Over the years Malta has become one of the world’s most popular destination for scuba diving, for reasons that 13 Officer Cadets from Exeter University Officer Training Corp were lucky enough to find out for themselves. Although it had felt like the trip was always months away, the group suddenly found themselves on a plane flying to Malta where they would spend two weeks discovering the fantastic dive sites that were on offer.
The trip involved 5 days diving followed by a rest day and five more days diving, in which we were assisted the whole time by an ESAD who directed the majority of the diving and planned our trips. The group were no strangers to the early starts and long days, with everyone sharing the responsibility of picking up and dropping off the cylinders each day when they needed to be refilled. Collecting the cylinders from those at Dive Deep Blue, who also lent us other kit and their own expertise, certainly resulted in some muscle gain! The kit itself was assigned to each person and everyone was in charge of their own kit, ensuring that it made it back with us and received the appropriate care. Although this may have seemed like a lot of work at the time, it was worth it for the incredible diving that we had the honour of doing.
From Cirkewwa to the wreck of HMS Maori, the group was able to dive at some truly awesome sites, something that many of us would not have been able to do without the OTC and supporting donors. Each dive was different, allowing us to swim with the exotic fish and visit the statue of Madonna at Cirkewwa and then the next day explore the wreck of the X127, which was the first wreck dive for many of the group.
General consensus amongst the group was that although every dive provided different challenges and scenes, the two favourite dives were those carried out at the Azure Window, Gozo, and the boat dive that took us to the P31 patrol boat, which is off the shore of Comino. The Azure Window, coupled with breath-taking scenery, presented us with the Blue Hole, where there is an accessible cave and an arch which leads out to the Azure Window. Then on the last day our ESAD had organised a boat dive, which was another first time experience for numerous members of the trip. With appropriate awe that the sea was so blue and the wreck of the P31 patrol boat was visible from the surface despite being around 20m down, the divers headed down to investigate. Being able to swim into the wreck and explore all the nooks and crannies made this a particularly memorable dive.
Whilst the group did have plenty of fun dives, the biggest challenge of Ex. Sharking Tiger for both Ocean Divers and Sports Divers was completing the multiple lessons needed to gain the next qualification. Perhaps the most important lessons involved the potential Sports Divers being able to rescue their buddy in the event that they had passed out underwater and tow them to shore, where the unconscious diver was taken out the water and cared for under the direction of the budding Dive Leaders. While this may have alarmed the unsuspecting beach-goers, this was valuable training for all the divers and has allowed 6 Ocean Divers to progress to Sports Divers, two Sports Diver crossovers from PADI and 3 Sports Divers to gain essential experience for their Dive Leader.
Without the trip, many of us would have missed out on the opportunity to further our diving knowledge, especially being able to do our training in the rich diving sites of Malta.
