Underwater Photography and Gozo Shore Diving.
Note: Feb 2008.
This page is currently a work in progress which should be more or less finished by the end of the month.
Why shore diving?
Well boat dives carry a mixture of photographers and ordinary divers, generally led by an instructor. As usual the pace is too speedy for good photography opportunities, and the photographers are too slow for the rest of the bunch.
Alternatively, you and your dive buddy, can hire a car and go on unaccompanied shore dives. This gives you the time and space to concentrate on your images without interruption from the rest of the dive group. Or (blatent plug) you could also sign up for one of the dedicated Lone Dolphin Photo dives.
I've added a few notes below about the possibilities for underwater photography at each of the main Gozo shore dive sites.
Gozo is basically a 14km by 7km "liveaboard" scuba diving platform. No matter where you stay, nothing is more than a 20 minute drive away, and all of the dives around the island are well described on the various scuba centre websites.
A lot of the coastline is made up of limestone cliffs which are only diveable by boat, but the rest can be easily dived from the shore.
One or two sites like Ta Cenc and Wield L-Ghasri need a bit of hike down stairs, but you just take your time on them and try and avoid diving at mid-day. The 89 steps at Wield L-Ghasri with scuba gear and camera kit at midday in August is not fun.
So, going clockwise from Mgarr in the South East where the Malta ferry comes in, the first shore dives are the three wrecks sunk at Xatt L-Ahmar:
MV Xlendi
This wreck turned turtle and lies hull up with all the superstructure buried in the sand. If you like photographing steel plates then this is for you, but otherwise there is not much on this wreck apart from the propellors.
Karwela and Cominoland.
These wrecks were sunk in August 2006, and both lie upright on a sand bottom at 39 - 40m.
Sinking Karwela video
Sinking Cominoland Video
(not my choice of soundtracks - honest)
The decks are at 32 - 33m which makes these short dives, but the reef at Xatt L-Ahmar has a large plateau at 5 - 6m which is great for buddy shots and safety stops. Both wrecks have open and accessible swim throughs which are great for framing diver shots. Two years on, both are attracting a varied marine growth, so macro images are available, though other sites offer more opportunities.
Next shore diving along the coast is the narrow bay of
Mgarr Ix-Xini.
Just round the corner from Mgarr Ix-Xini is Ta Cenc.
From Ta Cenc round to Xlendi Bay all of the diving is by boat on the limestone cliffs.
Xlendi Bay:
Once you get to the old fishing village then you are in one of the key areas that have a choice of dive centres.
Diving in the bay is very easy. In fact you can walk from any of the dive centres to the sea in less than five minutes, and put the rest of your gear on standing up in waist deep water.
The dives can either start there in the shallow end of the bay, or you can walk along the side of the bay and enter further up by jumping into about 5 metres of water. The main dive is the Xlendi Tunnel and you can either go through the tunnel turnaround and come back for a short shallow dive, or head round the cliff and have a deeper longer dive over the Xlendi Reef.
Xlendi Tunnel:
Starts underwater at about 3 metres, and you enter a fairly open area about 6metres long that has rock overhead before getting to the main tunnel. The tunnel has a large rock in the centre that gives two routes through to the mid section. Generally you go into the tunnel on the right hand side and if coming back though the tunnel then you can take the narrower route on the lhs. The tunnel itself has open water above you and if the sea is calm you can rise to the surface and breath fresh air.
After Xlendi, there is no more shore diving until you reach Dwerja which is the main tourist attraction on the island with the Inland Sea, Azure Window and Fungus Rock.
At Dwerja there are about 5 main shore dive areas
Crocodile Rock
Coral Cave
Chimney
Blue Hole and Azure Window
Inland Sea
You can generally cover 2 or 3 of them in a single dive.
Leaving Dwerja, and going round the coast clockwise again, you have high cliffs and caverns accessible by boat until you reach the main North coast shore dives:
Wield L-Ghasri and Cathedral Cave
Billinghurst Cave
Reqqa Point
Twin Arches
Xwejni Bay
Marsalforn Bay
Dahlet Qorrot.
Finally, you come all the way round the island to the South East again and finish up the shore diving at Hondoq.
This page is currently a work in progress which should be more or less finished by the end of the month.
Why shore diving?
Well boat dives carry a mixture of photographers and ordinary divers, generally led by an instructor. As usual the pace is too speedy for good photography opportunities, and the photographers are too slow for the rest of the bunch.
Alternatively, you and your dive buddy, can hire a car and go on unaccompanied shore dives. This gives you the time and space to concentrate on your images without interruption from the rest of the dive group. Or (blatent plug) you could also sign up for one of the dedicated Lone Dolphin Photo dives.
I've added a few notes below about the possibilities for underwater photography at each of the main Gozo shore dive sites.
Gozo is basically a 14km by 7km "liveaboard" scuba diving platform. No matter where you stay, nothing is more than a 20 minute drive away, and all of the dives around the island are well described on the various scuba centre websites.
A lot of the coastline is made up of limestone cliffs which are only diveable by boat, but the rest can be easily dived from the shore.
One or two sites like Ta Cenc and Wield L-Ghasri need a bit of hike down stairs, but you just take your time on them and try and avoid diving at mid-day. The 89 steps at Wield L-Ghasri with scuba gear and camera kit at midday in August is not fun.
So, going clockwise from Mgarr in the South East where the Malta ferry comes in, the first shore dives are the three wrecks sunk at Xatt L-Ahmar:
MV Xlendi
This wreck turned turtle and lies hull up with all the superstructure buried in the sand. If you like photographing steel plates then this is for you, but otherwise there is not much on this wreck apart from the propellors.
Karwela and Cominoland.
These wrecks were sunk in August 2006, and both lie upright on a sand bottom at 39 - 40m.
Sinking Karwela video
Sinking Cominoland Video
(not my choice of soundtracks - honest)
The decks are at 32 - 33m which makes these short dives, but the reef at Xatt L-Ahmar has a large plateau at 5 - 6m which is great for buddy shots and safety stops. Both wrecks have open and accessible swim throughs which are great for framing diver shots. Two years on, both are attracting a varied marine growth, so macro images are available, though other sites offer more opportunities.
Next shore diving along the coast is the narrow bay of
Mgarr Ix-Xini.
Just round the corner from Mgarr Ix-Xini is Ta Cenc.
From Ta Cenc round to Xlendi Bay all of the diving is by boat on the limestone cliffs.
Xlendi Bay:
Once you get to the old fishing village then you are in one of the key areas that have a choice of dive centres.
Diving in the bay is very easy. In fact you can walk from any of the dive centres to the sea in less than five minutes, and put the rest of your gear on standing up in waist deep water.
The dives can either start there in the shallow end of the bay, or you can walk along the side of the bay and enter further up by jumping into about 5 metres of water. The main dive is the Xlendi Tunnel and you can either go through the tunnel turnaround and come back for a short shallow dive, or head round the cliff and have a deeper longer dive over the Xlendi Reef.
Xlendi Tunnel:
Starts underwater at about 3 metres, and you enter a fairly open area about 6metres long that has rock overhead before getting to the main tunnel. The tunnel has a large rock in the centre that gives two routes through to the mid section. Generally you go into the tunnel on the right hand side and if coming back though the tunnel then you can take the narrower route on the lhs. The tunnel itself has open water above you and if the sea is calm you can rise to the surface and breath fresh air.
After Xlendi, there is no more shore diving until you reach Dwerja which is the main tourist attraction on the island with the Inland Sea, Azure Window and Fungus Rock.
At Dwerja there are about 5 main shore dive areas
Crocodile Rock
Coral Cave
Chimney
Blue Hole and Azure Window
Inland Sea
You can generally cover 2 or 3 of them in a single dive.
Leaving Dwerja, and going round the coast clockwise again, you have high cliffs and caverns accessible by boat until you reach the main North coast shore dives:
Wield L-Ghasri and Cathedral Cave
Billinghurst Cave
Reqqa Point
Twin Arches
Xwejni Bay
Marsalforn Bay
Dahlet Qorrot.
Finally, you come all the way round the island to the South East again and finish up the shore diving at Hondoq.
