Diving

Why shore diving changes the arithmetic

Most Mediterranean diving is boat diving. You pay for the boat, you go when the boat goes, and two dives is a day. Gozo is the exception: a large share of its best water is a short walk from a place you can leave a car, which means no boat fee, no timetable, and a second dive in the afternoon if you feel like it.

That is why dive centres cluster here out of all proportion to the size of the island, and why diving is a genuine part of the local economy rather than a side activity. It is also why a week in Gozo gets you more dives than a week almost anywhere else in the region for the same money.

The trade-off is honest: you carry your kit to the water, some of the entries are over rock, and a few of the better ones sit at the bottom of a track you would rather not take a low car down. Each entry page says which is which.

What is actually down there

The official listings give you fifty-four sites with average and maximum depths and almost nothing about what is in the water, which is the first thing anyone putting a regulator in their mouth wants to know.

The everyday Gozo dive is grouper on the walls, octopus and small moray in the boulder fields, cuttlefish and seabream over the sand, and barracuda hanging in the blue off the points. Amberjack and tuna come through the deeper offshore sites, San Dimitri Point and Crocodile Rock among them. Seahorses are reported at Coral Cave and Ħekka Point, which is unusual enough to be worth the dive on its own.

The shallow bays with sandy bottoms, Ħondoq, Qbajjar and Daħlet Qorrot, sit on Neptune grass. That is Posidonia oceanica, a protected seagrass rather than a weed, it grows a few centimetres a year, and the correct etiquette is to fin above it rather than through it.

The one everybody asks about

In August 2014 a diver filmed an ocean sunfish, Mola mola, off Wied il-Mielaħ on the north coast. He described it as a once in a lifetime experience, and that is the honest framing: these are enormous, docile, and rare rather than seasonal. A sunfish can weigh something close to a tonne and is one of the odder things in the Mediterranean to come face to face with.

Nobody should book a week here expecting one. But Gozo's north coast drops into open water quickly, which is why the big pelagic animals turn up at all, and why the sites facing north and west are the ones where something unexpected tends to happen.

Each coast page lists what has been reported at that site. It is a record of sightings, not a guarantee of them, and the sea does not read the website.

The wrecks, and why they are there

Gozo's wrecks are deliberate. Four vessels were scuttled off the south coast specifically to create dive sites, which is unusual honesty compared with destinations that market an accident as heritage.

• MV Karwela, a 58 metre passenger ferry, sunk in August 2006 off Xatt l-Aħmar. Sits upright at around 40 metres, with the staircase on the open deck that everybody photographs.
• MV Cominoland, 39 metres, sunk the same month and lying nearby at a similar depth. The two are often done as one dive.
• MV Xlendi, an 80 metre roll-on roll-off ferry sunk in November 1999, which landed upside down. Penetration is not recommended and this is not a beginner's wreck.
• P31, a Kondor class minesweeper built in the former East Germany and in Maltese service until 2004, scuttled in 2009 at about 20 metres off Comino. The shallowest of the four and the friendliest.

The Azure Window is the other thing divers ask about. It fell into the sea in March 2017 and the rubble is now a site in its own right. The Blue Hole and the chimney beside it, which were always the better dive, are unchanged.

What the water does through the year

Coldest in February and March, around 15 to 16 degrees. Warmest in August and September, in the mid twenties. It never gets cold enough to close the season, so centres run almost all year with a short lull in deep winter when the weather rather than the temperature is the problem.

Spring and autumn are the better bet. The water is still warm in October, the visibility is good, and you are not sharing Dwejra with four boatloads of people. Winter diving is genuinely available and genuinely quiet, with the caveat that a northerly will shut the whole north coast and send you to the south.

That last point is the practical one and the reason each site page carries its wind exposure: when Gozo is blown out on one side it is usually diveable on the other, and knowing which way round saves the day.

The rules that actually apply

Recreational diving in Malta is regulated, and more tightly than most visitors expect. The short version:

• Only dive centres licensed by the Malta Tourism Authority may sell diving services. Ask; a licensed centre will not mind.
• You may dive independently if your certification qualifies you to 30 metres. Below that, a licensed instructor goes with you.
• There is no statutory minimum age. The training agency sets it, and every diver under 18 needs written consent from a parent or guardian.
• A medical questionnaire is required. Certain declared conditions need a fitness certificate signed by a doctor who specialises in diving or hyperbaric medicine.
• Rebreathers, nitrox and trimix are all permitted, subject to the training and experience you can show.
• Spearfishing on scuba is banned outright, as is any spearfishing between dusk and dawn, and all fishing inside Marine Conservation Areas.

There is a hyperbaric chamber at Gozo General Hospital, which is part of why the island works as a technical diving base rather than only a recreational one. In an emergency the number is 112.

Regulations change and this is a summary, not advice. Check the current position with your centre before you plan anything that sits near a limit.