6 am on Sunday morning saw five of us, namely Pete, Sean, Bruce, Dave & Steve congregate at Pete’s house, decant bags into Steve’s van and whilst Sean & Steve headed straight for Heathrow Terminal 4
with the dive bags the rest of us set off for Banbury in Bruce’s car to pick up the final member of our little group, Norman.

After an easy run up the motorway, we met up again at the terminal car park to make an easy passage through check in and security before heading for breakfast – in Wetherspoons, of course.

Malta is just over 3 hours flying time away and we were soon being picked up at Luqa Airport by the minivan and trailer that Maltaqua had arranged for us.
We let ourselves in to our accommodation and headed for the very comfortable penthouse apartment that would be our home for the next week. The apartment block also had an excellent drying and washing room down in the basement for rinsing and drying our kit every day.

Setting what would become something of a precedent for the week we ventured out around the St Paul’s Bay area of Malta in search of beer and pizza before retiring to the apartment for some of Sean’s excellent gin & tonics.

Monday morning found us just around the corner at the Maltaqua Dive Centre, our hosts form the week ready to complete the formalities and set up our twin sets and stages, pre-filled as arranged with Nitrox 32% back gas and 50% in the stages for accelerated decompression.

We also met our guide for the week Michael, a technical diver originally from Russia but a long time dive instructor and guide in Egypt and for many years in Malta. Once we had all the kit sorted, we loaded it all into the back of the truck and headed off to Cirkewwa in the east of the island and our first dive on the P29 Patrol Boat.

The Maltese shoreline that we encountered was steep and rocky which inevitably makes for some quite testing entries and more so, exits! Attempting these with twin cylinders and stage cylinders requires a reasonable degree of fitness. Divers are however very well catered for with designated parking areas close to the entry points, benches, handrails, toilets and catering.

We had booked the Maltaqua Tec45 package, being one deep dive daily for the next 6 days. The dives would be a mix of shore and boat dives.

Monday. Day 1, Dive 1 – P29 Patrol Boat at Cirkewwa.

The P29 Patrol Boat was originally East German and was scuttled by the Maltese Authorities in 2007 in around 38m of water making this a perfect first dive for us. For most of us the dive went well and as planned however Norman quickly discovered that the bladder of his wing was leaking very badly so he had to abort his dive. Maltaqua would come to the rescue with a loaned (free of charge) bladder for the rest of the eek. We had a 60 minute dive here with a maximum depth of around 35m. At depth the water was about 17° and most of us were diving in dry suits with thin base layers, although Dave went wet all week and was perfectly comfortable. After we finish on the wreck we move back to the reef to complete our deco and then our first shore exit, trying to haul ourselves out of the water in a swell on to slippery rock steps with about 60 kilos of kit on. I don’t think we looked particularly elegant! Bruce has completed his Accelerated Decompression Procedures training and Sean signs him off as certified, so we celebrate back in St Paul’s Bay with Cisk, the local beer, an Italian dinner and more of Sean’s G&Ts. We had been keeping a weather eye on the forecast for the week as the wind was picking up quite strongly later in the week which would likely limit our opportunities to do boat dives so with the weather still favourable plans for our boat dives were bought forward.

Tuesday. Day 2, Dive 2 – The Hephaestus.

Today ‘s dive is a boat dive and we are treated to a slow start as we are not meeting at the dive centre until 10.30am as we will be the skipper’s second charter of the morning, so we breakfast in the café bar across the road from our apartment, which was to become a regular feature of our days. As a boat dive we are also afforded the luxury of not having to cart our twin sets up and down steep tracks and, best of all, the boat had a lift to get us out of the water. We are diving on Malta’s newest wreck, a bunkering oil tanker that ran aground in 2018 and, after being cleaned up, scuttled outside Gozo in 2022. She now lies in around 42m and we have around 20 minutes on the wreck before setting off to the reef and shallowing up to complete around 10 minutes of decompression and out of the water with a 42 minute dive done.

We had a lazy afternoon which included a trip to Maltaqua’s very well stocked dive shop in town where, surprisingly, prices are significantly lower than at home, which would result in some serious shopping for some – but what goes on tour stays on tour!

Wednesday. Day 3, Dive 3 – The Imperial Eagle

We have another relaxed start, meeting up at the dive centre at 1030am The Imperial Eagle was a 45m passenger boat built in Sunderland that ended up her life in Malta. She now lies in around 42m and the plan was that our skipper would shot the wreck and we would decompress on the shotline as there was no adjacent reef. This was a great dive to a max of 42m with around 20 minutes bottom time on the wreck. We then took a short journey to the statue of Christ which is on the seabed at 35m before returning to the Imperial Eagle and our ascent up the shot and around 20 minutes of decompression hanging around the shotline.

Thursday. Day 4, Dive 4 – The Rozi

The forecast is looking a bit ominous so we prepared all of our kit and analysed our back gas a deco gas on the previous afternoon so we can make an early start today. We wake to thunder and lightning at 6am and are on the road at 7.30am back to Cirkewwa to dive the tug, the Rozi. The Rozi was a 35m tug sunk as an artificial reef, lying in about 36m of water 130m off shore. We hit the water, quite literally, as it is a giant stride ntry from a good height, at around 9.40am and make our way out to the wreck which is intact and lying on the sandy bottom. The Rozi This is a lovely dive, and we have a 48 minute dive with a maximum depth of 36m, and we do our decompression on the reef on the way back to shore where, once again, we do our mountain goat impressions and clamber back to dry land. By the time we are back at the dive centre the weather has broken and later in the afternoon a storm hit and malta was treated to a huge deluge of rain. The winds forecast for the next day make the option of diving limited and we decide to take a day off for sightseeing.

Friday. Day 5 – Sightseeing

Valletta is a great city steeped in history, and we were all keen to see it. A minivan took us in, and we split up as Sean’s agenda included the Cathedral and the National War Museum at St Elmo’s Fort whilst the rest of us took a ferry across the Grand Harbour to the Three Cities and the Malta at War Museum.

Saturday. Day 6, Dive 5- the Um El Faroud

Another early start. The weather was much improved but there was still enough wind to severely limit the number of sites that would be diveable today and the Blue Grotto and the wreck of the Um El Faroud, always popular, especially at weekends, was one of the few so would be very busy. Hence, we were loaded up and on our way by 7.30am, and after an exciting drive, forced by a diversion down lanes bordered by stone walls that were literally just centimetres wider than The truck, we were rewarded by being the first group of divers to arrive and thus got the prime parking spot. This however didn’t mean we had it easy. The entry to the water is down a very long and steep concrete road, too steep for our truck to be able to get back up, necessitating a tough walk down with our twinsets and stages. We also knew that after the dive we were going to have to do the same – but this time uphill! The Um El Faroud was a Libyan tanker, sunk as an Artificial reef in 1998 and now lies in 36m with the 110m wreck, now broken in two, lying about 150m from the entry point.We have a good 60+ minute dive here, finishing our dive decompressing on the reef. Then comes the fun part – getting back out again! The swell had increased considerably during the course of the dive and the normal exit point, of a vertical ladder (enough of a struggle with twins & a stage in good conditions) was surrounded by recreational divers
having a lot of difficulty exiting the water, so we decided to swim round to the slipway, itself awash with a good bit of swell, where we made some very inelegant exits, variously crawling on all fours up the concrete slipway or being rolled around in the surf. All the while being filmed by tourists – we are probably Tik Tok legends by now, for all the wrong reasons! The final hurdle of walking the twins back up the hill saw most of us back on the Nitrox 50 when we’d finished to get some more O2 in the system! And that brought the diving to an end. All that remained was to wash down thegear, enjoy a final night of Cisk beer, Italian food and Sean’s gin & tonics before journeying home. All agreed that this had been a great dive trip. Maltaqua had been great and their accommodation perfect for us. The Tec45 package of 6 guided technical dives, including all gases had cost us €970 (not much more than £800), and this included our Accommodation. The island is not at all expensive and, despite our best endeavours in the bars and restaurants, we struggled to get through more than £300 spending money each. Direct flights from Heathrow were around £320 in business class (to get the luggage allowance needed for the tec gear). All in all, brilliant value. We will be back – watch this space.