Gozo Trip
This trip took shape following me being stuck in snow and ice for four hours in January trying to get home from work. There is no way that I could survive through till May without a shot of sunshine.
I decided that I would book a cheap trip to Malta and more particularly the Island of Gozo. Flight with Ryanair (horrendous but cheap) cost 60 Euro, hotel and hire car through www.alpharooms.com cost 155 Euro for 5 days, and Ferry to Gozo from Malta cost 17 Euro return with the car.

Total Cost 232 Euro for 5 days. 7 guided dives over 3 days including nitrox for two dives cost 152 Euro.

I looked for recommendations online as to where to be based but found very little, as it turned out where to stay was not really an issue, Gozo is so small that everywhere is no more the 15 mins drive from everywhere else.

I tried two centres, Scuba Kings (www.divemalta-gozo.com) and St Andrews Dive Centre (www.gozodive.com) .

Scuba Kings is a small set up run by Richie, the centre caters for both PADI and CMAS divers, runs courses, guided dives and rents out tanks and weights for groups who want to organise their own dives. He was friendly accommodating and really interested in what I wanted in my dives, despite high winds on the first two days of diving Richie was able to find sites that worked well and “developed” a new route to and from a site that I wanted to dive that would have otherwise been hampered by the weather. A really nice guy and a small friendly set up, I would recommend it highly.

St Andrew’s is one of the oldest established centers on the Ireland, the set up was efficient and the dive guide I dived with (also called Richie) was great. The overall atmosphere of the dive center was that of a professional albeit slightly disinterested business with a grumpy owner. The centre does however boast the cheapest Apeck’s equipment in Europe, this is apparently down to a sales contract that was signed in the late 80’s that ties Apeck’s into cheap prices.

I also enquired about Frankies a dive school I had come across online, this had been closed for renovations while I was over, the general word on the centre was poor from the people I spoke to not well regarded.

As for the dives I dived 7 sites

The Inland Sea
A sheltered dive entry through in land sea water lake that connects through an impressive tunnel to the sea. This leads out to a wall that drops off and makes for a nice swim through. The light in the tunnel was truly special. The wall was teaming with anchovies and small fish, there was also crab, octopus and spotted dory nudibranch , ( a Mediterranean favourite of mine). Really nice dive down to 25 meters or so.

Magarr Ix Xini
Due to the gathering winds (force six) a sheltered dive site was needed. This dive is a shallow (15 meter) cove with two caves that are worth exploring on the right side, again lots of life, octopus, mullet, wrasse, cuttlefish ( the rapid colour changes are so cool), and small pretty nudibranch. Patches of sea grass and open sand with rising rock cliff sides.

Malsalforn Bay
This was the only damp squib of the trip, a third dive in worsening conditions carried out mainly due to my enthusiasm for diving on day one, with bay becoming increasingly disturbed most life had taken refuge in either deeper water or hidden deep in rocks and sea grass. The only things to be seen were the ever present wrasse. The bay is a mix of sand and sea grass that gently undulates. This is used for confined water dives and night dives, the couple diving with me had night dived it the evening before and had tales of octopus, florescent plankton.

Xatt L’Ahmar
The second day saw an a trip to the South side of the Island where three wrecks have been sunk for divers, with a large swell making entry onto the wrecks impossible we had to settle for an opening dive that covered really nice scenic territory, large boulders, a drop off that we descended to 40 meters on and lush vegetation. Gozo has a reputation for good vis and at over 20 meters the landscape was impressive. Again small fish a plenty, a small free swimming moray eel, another Octopus, and six purple nudibranchs on a single seaweed at 38 meters provided a kind of euphoric moment (possibly the beginning of narcosis.). Richie also checked out it we could cover the distance to the wrecks from this point.

Karwella
The Karwella is a purpose sunk passenger ship. It’s a fairly large wreck whose size can be appreciated as you descent in the great vis, We swam through the middle deck exiting up a stairwell onto the fore deck. As it has been stripped out for divers and has exit hole cut around the wreck it is a very safe wreck lying at 35 meters or so. There was very little life but the return to the exit site included recovering some of the Xatt L’Agmar dive site. Again lots of life with two Octopus out in the open when we drifted up to them, they beat a hasty retreat picking up rocks on the way to block up the rock hideouts and large shoals of sea bream, scorpion fish and a tompot blenny!

The Blue Hole
This is Gozo’s most famous dive site and it did not let itself down, entry in a blue hole down to an arch at about ten meters, then around a rock pinnacle that descends down into an impressive drop off, shoals of anchovies, sea bream in large numbers, lobster, amber jack’s, sea squirts and a dense swarm of jellyfish. Following the pinnacle there is a chimney that rises from about 16 meters up to 6 meters, a nice tight but comfortable experience, the dive finishes with a quick trip into a cave to look out at the blue light. The safety stop in the blue hole allowed me to study the small corals, and dense life on the rocks.

Xlendi Caves,
I have dived a few caves and tunnels over the last couple of years but this is breath taking. Xlendi bay looks like nothing special from the surface, a swim out across the bay is the usual range of discarded beer cans and glass bottles that one sadly expects at a busy sea side resort. However at the entrance to the cave (it’s really a long tunnel) it starts to get really interesting, The cave entrance is dark, a torch was welcome, ten meters in it braches left and right, on the right is a winding tunnel with sections of the ceiling open to the sky, the range of blues in the light was amazing, this continued as we swam on through to the far side of the headland. There we covered a reef of fallen boulders that were thick with sea weeds and fish, anchovies, wrasse of many colours, sea squirts, and vis of over thirty meters. The dive was fantastic, sadly at the end of the dive you come back into the bay and drift over human rubbish, and another dense swarm of jellyfish, even in a full 7mm I got stung on the chin. We persevered but left at an early exit point than originally planned.

Gozo was really full of surprises, much more life than I would have imagined impressive natural topography and friendly people. Water temperature was a comfortable 15C and air temperature in the low to mid 20’s. With gale force winds on two days (a hazard of Gozo’s winter) there were still sheltered dive sites that were accessible. If you want to travel later in the year water temperatures climb into the mid 20’s and air temperature up to the 40’s.

If you are going to use the self guided option you will need to hire a four wheel drive, these are available relatively cheaply but due to the challenging road conditions steep slopes and lose shale at the dives sites my little hired Toyota wouldn’t have been any use for some of the dive sites.

A pre season dive trip that cost less than 400 hundred euro all in, it’s definitely an experience I will be repeating, and there are many more sites to explore. Anyone fancy coming along?

Aaron

Aaron

Congrats on a really informative review. A wreck without life ? - now what's that all about ?

I'd really love to go. My wife keeps telling me I should book a dive holiday but every site I have looked up doesn't really seem to do a good job catering for the non-diver also ( which is only to be expected as you are unlikely to get good sea environments alongside large urban developments ). So for me to go really means leaving Yvonne behind and her having a separate holiday later and that really doesn't work either form an economic or relationship point of view.

I wonder would Malta itself be better ? I was also thinking about Cyprus/Larnaka-Zenobia ?

Anyone any thoughts of their own on a good diver/non-diver destination ?

Chris

I guess it would depend on what Yvonne is looking for in a holiday, is she a shopping person, a historical sites person, or beach with a good book. Perhaps Yvonne could start her own thread on here, what I want as a non diver?

Did you take any photos?

Sadly no photos, i shall have to sketch some pictures from memory.