Dive Report : Rozi, Malta

About the wreck

The Rozi was a tug boat that was scuttled in 1992 as an underwater attraction for tourists on submarine tours. The submarine trips no longer operate, but this wonderful little tug boat continues to sit perfectly upright on a sandy bottom within a rocky amphitheatre. The ship is now well colonized and all areas of the superstructure and bridge work are accessible to divers. Bear in mind though that this is a deepish wreck and not for novice divers.

The deck and rails support a healthy growth of sea firs and hydroids, so the wreck is becoming a magnet for lots of colourful nudibranchs. Well worth taking the camera in to do some macro photography, but equally scenic for wreck shots too. A black and white image of the wreck won a local Maltese photographer an international prize in 2012!

Surrounding the ship are thousands of fish, with chromis, bream and sand smelt predominating. You will also see amberjack (Seriola dumerili) and bonito (Sarda sarda), which ‘buzz’ the shoals of small fish. The flat sandy seabed around the wreck is covered in huge anemones (Condylactis auratica).

(from Gozo Diving)

(from Malta.com)

Location:

Dive Log

For the Rozi, the best entry point is a giant stride entry from next to the lighthouse type structure. Its a nice size jump and with a twinset on you can make a good splash! Darrel went in first, followed by Lolke and Svenke. I was helping Alia get her stage sorted, she threw the second one in the water and I jumped in with Alia just behind me.

Alia dropped straight down to pick up her stage and get sorted. She had ran a tad late this morning so hadn't been able to get her gear rigged up how she would have liked at Divewise, so amazingly she was sorting out her bands as we swam!

We dropped down to the reef at 2-3m and Darrell lead us out in to the blue abyss. The wall of the reef dropped off below us down to the seabed at about 30m but we carried on swimming out at about 10m.

After about 5 minutes I could see an extremely large anchor below us, it has been placed to help with navigation to the wreck, I just followed the fins with the smiles on!

As you arrive to the wreck, you should hit the bow first, we swam over the bow, whilst Alia went right down on the seabed! Svenke took a minor detour while he shot a little video, he went down the port side aftwards whilst the rest of us with Darrell swam  on the starboard side.

Svenke entered the cabin and found a small WC room, with the toilet still intact and looking quite good! And swam straight through the wreck to meet us on the starboard side.

Darrell lead us aft to the stern, we dropped right down to see the propeller, or rather where the propeller should have been as it has been removed, but the massive rudder is still present. We continued our orbit of the wreck moving forward up the port side now, I entered a cabin from the port deck. The corridor heads inwards and then makes a turn to the right with some stairs, heading down the stairs on the right takes you into the cargo hold.

The cargo bay is wide open so you can have a good nosey about, I then came up and out and swam along the port deck to the wheel house. The wheel house is a good size and the temptation to stand like a skipper is strong!

Coming back around to the bow, you can see through port holes and storage hatches that there is a storage compartment below deck in the bow, but I couldn't see a way at it.

After doing several laps around the Rozi, we had been on the wreck for about 20 minutes so it was time to start ascending. Darrell started to lead us off the stern of the tug towards the reef, Alia and I were at the back and we saw some lights off to the port of the Rozi. At first I didn't understand what I was seeing, but afterwards Alia said that it was Ty and John coming over from the P29 on their units.

Leaving the wreck, we swam out across the blue with Darrell leading to the reef, ascending to 20m we met the reef. This part of the reef looks very much like an underwater wheat field with large feilds of seaweed swaying in the strong current.

Moving up the reef further, we came across a feature known as the Cirkewwa Arch. It is a small version of the Azure Window, but underwater. Beautiful corals and fish are all along the arch. Behind the Arch is a bay which we ascended out of to about 16m.

Swimming along the coast, we are swimming along Adrian's Reef.

With the reef wall on our left we came across a really nice swim through, a cosey little cave approximately 10-12m long.Coming around the bay we enter Susie's Pool. A nice shallow reef starting at about 7-10m working its way up gently to the exit/entry point - it's a beautiful place to help pass safety stop and decompression time if necessary.

Video

Svenke has produced some great video of the dive and has put it on YouTube: