Arriving at Divewise today, we were treated to Darryl ask our guide going to Gozo. We had to meet at Divewise at 730, so we could get kitted up and packed so we could catch the 830 ferry meaning we had a good relaxed day.
The ferry are the roll on - roll off type and they have a very slick operation. Driving straight on.
Driving straight on
Dive #1 - Blue Hole and Azure Window
Walking across the rocks, Darryl gave us a dive brief and we could look down in to the beautiful Blue Hole and the stunning Azure Window.
Beautiful Blue Hole
Azure Window
You can read about the dive by following this link.
Dive #2 - Inland Sea
Just a few hundred metres away is another dive - the Inland Sea. Basically a crack in the rock allows boats and divers access to the open ocean. You can read about the dive by following this link.
She was built in 1969 at Smith Dock Co. Ltd, Middlesbrough,
England and was owned by the General National Maritime Transport Company,
Tripoli (GNMTC). She had been operating between Italy and Libya carrying
refined fuel up to 1 February 1995. On 3 February 1995 she was docked at No.3
Dock of Malta dry docks. During the night of 3 February an explosion occurred
in No.3 centre tank and nine shipyard workers lost their lives.
The vessel suffered structural deformation and, following
inspection and survey, was considered a total write-off. She occupied the dock
in the harbor of Valletta for three years until it was decided that the best
option to utilize her remaining value was to tow her to sea and scuttle her as
an artificial reef in 1998.
Dive Team :
Vas (Guide & A), Irwin Sheer(A), Lolke ‘Mr Faroud’
(B), Svenke Wall (B) and Chris Armstrong (B).
Dive log:
We dropped down to about 10m and swarm out the mouth of the
river. We followed the reef on the far wall around for a while before taking a
bearing off into the blue. The sea floor is at about 32m which you can see
clearly below you, it makes you feel quite small with the viz being 30-50m!
It’s also quite nice swimming through the blue, looking around I can see my
team all around me, above, below, behind and infront, with our guide, Vas, out
in front.
It takes about 5 minutes of swimming through the blue and
you start to see a shape forming and before you know it you can clearly see the
huge wreck that is the Faroud. To protect our gas and no-deco time, we stayed
shallow at about 12-15m the minute we were above the wreck we then drop down.
Lolke, Svenke and I dropped right down to the screws again and Svenke shot some
more video.
We ascended up the port side of the rear section once again
and unlike last time where there was an underwater queue to the first hatch, it
was clear this time. So I gave Lolke my backup LED light and turned it on for
him and he lead into the wreck.
Again I let Svenke go second and I took position 3. Lolke led
in and it looked like we dropped in to the engine room. We were swimming over a
gridded gantry. We turned left and down and dropped into an open compartment.
Lolke found that the compartment went forward under the deck
and had a quick look around. The engine room compartment (or so I think it is)
is quite significant and you could easily spend a dive just looking around
here! Ascending to the top of the cabin we then came out under the bridge and
met Vas and Irwin.
Lolke showed us a large plaque that commemorated those that
lost their lives in the tragic explosion.
Vas led the group back down the starboard deck, Lolke,
Svenke and I took a right and entered the cabins. We swam in and turned right
which turned out to be a very large room around the front and port side of this
deck of the ship, possibly some kind of briefing room. Swimming further aft, on
my left I saw a shaft, elevator shaft maybe? Or a personnel cargo shaft that
went right down into the belly of the ship. We stayed on this level. Swimming through a few more bulkheads we then exited the ship on the port-aft section of
the ship. We swam around the stern.
There was an amazing amount of fish here including and
observation lean-out which Lolke gladly posed on!
Here, we also swam up to the top of the exhaust stack to a
depth of about 16m, eels and starfish were here too.
Unfortunately it was now time to leave so off we headed. Leaving the stern we hit the reef and I enjoyed swimming over and looking into the holes seeing the fish.
Video:
Svenke has graciously edited his video and put it on YouTube
for all to see.
The Um El Faroud is a brilliant wreck that is sunk at the
Blue Grotto in the south of Malta. From Divewise, it’s about a 30 minute drive,
40 minutes at most if you go at rush hour! (or rather rush day, the roads seem
hellish 24/7!).
Location
Wreck description
She was built in 1969 at Smith Dock Co. Ltd, Middlesbrough,
England and was owned by the General National Maritime Transport Company,
Tripoli (GNMTC). She had been operating between Italy and Libya carrying
refined fuel up to 1 February 1995. On 3 February 1995 she was docked at No.3
Dock of Malta dry docks. During the night of 3 February an explosion occurred
in No.3 centre tank and nine shipyard workers lost their lives.
The vessel suffered structural deformation and, following
inspection and survey, was considered a total write-off. She occupied the dock
in the harbor of Valletta for three years until it was decided that the best
option to utilize her remaining value was to tow her to sea and scuttle her as
an artificial reef in 1998.
Vas (Guide & A), Irwin Sheer(A), Lolke ‘Mr Faroud’ (B),
Svenke Wall (B) and Chris Armstrong (B).
Dive log
The Faroud is located about 100m off shore, but its
recommended not to do a surface swim, I don’t think there are even any surface
buoys so you miss the wreck completely! Instead you jump in at the bottom of
the hill. Boats are running in and out of here all the time, so I recommend
that once you leave this local area you stay well under water.
We dropped down to about 10m and swarm out the mouth of the
river. We followed the reef on the far wall around for a while before taking a
bearing off into the blue. The sea floor is at about 32m which you can see
clearly below you, it makes you feel quite small with the viz being 30-50m! It’s
also quite nice swimming through the blue, looking around I can see my team all
around me, above, below, behind and infront, with our guide, Vas, out in front.
It takes about 5 minutes of swimming through the blue and
you start to see a shape forming and before you know it you can clearly see the
huge wreck that is the Faroud. To protect our gas and no-deco time, we stayed
shallow at about 12-15m the minute we were above the wreck, I dropped out of
trim into a head first finning descent, swimming straight past the stern of the
ship, Svenke, Lolke and I dropped down to about 33m to the screws (propeller).
A nearby piece of pipe held a medium sized moray eel. I tried to light it up
for Svenke to video, but the closer Svenke got the more the eel retreated in
the pipe!
Swimming over the prop and then coming up on the port side
of the ship moving slowly forward. The first large hatch that we came to had a
massive underwater queue of people trying to move through it! So Lolke led us
forward and the next hatch we came to we went in. We had agreed with Vas a
maximum of 15 mins inside the wreck and given how busy it was we didn’t spend
anywhere near that long.
Lolke led, Svenke followed with his video lamp on, I took
position 3 and tried to light up as best as I could for Svenke. The first
compartment looked like a an observation deck as it stretched a good length of
the ship. Directly opposite the external hatch was a door to a corridor, to the
right I could see the engine room (or storage) and below me. But we stayed on
this level and turned leftFollowing the
corridor further we came out underneath the bridge where we met Vas and the
American.
My favourite kind of scuba diving is cave diving, so being
inside a wreck was my idea of heaven, and with it being perfectly intact I was
extremely happy. I met Vas just outside and she gave me a fairly relaxed “Are
you OK?” gesture. I shook my head to say no, I obviously wasn’t OK – I was ecstatic!
So I took my reg out with my right hand and did a massive Cheshire Cat grin
that was so big I had to close my eyes to emphasise it even more! I also tensed
my arms and made them shake to show the excitement! Holding that for a second,
I then opened my eyes to see Vas attempt to laugh – which had the effect of
almost spitting out her reg, obviously her body then went “Oi don’t let that
reg go!” and it looked like she coughed as she clamped down on it again! It’s
hard to explain with words, but I felt like I 12 year old in Disney world, THIS
is wreck diving!
After composing ourselves, we swam forward to where the
stern of the ship is broken from the bow / storage section. I led swimming
forward, the open storage area that I came to was the size of several double
decker busses. Having a ferret about in these compartments on a future dive is
a must!
Between us, we reckon that a Maltese man was lowered in to
one of the fuel tanks to clean it out, being a typical Maltese, he was smoking
a cigar, then boom! And now we have a lovely wreck!
I swam into the open compartment of the forward section of
the wreck and had a good nosey about! I was trying to be a video light diver
for Svenke so I was getting right in the holes and lighting it up.
I turned and headed back to the bridge. We teamed up with
Vas and Irwin and swam down the starboard deck. Returning to the stern we then
started heading back to the shore. I liked to swim along the reef and over the
wall to look at all the fish. The colours are beautiful. There were fish in all
the little holes which was good fun to look in to.
The fish life on the wreck and the reef is stunning.
Video
Svenke has graciously edited his video and put it on YouTube
for all to see.
0700 – Alarm goes off, then it hits me, diving the Faroud today! Then the other thing hits me, oww, my head! Going down to the restaurant I really pushed myself to eat something, and drank a lot of water and juice.
I met Svenke at Dive Wise, asking how he was he looks me at me and just gives me the hand gesture that divers use to say “there is a problem”.I chuckled and said that I too am feeling a tad delicate! Today, our guide would be Vas taking Svenke, Lolke ‘Mr Faroud’, Irwin Sheer and myself.
We drove over to the dive site in one of Divewise’s shattle, rattle and roll pick-up type trucks, whereas yesterday, Ann had taken us in “Hannibal”, today we were in Harriot. Sounds better even with a dirty mind!
Driving to the site is about a 35-40 minute drive and you park on a devilishly steep hill!
Dive 1
We were in the water by about 10am for our first dive, for a detailed description of the dive, check out this link.
Surface Interval
When I surfaced, I asked Svenke how he was doing, he said how he was feeling great and that the narcosis at 35m had done a great job of eliminating the hangover! Couldn’t agree more! After a brilliant first dive, Svenke and I took a walk up to the restaurants to get something to eat. I had a fairly normal lunch of spaghetti carbonara.
Svenke, he didn’t! He had pasta, but with octopus!
I did try a little bit, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, quite soft and chewey. The “worst” bit was actually the little suckers got stuck on my tongue, that sent shivers down my spine. A relaxing lunch with a gorgeous view of the bay, spying ships sailing past:
After consuming our lunch and admiring the view, we went back to sit with the rest of our group – hard at work sunbathing! So, might as well join them! Spent a good 35 minutes just soaking up the sun, it was beautiful.
I quickly ran around the other dive trucks, I’d left myself just 100 bar in the twinset, not normally an issue, but everyone else was on 15’s as opposed to 12’s so I was cutting the dive short here. Fortunately a kind gentleman had a decanting whip available and I managed to whip over some gas from a spare couple of tanks that we had, back to to 160 bar, I felt comfortable going in to this dive not having to worry about running short and having to call the dive.
Dive 2
For a detailed description of the second dive, check out this link.
Post Dive
Kit broken down back in the van, time for a quick team photo!
Of course, after finishing cleaning down the gear back at Dive Wise, Svenke and I headed to Huggins for post-dive beers!
HMS Maori (L24/F24/G24) was a Tribal-class destroyer laid
down by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Limited, at Govan
in Scotland on 6 June 1936, launched on 2 September 1937[1] by Mrs W. J. Jordan
and commissioned on 2 January 1939. She was named after the indigenous Māori
people of New Zealand, and Mrs Jordan was the wife of the New Zealand High
Commissioner William Jordan.
Maori served with the Mediterranean Fleet, was involved in
the pursuit and destruction of the enemy Bismarck in May 1941,[2] and served
with the 14th Destroyer Flotilla during the Battle of Cape Bon in December
1941.[3] Maori, commanded by Commander R. E. Courage, RN, was attacked by enemy
German aircraft and sank at her moorings in the Malta Grand Harbour on 12
February 1942 with the loss of one of her crew. She was raised and scuttled off
Malta on 15 July 1945.
Location
Dive Team:
Ann (Guide & A), TBD (A), TBD (A), Svenke Wall (B) and
Chris Armstrong (B).
Dive Log:
We entered the sea after scaling down a mossy ladder after
crossing some rocks. You are in a semi-sheltered pool. I’d argue it as
quarter-sheltered, you do not bear the full brunt of the swells, but only by a
fraction. Its good to get your fins on in and get comfy. You then drop down to
the seabed (1m) and swim through the gap and follow the reef along to the
wreck.
I found this excellent little sketch of the wreck (from
Hajoroncsok)
Swimming from the reef it takes about 5-7 minutes to reach
the wreck. You firstly arrive on the bow. The bow is very broken up with some
of the key ribs standing proud of the sea bed by approximately 2m. There were
some beautiful schools of fish around here.
Swimming aft you then come across the wheel house. At first
I was looking down and I could see some gaps between the metal work. I dropped
down and could wriggle may way down. Looking at the picture above, I was
roughly where the port holes started towards the bow of the ship (but on the
starboard side), once I had dropped through I was in the wreck, there was a
lovely long swim-through along the length of the wreck (along the length where
you can see the port holes). It would have been a lovely atmospheric shot, it
was very dark, but you had blue columns of light coming in from the sides from
the port holes and lovely light blue exit.
But I hadn’t told my buddy, Svenke, where I had gone, so I
thought that before I go swim the length of the wreck, I would pop out and go
see him. So I came out, at the front of the cabin area on the port side and met
up with the group. The viz was getting “bad” at this point, there were about 3
groups on the wreck so viz was about 5m (!!).
Svenke and I then carried on around the starboard side of
the wheel house. There is another swim through that a small bus could go
through going straight through the wreck.
Coming around the stern we came up and over the wheel house,
you can get in there and have a look about. Svenke was photographing and
filming some lovely fish and crabs as we went.
Swimming back to the bow we then left the wreck and headed
to the reef. We did a 5 minute stop at about 5m on the reef. At this depth we
found a massive amount of foil, to pass the time we were all collecting up the
foil. On the surface we found the empty box of a 50m kitchen foil! Well, we had
the contents!
The final ascent involved passing through the gap into the
entry “pool”. The swell had realy picked up, it felt quite significant, perhaps
1m? I was last in the group but coming through, I just floated up and let the
current push me through.
All in all, an excellent dive, visibility was “poor” for
Malta, but as a UK diver more than happy with it!
YouTube Video
My dear friend Svenke shot some video and has kindly allowed me to share it:
The house reef is through a gate about 30 yards from Divewise.
Dive Team:
Alan (Guide & A), TBD (A), TBD (A), Svenke Wall (B) and
Chris Armstrong (B).
Dive log:
I had been an epic Muppet and managed to lose my 3mm wetsuit
somehow earlier this year. I think that when I first joined by local dive club
and we had gone to the pool in Burnt Island to do a check out I had left it
there. So I had to rent a 5mm from Divewise. The objective of the checkout dive
was to get the weighting sorted, and personally I wanted to get the gear
checked out to make sure that all the gear had survived the journey.
I had dove my twinset in the UK in my 3mm wetsuit in the
past so I knew I would be massively negative, 5mm vs 3mm, not big difference eh?
Well it was! I took two 2kg blocks and slotted them on my waist strap.
Firstly, Alan led us in to the harbour to get our weight sorted and out and then we were ready we dropped down
to 3m and did some quick skill checks like mask clearing and regulator sharing
for out of gas emergencies. I was buddied up with a Swedish gentleman called
Svenke. He was in a dry suit! Nearly 30 degrees air temperature and a water
temperature of 25 degrees, nah I’m glad I left it at home!!
Settled and happy, Alan led us around the house reef.
There isn’t much to report; the house reef is fairly bland
in terms of “attraction” to see. There are no sunken cars, vans, small boats or anything like that which would probably help a lot I think.The visibility
was lovely 20m+. A far cry from all the UK diving I had done. There were quite
a few fish, schools of fish danced and glittered beautiful silvers. I was on
the hunt for an octopus looking under every rock but couldn’t find one. I was
absolutely entranced with the dive. The visibility was beautiful, the water was
lovely and warm, the fish were beautiful and I just felt so happy to finally be
on a dive holiday!
I came out of the dive feeling excited, the water was gin
clear, the fish were beautiful and even though it was relatively unexciting
because there was very little to look at, it was still a lovely dive. Its nice to just check out the gear, get your weight right for some "proper" diving.
YouTube Video
My dear friend Svenke shot some video and has kindly allowed me to share it.
Today is to be my first day of diving with Divewise. So it was an early start as I had arranged with Viv that they would come pick me up at just after 8am. Breakfast was the usual cornflakes, coffee and sandwhich and I had this interesting character looking at me while I waited for Divewise!
Arriving at Divewise I met Viv and Alan for the first time as well as the team I would be doing a easy checkout dive on the house reef with this morning.
Dive #1
The dive was really just to check out that weighting was right and that gear had survived the trip. I had several issues with weight and broken line connections, but these were resolved post-dive. Check out this link to read the report of the dive.
Surface Interval
Throughout the dive I was fascinated, but had a few kit issues. Firstly, the crotch strap simply disintegrated and the cave line for the light head finally snapped after years of tugging. I'd only just got the Halcyon Cinch system on my backplate so I didn't know how to re-web the crotch strap so in the end I just took it off, which made things a little awkward in the water, but manageable. The light boltsnap was re-attached with a zip tie.
Dive #2
The team was now heading over to Valetta to dive on a wreck called HMS Maori. Check out this link to read the report of the dive.
Post Dive
On the way back to Divewise, Anne took us around the local area and pointed out the restaurants that we get discounts at. The primary one was Huggins as it was just up the road from the dive centre and also on the way back to my hotel.
Getting back at Divewise, it was time to rinse off gear and prepare for the next days dive. Once that was done, I thought I'd ask Svenke if he fancied a pint at the pub, I quite liked him and he was easy to get on with so why not share a pint. So off we trotted to Huggins and bought a pint, at least 12 pints later we are still there! We had a great bar maid full of fun and kept the drinks flowing for us!
