Maltese waters (the Mediterranean Sea) are warm and have almost no plankton, and the resulting biomass of fish and invertebrate life supported here is much lower than in our nutrient rich Atlantic Ocean. There are, however, some impressive large visitors such as barracuda and bluefin tuna (many of them – I think – escapees from local fish farms). Most of the other fish are wrasse – many of which would blend in wonderfully in Sodwana! – and bream.
We found concentrations of fish life in the shallows (five metres of water or so), and on the many wrecks that we dived. It was strange swimming to the wrecks, however, over featureless white sand, with not a fish in sight. Sometimes we would swim through a veritable cloud of damsel fish (Chromis chromis) – the juveniles are a beautiful indigo colour and impossible to photograph, hence their absence here.
Most of the fish here I identified with the help of Peter G. Lemon’s book, Scuba Diving Malta – Gozo – Comino, and Lina of Subway Scuba in Malta also helped enormously.
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