earlier?! Why had we ever finned in the first place!!?
“BOAT DAY, BOAT DAY, BOAT DAY, BOAT DAY” the crowd cheered in a triumphant that would bring a tear to many people eyes. A phone call later, and it’s confirmed. Wednesday will be a boat day, and the revolt is crushed.
The sun shone a little brighter on Wednesday morning, and the birds sang a sweeter song, as all the happy divers sprung out of bed, bright-eyed and merry, knowing they would be dropped off directly at each dive site, and hardly need to fin. Nine in the morning from Marsalforn, our ship was set to sail, but island-time works in funny ways and so the voyage commenced at ten. With the scuba gear of our group taking up residence on the lower deck, we located ourselves on the sun-bathed upper deck to enjoy the sea breeze… a setting almost too perfect not to belt a sea shanty or four!
We arrived at the first dive site – the P31 – a former Malta Armed Forces patrol boat scuttled in 2009 to serve as an artificial reef. At 20m it’s a beginner friendly dive which attracts tourists like moths to a flame, seeking the perfect Instagram picture sat on the bow of the ship. We descend from the upper deck, suit up, giant stride out the boat and quickly shoot down to the wreck. It’s warm, it’s clear, it’s not chocker with tourists yet … it’s ideal! Eagerly, we head into the wreck, examining each nook and cranny with our torches whilst floating through the heart of the ship. Did some of us accidentally go the wrong way through the ship and clog it up for others? Maybe. Was silt kicked up? When isn’t it! Who cares anyway! It was great. A generational group dive.
Back on board we get. We de-kit. Debrief. Natter about the dive. Enjoy the sun. Shoot over to the next dive site – Comino Caves. It’s a stunning location, great for swimming. Everyone jumped from the top deck of the boat into the sea, which took more encouragement and some extra bravery for some, but we all made it in. And back out more importantly.
Oh wait, what’s that I heard? Lunch? Oh, hell yeah. Does it get any better than that – straight out of a dive, just to dive straight into a delicious Mediterranean buffet? We gorge on what the captain has prepared for us. Salad, fish, bread, olive oil, meats. Certainly, won’t need to much extra weight on the next dive after all this food!
Comino Caves is another belter group dive with some of the best swim-throughs in Malta, including a long, one-person wide tunnel beneath the headland which opens up into a cave. The dive has multiple caves to explore, and the site feels like a playground for divers, with heaps of cool natural features to find. I personally didn’t find all of the caves, but it was a specular dive, nonetheless. This is definitely the best dive site to go to if you’re looking for dead seals too, as Lewis will recount the tale of Xavi being totally unaware of it being above directly above him. Wonderful.
With that dive complete, our diving boat voyage came to an end. I felt like Odysseus sailing back from Troy on our way home. Some might say our two dives in sunny Malta do not warrant comparison to the Trojan War… they are wrong, these dives were greater.
But just like Odysseus, our journey was not yet over. We still had a night dive to complete. We had returned back to the AirBnB early in the afternoon, and anxiously awaited nightfall to see what marine creatures it would summon. Mgarr-ix-Ximi, a small cove just a ten minute drive from our base, was where we would deploy on this Black-Ops style mission to find octopuses in the dark depths. Under the cover of darkness, we dove into the black abyss, not knowing what was lurking outside the narrow beams of light from our armada of cheap Chinese diving torches. But octopuses there were! And flying gurnards and eels too! There is something so alien feeling about a night dive. It’s mysterious and peaceful at the same time. And when you cover your torches, and float there in complete silence and weightlessness for a moment, it’s the most authentic sensory deprivation tank you’ll ever experience.
We surface beneath the stars with the Milky Way visible to the keen observer. No better place for a beer and some watermelon! As we all bob around in the dark with our BCs inflated, cans cracked, and another stellar day of diving under the belt, many among us probably thought, ‘It doesn’t get much better than this’. And they’d be right because the next day wasn’t a boat day. Which meant finning all the way to dives again. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Thursday – Steph
Our penultimate dive of the trip saw us returning to the infamous Blue Hole for one last underwater adventure. This time, we ventured into Coral Cave, which, much to Phil’s delight, contained the greatest number of red fish we’d seen throughout the entire trip! After thoroughly exploring the cave and heading around the back of it, we made our way back up through the Blue Hole before continuing on to our final dive site of the trip: Cathedral Cave. An impressive and a fitting way to round off what had been a fantastic week of diving!
But, of course, the adventures weren’t quite over just yet…
Before the diving could be done, it was time to take to the cliffs instead. We kicked things off with some cliff jumping before diving down over to the cave, where we enjoyed a few sea shanties and a cheeky Cisk (or two). After a rather jolly swim back, some of us clearly hadn’t quite had enough excitement for one day and made the questionable decision to have another go at the cliff jumping. What could possibly go wrong?
That evening was a well-deserved trip to Marsalforn for a group meal, where we were very generously treated to plenty of free wine! We also took the opportunity to present Alex and Lewis with their wonderfully handcrafted trip T-shirts, a small token of appreciation for all their efforts. The night ended with a spot of skinny dipping in the sea, although we did manage to briefly misplace two members of the group along the way, finding poor Duncan safely asleep on shore behind some boats. Thankfully, everyone was eventually accounted for!
With the day’s adventures finally catching up with us, we made our way back and called it a night. And with that, another brilliant dive trip came to an end. Plenty of incredible dives, questionable decisions, questionable singing and memories that will certainly last a lifetime.
Friday – Alex
Bedraggled, heads hurting, hungover. Everyone slowly crawled out of bed after the events of the previous night. As we got up, breakfast was in order – but nothing in the cupboards! Of course, this called for one thing: ordering McDonalds After spending at least an hour passing the phone around figuring out what to order, by this point this was probably more like lunch than breakfast.
Once revived with maccies in our bellies, most of us decided to clear our hangovers with a swim at Xlendi bay. A few spectacular dives of the diving board later and a few laps around the bay later and we were ready for some caffeine at a café above the bay. Or most of us were, as Will decided the best thing for his hangover was two more pints! A few others ventured out for some more cultural activities around the island including the Cittadella and Victoria Old Town. Somehow, despite knowing that we had to return the hire cars by 4pm they were nowhere to be seen, much to the disappointment of the hire company.
That night, we watched the sun set on our final day all together on the roof terrace of the flat reminiscing about the trip and, of course, handing out awards. I couldn’t possibly disclose who got these awards, but we included the classics like ‘biggest pit rimmer’, ‘worst on gas’, and ‘dick of the trip’. Xavi, Luis, and Kaden, Phil decided to, head into Valletta and spend the night in the capital instead of getting up early for their flights. Departing after dark, they took the night ferry over and explored the walled city.
Saturday – Steph
Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and the final day of the trip had arrived. After a week of diving, it was finally time to pack up and head home. By this point, only Georgia, Steph, Alex, Sophie, Ash, Dom and Ben remained at the house, and had been tasked with the glamorous final job of taking the rubbish to the tip.
With the house finally cleared, we made our way over to Malta via the ferry. Once on the other side, it was time for the group to start going their separate ways. Sophie, Dom, Alex, Lewis and Ash headed straight to the airport to catch their flights home, while Georgia, Steph and Ben decided to make the most of their remaining time and have a little explore of Valletta.
Georgia and Steph took the opportunity to visit the archaeological museum, where they learnt all about the early settlers of the Maltese and Gozitan islands and there was even a fascinating exhibition on archaeological diving around Gozo. Not far away, Sophie, Alex and Lewis were equally thrilled, sat at the airport drinking and being engulfed in crossword puzzles.
After a little more exploring, it was time for Georgia and Ben to head off to the airport and catch their flights. Steph made her way to a hostel in Sliema, where the remaining alcohol from the trip was put to very good use and, unsurprisingly, didn’t last very long!
And with that, another brilliant dive trip came to an end, with plenty of incredible dives, questionable singing, plenty of Cisk and memories that will certainly last a lifetime.
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