Marico Oog is a natural spring located on the Grootfontein farm in the North West Province, belonging to Willie Muller and his family. We took a detour from Zeerust to the farm in order to dive in the spring, and to spend a couple of days without cellphone signal (MTN only) and without the distractions of life in the city. We were accompanied by our non-diving buddy Ian, who is a serious twitcher and brought his long camera lens to spy out the local birdlife.
There are three chalets at Marico Oog, only one of which has a toilet. Guess which one we chose. There is an ablution block for use by the inhabitants of the other two chalets (which do have baths/showers) and the campers – camping is allowed anywhere on the grounds. No appliances, cutlery or crockery are provided, so you have to bring just about everything including bedding. There are fridges in the chalets and fitted sheets on the beds but otherwise it’s quite rustic. I liked the thatch roof and the shady interior of the chalet, but Tony didn’t enjoy the occasional spider that passed by!
Facilities
Each chalet has a balcony area with a braai – the one we were in had a huge stoep and space for five to sleep in the same room. It’s the furthest from the water, but the walk is neither far nor demanding. There is a lot of grass to run around on (if that’s your thing), and the chalet we were in is well spaced from the other two, which are back to back. There’s a water slide on the grass left of left the middle of the map, but I’m not sure whether it’s functional.
Wildlife
Ian on the pontoon
The swimming pool (top right in the map above) was almost empty, which made for some lovely photographic opportunities. Ian found three mice (one dead) in the pool, and several frogs. To me the bird life was quite diverse, but there didn’t seem to be anything on the farm that couldn’t be seen elsewhere. Each evening we sat on the pontoon on the Oog and watched barn, white-throated and greater striped swallows coming to feed at the water and roost in the reeds. It’s very quiet and peaceful there, except for the inhabitants of the neighbouring farm, who share part of the water and seemed to enjoy fishing with beers in the evenings.
Diving
I am expecting a call from National Geographic about this photo
There are no compressor facilities at Marico Oog, so you have to bring everything you need. We rented cylinders in Johannesburg, one each. Because the Oog is at most 13-14 metres deep and on average more like 5 metres deep, you can dive for a couple of hours on a cylinder if you want to, so it’s not really necessary to rent a pantechnicon to transport your dive gear. The water is about the same temperature as False Bay in summer (19-22 degrees).
Path leading to the Oog
Approaching the ladder at the Oog
Ian on the pontoon
Access to the water is via a ladder, reached by walking along the left hand path you can see leading to the water on the map above. The right hand path leads to the pontoon raft.
Entrance to the Oog
Marico Oog water is bottled and sold as Vippita spring water.
The Last Dive is a number of things: a history of how cave diving techniques came to be applied to advanced wreck diving (use of lines for wreck penetration, for example), the story of the early days of mixed gas diving in the United States, the chronicle of the close-knit bands of divers who risked their lives to explore the cold, deep waters off the north Atlantic seaboard of the USA and retrieve trinkets from the many vessels wrecked there, and a biography of Chris and son Chrissy Rouse, who were involved in all of the aforementioned threads of the tale. The central subject of the book is the Rouses’ death while (or just after) diving on the German U-boat discovered by a local dive boat skipper.
I first encountered the Rouses in Robert Kurson’s book Shadow Divers, a gripping read about the efforts to identify the same mysterious German U-boat that the Rouses perished on, off the coast of the US, and Deep Descent, which describes diving on the wreck of the Andrea Doria and features many of the same divers and dive charter operators. Their relationship is (perhaps too) sympathetically portrayed by author Bernie Chowdhury, a friend of the family.
The Rouses were extremely technically proficient divers, but their downfall seems to have been their fraught and fractious relationship that was characterised by vicious bickering and name-calling that stopped only when they put regulators in their mouths to descend into a cave or onto a wreck. Chowdhury shows how their difficult (but ultimately loving) relationship led them to doing a dive (their final one) onto the U-boat when the conditions were decidely sub par. Their choice to dive to over 80 metres on air, when they were proficient in mixed gas use, as well as what seemed to be the firm conviction of Chrissy (the younger) Rouse that he was immortal, also appears to have contributed greatly to their deaths.
Both Chris and Chrissy Rouse died of DCS – Chris died in the water within minutes of surfacing, and his son Chrissy hours later in a recompression chamber. They had both ascended rapidly without any decompression stops, from a longer than planned dive to over 80 metres, having lost their stage cylinders in their disorientation after emerging from a disastrous penetration of the submarine during which Chrissy became trapped under a fallen book shelf and a self-inflating life raft.
Earlier in the book, Chowdhury describes his own experience of very serious decompression sickness, which gives great insight into how debilitating (if not fatal) the experience of being bent can be. His enumeration at the end of The Last Dive of the serious physical conditions now prevalent among divers of his generation who have persistently pushed the envelope and, in many instances, been bent and recovered, serves as a cautionary tale to those who believe that no-decompression limits are for wussies.
As I expressed in my review of Deep Descent, I strongly disapprove of the macho cowboy attitude that seems to be (have been?) disturbingly prevalent among the divers and charters of this generation (and not limited to the United States). But Chowdhury’s book is more than an ode to the glory days of artifact retrieval and experimentation with trimix. As a history of cave diving, mixed gas diving and advanced wreck diving it’s invaluable. As a diver himself, conversant with all these disciplines, Chowdhury is able to explain in simple terms concepts that would slow down someone who hasn’t done a dive course. The book is very readable despite the technical subjects covered.
Chowdhury does not conclude that the risks taken to achieve what this particular group of divers did were unreasonable, and does not overtly criticise the Rouses for the attitudes and behaviour that – I think most sensible people would agree – contributed to their deaths instead of just a scare that might have forced an adjustment to the dive plan. While he admits to having experienced times of ambivalence about diving, particularly when he describes the strain it placed on his relationship with his wife and son and the long road to rehabilitation that followed his episode of the bends, his equilibrium surprisingly undisturbed by the loss of several friends and acquaintances to the sport he loves, and his own health difficulties.
For some more perspectives on this book and the perceived accuracy of the descriptions of the events it covers, you can read this review and this discussion.
You can purchase the book here if you’re in South Africa, and here if you’re not. The Kindle edition is available here and here.
Subway Dive Centre is a PADI 5* Instructor Development Centre, National Geographic Dive Centre and Project AWARE Official Partner located in the town of Bugibba on the island of Malta. I wish I could remember the details of how I selected to dive with them rather than one of the approximately 40 other dive centres on the Maltese islands… I seem to recall it had to do with their dive packages, which were comprehensive, included dives on both Malta and Gozo, and were at a reasonable rate. I also checked Scubaboard.com for reviews and tips. Being a 5 star IDC didn’t hurt either, though one can’t tell anything about the character and integrity of a dive centre’s staff just from a rating.
Subway Scuba, Bugibba, Malta
Subway Scuba is aptly named, being located almost entirely underground! The centre contains probably the best compressor in Malta (we saw a number of other dive centre staff visiting to mix gas – including Trimix – for their clients), an indoor pool, a shop, classroom, a gear washing area (with a grid roof open to the elements, for quick drying) and lots of space to store your rental gear (in a box labelled with your name) for the duration of your stay. I really liked that for the five days we dived with them, we used the same kit every day. My wetsuit made me look like a cross between the Michelin Man and a cowboy, but it was incredibly comfortable and had a lot of features that one doesn’t expect on a basic rental wetsuit, such as pockets, a compass, and a dive computer strap holder.
The gear rinsing and drying room
Cylinder storage area
The super-silent compressor
Trimix filling station
Classroom
Rental gear with current divers’ gear storage boxes on the right
Lina Fabri handled the flurry of emails I sent in order to make our booking (I also used one of Subway’s recommendations for accommodation in Malta, Falcon Court, which was just around the corner from the dive centre), as well as some queries I sent her after we went home regarding particular fish we’d seen that I couldn’t identify. While we were in Malta, Lana Markov assisted us from day to day, and her husband Sergey was our extremely marvellous Divemaster. We also spent one day (Sergey had to rest, poor man!) diving with Publio Attard, who we loved meeting because he is Maltese and gave us his perspective on life in Malta. Olga, the owner of Subway, as well as Lana and Sergey, are all Russian, and all the other divers we dived with during our stay were very impressive Russian divers. Sergey obligingly did two dive briefings at each site, one in English and one in Russian.
Me in my dorky (but awesome) rental wetsuit
The dives Tony and I did were all in the recreational range, up to 40 metres, but technical diving is definitely possible in Malta with submarines and many other sites available to those who want to go deeper. Subway offers an Inspiration rebreather course as well as advanced wreck, Trimix, cavern and cave courses. With its many overhead environments and purposely scuttled wrecks, as well as lovely warm water, I can’t think of a better place to get one of these qualifications. It seems however that for guided dives, the focus is on recreational diving.
Fish of Malta
Tony and I felt very welcome at Subway, and, very importantly, comfortable that safety was an absolute priority. Our gear was in good order, the cylinders were in date, and every time we used Nitrox we had the opportunity (which we took, otherwise we’d have been instructed to!) to check the mix, the maximum depth it permitted, and to sign our understanding of those facts. Our experience at Subway Scuba was very positive overall.
Cecil, cave diver to be (he probably is one by now thanks to Buks Potgieter of IANTD) lent us this National Geographic production. It’s just under an hour long, and recounts an expedition to seven of the blue holes in the Bahamas. A blue hole is a kind of vertical cave, roughly circular. They often contain freshwater (light) on top of saltwater (heavy). The reaction between the two layers of water where they meet (called the halocline) eats away horizontal passages off the main shaft of the sinkhole over time. Sometimes there is a layer of hydrogen sulphide, created by bacteria and decaying organic matter, beneath which is an anoxic (devoid of oxygen) layer of water which preserves organic remains (bones, not flesh) with remarkable fidelity. For this reason blue holes are sometimes referred to as time capsules. The deep water is usually very, very clear.
Here’s a picture of the Blue Hole on Gozo in Malta, where Tony and I dived earlier this year. It doesn’t have a freshwater layer – it’s sea water all the way, but the top view you can see here illustrates what a blue hole looks like. Beautiful!
The Blue Hole on Gozo
The multidisciplinary research team shown in this special aimed to uncover the ancient history of the Bahamas, which no longer have any large predators (such as crocodiles) occuring naturally there. Aside from the diving (more on that just now) there’s a bit of palaentology, anthropology and archaeology to keep history buffs happy. Blue holes are currently the subject of muchreasearch, and as the narration in this special points out, rising sea levels threaten to flood the holes and destroy the anoxic conditions that make them such excellent preservers of the past – so there is a sense of urgency to the studies being conducted.
The diving, though, is mainly what interested us (and Cecil, I suspect). The footage inside the blue holes shows how beautiful they can be, with stalagmites and stalagtites in the side passages carved out by the halocline as the sea level changed. It also shows how treacherous cave diving can be – fine silt covers most of the surfaces, and even the pressure wave created by a diver swimming forward above the bottom of the cave can stir it up… Never mind a careless fin stroke or bumping the bottom!
Some of the diving was done on air and other gas mixes, using open circuit scuba with side mount arrangements to make the divers’ profiles wider but flatter. Other dives, to greater depths (both vertical and horizontal), were done on rebreathers. One of the advantages of a rebreather, apart from ridiculously long bottom time, is no bubbles, which is great for photography and for cave diving where bubbles can disturb sediment and even bring down bits of rock from the ceiling. One of the divers claims that 10% of all rebreathers sold have killed their owners (this is an exaggeration – according to DAN, only about 5% of diving fatalities are on rebreathers but one must adjust for the fact that open circuit is far more prevalent)… And that while she’s putting her kit together she thinks about all her dead friends who perished using these devices. If that was my state of mind before going in the water, I wouldn’t dive – the depression would kill me first! The divers go through a 40 point written checklist before they get in the water for a dive and are very, very careful about maintaining their rebreathers.
This is a beautiful look at the treasures hidden in places that many of us will never visit. The photography is wonderful, even if the narration is a little bit over the top dramatic (but we’ve been spoiled by the refined dignity of the BBC, I think!). It’s a little bit sobering from a diving perspective, but one can only admire people whose determination to break new ground and advance science leads them to the very edge of what technology can currently assist with.
There are some still photos from the special here (go and look – very lovely). An article on blue holes in the Bahamas appears here.
When he surfaced, ecstatic, from this dive, Tony exclaimed to Sergey our Divemaster in Malta, “I think that was the best dive I’ve ever done!” It was only the second day of our diving in the Mediterranean this August, so we were both understandably euphoric about the warm water and limitless visibility, but I think that both of us still feel this was one of the most wonderful dives we’ve done. It was easy, long, and sheer enjoyment.
The rim of the ceiling around the inland sea is visible through the clear water above Tony's head
L’Ahrax Point is located on the northern tip of the island of Malta, and can be done as a shore entry with a long walk to and from the water. We did it off a boat (a beautiful, traditional Maltese boat), however, just after we dived the Imperial Eagle.
The entrance to the inland sea, seen from the boat
Like the Blue Hole on Gozo, L’Ahrax point features a cavern whose roof has long ago collapsed, giving rise to a beautiful circular hole in the rock above, quite a few metres (ten perhaps?) above the surface of the sea. You can surface in this little inland sea, as Tony did, because the cave is open to the sky over most of its extent – at some early stage of its history, the roof collapsed.
Light streams into the tunnel
The roof of the tunnel to the inland sea
Leaving the inland sea
The top of the reef
Tony leaves the inland sea
The sea washing against the shore
Just outside the inland sea, a diver is silhouetted against the surface
The tunnel into the sea has holes in its roof
A diver emerges from the inland sea through the tunnel
The short tunnel from the inland sea to the open ocean
The tunnel into and out of the inland sea
Sunlight in the inland sea
Exploring the shallow inland sea
Inside the dark cave at the back end of the inland sea
Tony surfaces in the inland sea
Rays of sunlight in the shallow inland sea
The boat anchored in about 10 metres of water, quite close to the entrance to a small cave that is open to the air through a circular hole in the roof. After swimming through a dark, magnificent slash in the limestone, one emerges into bright sunlight and 2-3 metres of water. There is rich vegetation and invertebrate life in this shallow inland sea, as well as in the entrance tunnel and the small, dark cave located at the furthest distance from the open sea.
Meadows of sea grass
A vertical area of the reef
Damselfish on a shallow part of the reef
A pinnacle in shallow water
After exploring the inland sea and cave we exited through the tunnel and swam past where the boat was anchored. There are many overhangs and narrow gullies to swim through, and the sea grass and other plant life made it seem as if we were exploring an underwater meadow. We entered a couple of small caves (really just cracks in the rock), and dived ourselves silly. After doing three wreck dives in a row and not being blown away by the marine life of Malta (but not minding because the wrecks were so good!), we were suitably chastised after experiencing the richness that is L’Ahrax point.
We have had a run of good diving of late, between the ocean and the pool I have been fortunate to be underwater almost every day for the last week and a half and it seems set to continue for the next few days. For this time of year the weather has been relatively mild and we have had half decent visibility and not too cold water. Today the visibility at Long Beach was 5-6 metres and the water 16 degrees. The ocean treated us to a display of the smallest short tailed stingray I have ever seen.
Linda and James meeting some klipfish
I consider myself very honoured right now having been requested to teach a young man who doesn’t have full use of his legs to dive. It is surprisingly easy to take what most of us have – full use of all our limbs – totally for granted. Be warned that the next diver to complain about the weight of their dive gear will be the lucky winner of a lecture from me!!
Two curious klipfish at Long Beach
Most of you know Cecil, and well we wish him well as he starts his cave diving training today in a sinkhole somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Cecil started diving late last year and has to date done Open Water, Advanced, Deep, Nitrox and twin tank diving courses in preparation for his next step. His goal for the end of the year is a cave dive in Borneo!
Hottentot on the Admiral’s Reef at Long Beach
This weekend
Saturday we are on the boat for an early launch… well, early for some… and we will visit a new site called Atlantis. This is a newly discovered site and I dived there last week Monday for the first time. It comprises two stunning pinnacles that start at around 6 metres and drop of to almost 30 metres. I have never seen such big schools of fish or such a diversity of life on any other site in Cape Town as yet.
A box jelly (after a good meal)
After the boat dive we plan to dive at A Frame and then move to Long Beach for a third dive.
Sunday is a little uncertain at this point as a southeaster is forecast but hopefully it will arrive later in the day so an early start will again be required… I hear Clare groaning…
Other stuff
The Dive Site magazine has just changed from being free to being on a paid subscription basis. If you subscribe within the next week you can get it at R120 for four issues, a special discounted price. Even if you have to give up one of your other magazines, diving or otherwise, do it! It’s the best diving magazine in South Africa.
The Blue Hole is a sinkhole or collapsed cavern in the limestone at Dwerja near San Lawrenz, on Gozo, one of the three islands that make up Malta. It’s about 10 by 5 metres, and the entry point is reached via a slightly rough (but not too bad) walk over the rocks. There are stairs and handrails in places, as this is a spot heavily frequented by tourists and divers. A shallow pool with quite a knobbly bottom surrounds the Blue Hole on the landward side, and we staggered across that and flopped into the Hole itself to put on our fins.
DIvers on the surface of the Blue Hole
My handsome husband descends into the Blue Hole
Swimmers on the surface of the Blue Hole
A swimmer descends past the arch
The surface and walls of the Blue Hole
Surface of the Blue Hole, from below
The inward side of the arch leading out to sea
The rim of the Blue Hole
The shallows at the edge of the Blue Hole
Descending into the Blue Hole is magical – almost as soon as you submerge, an arch stretches across before you, opening the side of the Blue Hole out to the open ocean. The view is spectacular whichever way you look. We spent some time admiring the sunlight filtering down into the hole, and then swam under the arch and out into the open sea.
Tony in a narrow gap
Bubbles rise through the limestone
Tony on the wall
Tony swims toward a cloud of damselfish
The wall drops off to over 50 metres
Cracks in the reef are fun to swim through
Tony taking footage as he swims backwards out of a cave
The wall drops from the surface
The wall rising to the surface
Rocky outcrops
Dramatic limestone landscape
Tony swimming above me… His bubbles the only evidence he’s in water
The dive was through what we by then recognised as typical Maltese limestone reefs, with eel grass, posodonia, and a host of sponges and sea plants covering boulders and valleys that resemble a terrestrial landscape. The highlight of this dive (and perhaps of the trip) was encountering a bluefin tuna, who spent nearly half an hour following us and swimming into our faces. I felt so moved that I became annoyed with the confined feeling I was suddenly experiencing in my mask and regulator – I wanted to share this with someone, discuss it, laugh at how he made munching movements with his mouth every time he came near us, and lament at how lonely he seemed.
A school of salema fish above the reef
The tuna swimming away from Tony
Tony filming the bluefin tuna
Tony and the tuna
Sergey and Tony, after the exit of our tuna friend
The tuna, and Sergey in the background
The Azure Window on Gozo
Next to the Blue Hole is the Azure Window (Tieqa Żerqa in Maltese). It is a natural flat-topped arch, about 23 metres high. The arch is apparently slowly disintegrating, with pieces of limestone frequently falling from it. It is expected that in a few years the arch will be gone, and we will be left with the Azure Pinnacle. We swam back under the Azure Window at the end of our dive. I must admit I didn’t realise we were doing that at the time! It’s a spectacular piece of scenery.
Negotiating a narrow swim through
Light penetrates a cavern
Tony disappears down a hole
The inside of a tunnel in the reef
At the base of the Blue Hole is a dark cave, which we briefly explored (we were a bit low on air so neither of us wanted to go too far in). There are convenient ledges and lots to look at around the five metre mark to do a safety stop. We were entertained by watching snorkelers from beneath, and other divers outside the arch leading to the open sea, as we degassed.
Divers on the surface of the Blue Hole, seen from inside the cave at the bottom
The surface of the Blue Hole, from the bottom
Bubbles rising in front of the arch
The edge of the Blue Hole, with the arch to the right
Swimmers in the Blue Hole above the arch
View out to sea, under the arch, from inside the cave
Cardinal fish inside the cave at the bottom of the Blue Hole
On one of the days we spent diving in Malta we did two dives on the island of Gozo, accessible from Malta by using the car ferry at Cirkewwa. The diving on Gozo is wonderful, and there are dive centres located on this island even though only about ten percent of the 500,000-strong Maltese population resides here (the rest are on Malta, with four lonely souls on Comino). GozoDiver has more.
The entrance to the tunnel that leads to the open sea
Sign showing the layout of the Inland Sea and tunnel (excuse the large finger on top)
Algae growing inside the tunnel
The Inland Sea is a small, shallow (maximum 2 metres deep) body of water on Gozo at Dwejra Point, linked to the open sea by an 80 metre long tunnel through the rock. The Inland Sea itself is about 60 metres wide and is fringed by fishermen’s huts and a cafe or two. The tunnel is about 3 metres deep at its entrance on the Inland Sea, and drops to about 26 metres by the time it reaches the ocean.
The top of the wall, and the surface
Sergey checks that we’re still with him
Tony, Sergey and the Russians heading through the tunnel towards the sea
The vertical wall of the tunnel, and the surface
The light of the open sea appears at the end of the tunnel
The tunnel opens onto the sea
Tony’s light illuminates the wall of the tunnel
Large rocks on the tunnel floor, dislodged during storms
We emerge from the tunnel into the ocean
Sergey finning backwards along the wall
The wall outside the tunnel is overgrown with algae and seaweed
The wall drops off to 45-50 metres
Getting across (or through) the Inland Sea to the entrance of the tunnel was a bit uncomfortable – we entered the water next to a small jetty and put our fins on, but it was too shallow to swim and the rocks on the bottom were of an inconvenient size (like melons) and texture (slippery) for walking over. A slow backstroke punctuated by occasional ringing sounds as my tank struck a rock was the order of the day.
Divers heading out to sea
The tunnel and Inland Sea are used by pleasure boats which take tourists through the tunnel, and out into the ocean to see the Azure Window and surrounding coastline. While it’s an overhead environment in the sense that there’s a solid sheet of rock above one’s head, it’s possible to surface in the tunnel (provided one watches out for boats and stays near the sides). We descended at the entrance of the tunnel, straight into several metres of water. As we swam further into the tunnel the rocky bottom cleared to leave a sandy path down the middle of the tunnel. The tunnel slopes downward as one approaches the ocean.
A white tufted wom (Protula tubularia)
I found swimming through the tunnel to be an absolutely mind boggling experience. The blue of the open sea ahead is profound and draws one on through the darkness, and the warm water is incredibly comfortable. It was the kind of place where one can almost hear an imaginary soundtrack of some kind of celestial muzak. I felt that after having this experience I could die, happy. I also felt that this must be what heaven looks like (honestly – I could have stayed in that tunnel forever). But I didn’t die (of happiness) – the end of the tunnel brought us out onto a wall that dropped down to 50 or 60 metres.
Schooling salema fish
Sergey heads towards a school of salema fish
The wall drops to 50 metres in places
Tony and a cloud of damselfish on the wall
Distant Tony, and damselfish
Saddle bream, and disappearing divers
Saddle bream on the wall
Tony cruises along the wall
A fireworm (Hermodice carunculata) inside a cave
We took a long swim along the wall, at varying depths – we probably moved between 25 and 10 metres, following the contour of the outcrops and gullies. There were some weird horizontal thermoclines that manifested themselves visibly as well as through my wetsuit. Shimmering walls of water up ahead indicated a drop (often brief) in temperature. I’m not sure if these weren’t maybe spots where fresh water was seeping out into the sea through the limestone rocks.
Emerging from the vertical tunnel
Tony’s light illuminates the tunnel ahead of me
Swimming out of the tunnel
Tony moving over the sea grass outside the tunnel
Just prior to this dive, Divemaster Sergey asked me in an offhand manner if I was claustrophobic. I replied in the negative, and thought nothing of it until he swam us through a 15 metre vertical tunnel in the rock, just wide enough to accommodate an average-sized diver. The tunnel opened up at about three metres’ depth, and a letterbox type arrangement allowed one to exit. I found this to be quite an intense experience, and was rather impressed with myself afterwards for swimming through the tunnel without batting an eyelid. I don’t have any cavern or cave training (and don’t actually think I want any – open water diving is fine for me!) but there was something wonderful about the caves and holes we swam into in Malta that helped me to understand the allure of overhead environments to braver folk than I (such as Cecil!).
Tony swims above me
We made our way back along the wall and into the tunnel, reversing our route to return to the Inland Sea. Just before the entrance to the Inland Sea we made a safety stop among huge blocks of limestone that have fallen from the ceiling of the tunnel. There was a lot of life here – colourful seaweeds, algae, corals and sponges, and some shy invertebrates who hid from Tony’s video light and my torch.
A fireworm inside the tunnel
There was quite a lot of swimming involved in this dive, and it was fairly demanding both physically and mentally. Obviously Sergey had decided what dive plan we’d follow based on what he’d learned of Tony’s and my air consumption and water skills in the five dives we’d already done under his guidance, and the options for routes and dive plans here are endless. Peter G. Lemon’s book on scuba diving in Malta lists a few of the options, and additional dive plans can be devised from the maps he provides.
Dive date: 4 August 2011
Air temperature: 32 degrees
Water temperature: 24 degrees
Maximum depth: 25.2 metres
Visibility: 35 metres
Dive duration: 53 minutes
Algae and invertebrate life inside the tunnel
Tony safety stopping near the end of the tunnel in the Inland Sea
The Inland Sea is ahead as we return through the tunnel
Large rocks have fallen from the tunnel’s roof to the seafloor
Rocks on the seafloor in the darkness of the tunnel
The tunnel joining the Inland Sea to the open ocean is full of beautiful plant life
The arch at Cirkewwa is located to the northwest of the lighthouse there, along the edge of the reef running along the coast. It is in fact a cavern whose roof is open (perhaps due to a long-ago collapse), with the arch across the entrance. The surrounding reef is covered with sea grass and posodonia beds.
The arch in the distance
Tony filming the arch
The midsection of the arch
Looking out from inside the roofless cavern
Algae, posodonia and sea grasses are abundant here
Cirkewwa arch
Bubbles and the arch
Bubbles rising through the porous limestone
Damselfish and rainbow wrasse among percolating bubbles
Bubbles on the reef
Rainbow wrasse looking for food among the algae beds
Damselfish (and a rainbow wrasse in the foreground)
Tony examining the top of the arch
Tony swimming along the top of the Cirkewwa arch
The drop off to deeper water makes for a lovely wall dive
The top of the arch is at a depth of about 12 metres, and the sand below is at about 20 metres’ depth. The rocks of which the Maltese islands are formed is mainly limestone, which is quite porous and has a tendency to form caves, holes and crevasses (all of which are enjoyed by divers). We loved watching the tiny bubbles coming through the rock – when divers swim under ledges and into caves, the air bubbles from their exhalations find their way straight through the rock.
Damselfish over the sea grass
Schools of fish on the reef
Entering the shallows, sunlight penetrates to a ridiculous degree
Tony investigates
On the left is a swim-through under an arch in the reef
Another natural arch in the limestone reef
The sea grass looks like seahorse country
Tony swims toward home in a cloud of bubbles
The damselfish enjoy edible items dislodged by rising bubbles
Bubbles, sea grass and damselfish
Bubble curtain rising through the limestone rock
Tony swimming along the edge of the reef
Tony checking out one of the many holes and swimthroughs on the reef
We only spent part of the dive at the arch, and the swim from the arch back to the exit point is extremely scenic. I’ve included a number of photographs of the reef, which is representative of all the reefs around Malta.
We found this tag from the University of Malta on the shallow part of the reef
The swim back to Susie’s Pool from the arch is quite long, and along a wall for most of the time. One can choose the depth to swim at – since the water is so clear, the only material consideration is air consumption. Under the wall are many overhangs, and there is rich plant growth and fish life from top to bottom.
Another mini-arch that we were able to swim through
Tony over beds of algae
The remains of some kind of bivalve attached to the reef
Tiny damselfish and a saddled bream
There is rich plant growth into quite deep water, owing to the clarity of the sea in Malta
Tony on the wall at Cirkewwa
A curtain of bubbles from divers below us
Approaching Susie’s pool, our exit point
Red mullet feeding in the shallows
The arch can be dived as a dive by itself (the depth and warm water allowing a long stay!) or, as we did, on the way back from a dive on the tugboat Rozi (hence the maximum depth shown below).
Dive date: 6 August 2011
Air temperature: 31 degrees
Water temperature: 20 degrees
Maximum depth: 34.0 metres
Visibility: 30 metres
Dive duration: 60 minutes
Divemaster Publio swims back to the entry/exit along the wall at Cirkewwa
