Malta, Post 1

As most of you with Facebook accounts have seen by now, Justin and I went to Malta from April 9-16th. We joined the scuba club at the university to learn something new and make some new friends, and it's definitely been our social highlight of the year. I've been delaying writing these posts because I've been overwhelmed by the sheer number of pictures to go through - everyone shared their photos, and several people also had underwater cameras, and there are literally thousands of pictures to go through. How would I ever sort them? Then I realized I was worrying way too much about how to order a simple blog post, when all people really want is to see some pretty pictures and hear that we had a good time! So with that in mind, here's the first batch of pictures to share, and we'll be uploading through the week.

So Malta is a really beautiful place. And when I say Malta, I mean the smaller island of Gozo, since that's where we spent 96% of our time. It's 67 square kilometers and has a population of 37,000 people. The weather was absolutely fantastic while we were there, and it was great to experience all of the different landscapes so close together.

Just remember - this is all within 15 or 20 km in a straight line!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stayed in a couple of adjoining farmhouses which had a lot of character. Our friends gave us one of the few private bedrooms in the upper floor, which was lovely. The primitive plumbing wasn't up to the task and we had to lie down in the tub if we wanted any water pressure, but luckily there were other bathrooms in the basement!

Most important feature - double pools!

Our group hired a dive centre for the week, and they did an excellent job not only planning and leading our dives, but driving us around to each location and providing so many different experiences. This was our first dive, in Mgarr Ix-Xini Bay, and you get an idea of how we set up at each dive site and kitted up beforehand.

 

Our next dive entered the water through the salt pans. This is a very old industry in Malta. Farmers collect sea water and put it in the deeper squares (see 2nd picture) for a few days to evaporate a lot of the water, then move it to the shallow squares to completely dry up, leaving behind the sea salt which they basically swept up into dustpans and bagged! This gives you an idea of how soft the rock was on the island. Also, I think these people want you to stay out of the salt pans:

 

 

 

We actually kitted up to the right of the picture (on the side of the road) and entered the water to the left of the picture. And if you think there was a pathway through the salt pans, you'd be wrong. So we had to walk along the stones lining the individual pools, wearing about 40 lbs of gear and several layers of neoprene in the hot sun. And god help you if you wobbled and stepped in a farmer's pool! Scuba may be many things, but it isn't glamorous or dignified!

After another dive, five of us decided to do a quick cliff jump. I'm the one wearing the hood; apparently my poor blood pressure and freezing extremities continue even in the tropics. Plus, it protected me from the jellyfish we saw at each dive. Two members of our group and our dive leader got stung, but not me!

We did not synchronize this well!

 Good times!

Another dive was to the Inland Sea, and you can see where it got its name:

  

The cool thing about the Inland Sea was that you start off this pier, and hug the left side of the crack through the rock, because it's really shallow at first and you're sharing it with all of the tour boats. Then you drop deeper and stop worrying about death by propeller, and at some point you see this wonderful blue light ahead of you (into the ocean) and look back and the light is green-tinged (the Inland Sea). I'm still getting some underwater pictures from friends so hopefully I can share one later!

At the same area is the Azure Window, which was formed by a cave collapsing eons ago. It is ridiculously picturesque. In fact, the rocks where people are standing below is where Game of Thones filmed Daenerys' wedding to Khal Drogo. There were apparently several shooting locations in Malta, not hard to see why!

 

For some reason we spent our lunch break sitting on the rocks in the blasting sun. There were a few sunburns on this trip! I ended up cramming myself into the shade on the right behind Christian, standing on the right (I'm on meds that make me sunburn incredibly easily).

I thought I'd leave this first post with some random things that I enjoyed seeing around Malta.

Mailboxes. We've seen a lot of these in the UK. E(II)R is the cypher (or monogram) of Queen Elizabeth the Second, and we've seen her initials all over the country and commonwealth. I didn't know this until we got back from the Malta trip, but mailboxes continue to bear the initials of the monarch at the time they were installed, not changed with each one. This box says GR (George Rex or King George) which means it could only have been installed in Malta during two time periods. The first is from 1925 (when George V's cypher was moved from the middle to the bottom of the post box) to 1936 (when he died), or between late 1936 when George VI took over the throne from his brother Edward VIII (who abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson) and summer 1937 when Elizabeth's father got his new cypher (GR VI). Until then they were using up old GR boxes because they hadn't planned on a king abdicating and didn't have any other mailboxes lying around!

 

Less interesting historically, but funny - there is a lot of horse racing on Gozo. And what better way to take your young future champion out for training while not expending the slightest effort yourself?

I also liked this guy taking his palm tree for a drive (I kid, I kid).

Lastly, our dive centre took us out one night to a local restaurant for homemade pizza and wine. How good does this look?

And here was the view from the patio of the restaurant. What a tough life!