Malta, Post 2

It only seems fair that I start off this post by mentioning the MVP of the week. The Maruti, or Banter Wagon as we all called it, took us to our dive sites in (relative) comfort, wind whipping through our hair and giving us great views of the island. We had a few singalongs (sadly the first time in my life that the Fresh Prince theme song was not known by 100% of the people present) and several people mentioned they'd like to import one at home. Not sure I would go that far, but it was fun while we were there!

All aboard!

Dave was a remarkably unflappable driver

We kept taking the roof on and off...

...and then finally fashioning a temporary roof for shade that could be easily removed when driving (ie towels)

Phil and Josh, banter wagon buddies for life. Wearing matching pairs of really reflective sunglasses!

See?

Here are some of the sights from the back of our trusty steed:

We saw this group doing a walking tour and some of our friends were amused by their 'uniform'. But Justin and I, who have taken the same quick-dry pants and buttons down shirts and hiking boots in carry-on luggage to at least a dozen countries so far this year, knew better. Once you've had to wash your clothes in the shower, quick dry is pretty awesome!!

 
I loved this huge Jesus statue (above) on the top of the hill overlooking downtown Marsalforn. According to our dive leader, the statue is meant to watch over the fishermen as they head to sea, and keep them safe. A quick bit of googling tells me that the hill is known as Tas-Salvateur, or Hill of Our Saviour, and there has been a statue of Christ there since at least 1904 (replaced periodically due to wear from the elements). It's about 12 meters tall, and is a smaller replica of the famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

When looking up information on Tas-Salvateur, I found out about another awesome statue of Jesus in Malta that we missed! Well, technically we didn't miss it as it is 35 meters deep, and so was outside our allowable depths. Justin, as an ocean diver, can currently dive to 20 meters. I just finished my sports diver qualification and depth progression, so I can dive to 35 meters, but this happened after the Malta trip. Anyway, this bronze statue was blessed by Pope John Paul II before it was first sunk in 1990, and had to come up for some air and TLC ten years later, before being moved to a new location. If we go back to Malta, I know the first dive I'm requesting!

Photo credit: https://thisisthestoryof.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/underwater-statue-of-jesus-in-malta-photograph/

As we were driving around the island, a few things about the geography were very obvious - the rock is very soft, and was used to build most of the local buildings (you would never want to move to Malta if you hated the colour yellow!). The salt pans are very precise squares cut into the rock, and we found plenty of non-official 'signs' carved in there as well. Here are some of my favourites:

Just another day of lousy Maltese weather. This area had irregular shapes for the salt pans rather than squares, but I'm not sure why

This seems legit!

They probably could have filmed some of the Tatooine scenes in Star Wars here

Here you can see the colour of the buildings which matches the local stone, and also a very high-tech gas station on the side of the road in Marsalforn

More building materials

After spending all day in that hot sun, we really enjoyed the pool in the afternoons. Here some of the group tried to sink a bunch of furniture to get a picture sitting on the bottom in the deep end (sadly this did not work as well as expected).

And here is Kieran giving Sam an unexpected shower, from the comfort of his own bedroom:

While we spent most of our evenings at the farmhouse, we did go out for a few nice dinners. One was at the pizza restaurant I closed the last post with, and here's a group shot at the table:

My favourite dive of the whole week was a night dive that we did the day after that pizza dinner. We returned to the shallow bay where we had our first dive, just as the sun was setting. It was pretty spectacular above the surface, and even more exciting below! I'm waiting for the underwater pictures (thanks Josh!), but our group was lucky enough to see several cuttlefish, moray eels, and other nocturnal beasties. We were also lucky enough to get left behind accidentally by our dive leader in the darkness, so we waved our flashlights around above our heads like human lighthouses for a bit then rendezvoused with him at the surface. All's well that ends well!

Heading down to the water

As we arrived....

...and a few minutes later

Sadly, there were only a few minutes here and there to admire the absolutely fantastic sunset, because there was a lot of kitting up to do before it got too dark to see!

Before

After (colder!)

Here are a few other pre-dive plans and discussions with our dive leaders. I can't wait for my Bubbles sweatshirt (lime green with a purple interior!) to be delivered from Malta - any day now!

Sometimes we had to have these discussions because the plans had changed based on weather (usually wind). Once we drove across the island to a dive site only to arrive and find that the sea looked like this. It's hard to capture on a still picture, but the water level was rising and falling several meters, rather dramatically against the jagged rocks where we were supposed to enter:

Uhhh, no thanks

Luckily, since Gozo is a tiny island, you can just head over to the leeward side and get beautiful calm waters instead. Here is someone descending into the famous Blue Hole just under the Azure Window from the last post. We'll leave it there, but plenty of pictures and videos still to come!