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!

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!