Three Days' Diving

Hello from Xlendi, a small town on the isle of Gozo. Gozo is the second-largest island in the nation of Malta, and I’ve spent three luxuriant days on this island (or, more precisely, around it) diving.

Dad and I arrived Saturday evening in Malta. The drive from the airport on the South of the island to the ferry terminal on the northernmostip revealed a singularly ugly developed landscape, out of the ’70s, with flat, dirty buildings rearing short roofs into squalid, polluted air. After approximately 45 minutes, we arrived at the ferry terminal only to watch the ferry raise its drawbridge and cast its lines, leaving us first in line for the next ferry.

Arriving at Gozo was precisely the opposite experience. The island is beautiful, largely undeveloped; the cathedrals that dot its landscape are ancient and mysterious, while the terraced farm plots and small, almost Moroccan streets lend the place a timeless atmosphere. After the disappointment of Malta itself, Gozo is ruggedly pretty.

The Maltese language is one with a penchant toward utterly unpronounceable names. Once we were faced with a road sign on which both options began with two X’s – we ourselves stayed in the small town of Xlendi. A more delightful harbour there never was. The town is minuscule, consisting essentially of four bars with tables on the water – two of the bars are actually restaurants belonging to hotels. Locals and tourists alike enjoy a truly relaxed experience on this waterfront. I loved spending afternoons at these tables enjoying cold beers and simply staring out at the water. Nothing like it for blowing off exam steam.

We did 3 days of diving while we were here. The first was a relatively shallow dive, unremarkable except for the apathetic attitude of our guide. We were cold, and while it was enjoyable simply to be under water and breathing (that never, never gets old), the dive was in truth nothing to write home about. Apparently we’d chosen a bad day to start: the winds were such that the more beautiful dive spots were not available (most entries on Gozo are shore entries, and thus at the mercy of choppy waves). We chose to spend the afternoon on the aforementioned waterfront soaking in the sleepy atmosphere.

The second day we did two really excellent dives. The first was at Blue Hole, which is a world-reknowned diving location. One enters and exits cathedral-like underwater structures, vast open caves with arches and exciting light patterns. For me this was best summarized as a dive with “cool architecture.” The second dive was similarly cool – I swam in and out of more little holes and caves and chimneys than I ever have before. We felt like we were playing tag with the guide, as we followed him from opening to opening and cave to cave, the fairly shallow water (~18m.) allowing for a nice long, leisurely dive.

Today, the third day, we did another two dives, and these were truly special. We managed to get a boat this time (accompanied by a French couple and a large male German contingent of 9), and spent the morning diving around a wrecked ferry boat off the coast of Malta (the main island). This ferry boat is quite large, and located in fairly deep water (top at 33m, bottom around 42m). In order to avoid decompression stops, we didn’t go much further than 36m, which still allowed us to swim around inside the ferry’s (now gutted) main cabin. This was my first wreck dive and it was quite surreal, especially given the depth which meant all light was blue-spectrum.

In the afternoon, we dove a rather unusual site: a commercial fish pen! The boat pulled up to a vast underwater net and we hopped in, to be surrounded with approximately 700, 1.5meter-long bluefin tuna. I’ve never seen so many big fish all at once in my life. These are large creatures, and they must swim to breath (their gills require them to swim in order to expel deoxygenated water), therefore the tuna cycle around the inside of the net (a cylindrical thing about 50 meters in diameter), creating a sort of blue-fin vortex. The tuna avoid divers, but one can swim into the middle of this cyclone and literally be spun around by the currents they create. This was a really cool dive, pure and simple.