Xlendi, Gozo #1
View from room at St. Pat's
June 2015
We flew out of East Midlands airport for once, its nice to be able to go from your local airport and a lot less hassle. We got an excellent deal on-line with Chevron Holidays, staying half board at St. Patricks Hotel in Xlendi. I also booked a 6 dive package with UTINA Diving College which is just across the way from the hotel.
Monday 8th
Arrived at the hotel on Gozo at 10pm, 12 hours after we left home. A very long day! Room looks OK on first inspection and from the top (5th) floor it has a great view over the bay from a large balcony big enough to have sunbeds as well as chairs and table. Unfortunately the restaurant closed at 10pm so we missed out on an evening meal. Went to a little greasy spoon cafe next door and purchased a baguette!
Sea Caves
Tuesday 9th
After breakfast I checked in with Utina Diving College, they really were just across the road from St. Pat's., we then caught the bus to Victoria. I can recommend the little coffee bar next to the bus station, very good service and value for money. Had a well needed beer in IT-TOKK Bar Reastaurant, next to the old Market Square which was still undergoing renovations and they haven't had a market there for 6 months.
In the afternoon we booked a boat tour which took us around the rugged, rocky coast of Gozo, with several stops along the way in sunny bays to get off and snorkel, including the Blue Lagoon on Comino where I got stung on the knee by a jellyfish! The boat actually didn't start from Xlendi and we joined it en-route (at a discount, of course) by going out to meet it in a smaller boat and transferring. Some of the sea caves along the way were quite large and the boat went into them quite deeply.
Ate in the hotel restaurant this evening. Service very slow, I think they forgot us! After 30 minutes we called a waitress over and asked to order our meal, she said we had to order with the man in the suit, the head waiter. After a further 20 minutes we got hold of him and he covered himself nicely by saying 'Haven't they taken your order yet? I will sort you out.' We were that hungry that we'd eaten all but one piece of the bread by the time the meal finally came, not having eaten since breakfast at 7am and this was 9pm. 'I will get you some more bread,' the 'Manuel' type character said, taking away the one piece of bread that was left. Needless to say, no more bread turned up that evening!
Wednesday 10th
1st dive of the holiday took me, at around 09:30, to The Inland Sea and through the 80mtr tunnel to the wall beyond. Not an abundance of wildlife to be seen; Damsel fish, lots of long green catapillar type creatures and some Nudibranchs inside the tunnel, but passing through the tunnel itself was actually the point of the dive, starting at 3mtr and soon dropping to 21mtr as we passed through. An enchanting dive.
At 14:00 we were at Ras Il-Hobz for the second dive, a pinnacle with an abundance (for the Med) of wildlife. Moray Eel, Tuna, Damsels, Scorpion fish to name but a few. A pleasant, easy dive, hitting a maximum depth of 19mtr and then spiralling up the pinacle at a leisurely pace and heading back to shore at 10mtr across the 40mtr abyss.
Dinner in the restaurant was a pretty similar, slow experience to the previous night. The waitress delivered our drinks and as she was putting my wife's down on the table she tilted the tray she was carrying them on and my bottle of wine fell over. Luckily I was ahead of her and caught it before too much spilt. Started off the previous evening with 6 different sweets on offer, tonight there were 5 left from the original selection.
Moray Eel at Ras Il-Hobz
MV Cominoland
Thursday 11th
I'm excited to have dived a wreck today. We went to Xatt L-Ahamar Reef where there are actually three wrecks all accessibile from the same entry point. It is only really possible to dive one of them at a time on normal SCUBA gear as the are all in depths between 38 and 40 mtrs. You really only get 10 minutes on the wreck itself before you have to leave to avoid long decompression stops.
We dived the MV Cominoland as other divers were already on the MV Karwela which would have been the nearer to dive. However, MV Cominoland is an excellent dive and we had it all to ourselves. Commissioned in 1941 in England as a minelayer for the Navy, it is 34.5 mtrs long and 8.8 mtrs wide and weighed 263 tons. In 1966 it went to Malta and in 1968 was converted to a passenger ferry within Valletta (Grand Harbour), capacity 400 on foot and 10 cars. It changed hands a few times and was eventually sunk in 2006 as an atrificial reef.
It was a nice swim through the passenger deck, a crab had made its home on the deck! Out the other end we circled around and back over the top to the prow then around the chimney stack as we started our ascent. Heading back towards our entry/exit point we spent time decompressing and exploring the reef, seeing Scorpion Fish, Octopus, Nudibranch.
In the afternoon we headed to Xwenji Bay (Marsalforn) which, due to the concrete boat ramp, had a fairly easy entry and exit point. Even Mrs C went along and snorkelled! A shallow dive of 10.4 mtrs maximum we saw lots of Octopus hiding in holes under the reef. They pull small rocks in front of themselves to help disguise their position but that is also a bit of a giveaway. Not a spectacular dive but a pleasant bimble over Neptune Grass and gravel bottom, fissures and gulleys, with a nice swimthrough of a narrow canyon. Very relaxing hour long dive.
Tonight there were only 4 choices of sweet, it this continues we'll be down to a choice of 1 by the end of the holiday. Vegetables with the meal were Aubergines for the third time which neither of us particularly care for, so we ordered chips and carrots instead, that being the only other choice they could provide.
Friday 12th
1st dive of the day took us back to Xatt L-Ahmar Reef and the second wreck, the MV Karwela at around 09:15. We were the first of the day to dive it and had it all to ourselves, but again it was a short exploration, just 12 minutes at 37.7 mtr deep to swim through the deck and out the other end, passing by the staircase amidships and on through the passenger deck. On top we saw one of the biggest Scorpion Fish I've ever seen, it must have been at least 24 inches long!
The MV Karwela started life in 1957 as MS Frisia. Twin diesels gave her a top speed of 10 knots and she was 8.5 mtr wide and 50.3 mtr long, weighing in at 495 ton. Came to Malta in 1987 to serve as a passenger ferry with a capacity of 800 passengers. She was sunk along with the MV Cominoland in 2006 with just 25 minutes between the two going down.
Leaving the wreck and starting our slow ascent, we headed back in towards the reef, spotting a nice Torpedo Ray on the way. Bimbled around on the reef for 25 mins at around the 6 mtr level, only thing of note there that day was an Octopus hiding under a shelf. Another excellent 49 minute dive.
MV Karwela
After lunch we dived Xlendi Bay and Tunnel. The Tunnel is a 55 mtr swim through, quite wide for the most part and looking very eerie in the torchlight. Having passed through we bimbled the reef for a while on the other side and then returned through it to the bay. Octopus (large and small), small Scorpion Fish, Fireworms and two Flying Gurnards were notable encounters.
True to form, the sweets were down to just three choices tonight. Once again we had to call the waiting staff over to place our orders, otherwise we would have been eating the paper table cloth. Thankfully they've grown used to us wanting a refill of the bread basket when the meal finally arrives.
The Blue Hole and Azure Window
Saturday 13th
Squeezed an extra dive in this morning, well, it would have been rude not to, not to mention the fact that I would have missed out on an excellent dive in 'The Blue Hole'. The Blue Hole is a 16 mtrs deep hole about 15 mtrs across. It is accessed over some very rough terrain over which you have to carry all of your SCUBA gear. Basically you put everything on, except your mask and fins which you take with you and try to balance as you traverse the treaturous lava field. That said, it was well worth the struggle.
We dropped into the hole and descended to about 10 mtrs. At this level there is an exit in the wall which leads out below a unique, above water, rock formation called the Azure Window. We passed beneath the 'Window' and continued out into the open water. A large Common Octopus received a rude awakening by our cameras as we explored the massive boulder strewn reef. Heading back we entered a cave which went back perhaps 25 mtrs and was equally as wide. In a narror fissure we found a Conga Eel resting peacefully until our camera flashes made it turn its back on us (if a Conga Eel can turn its back?). Then back out through the 'hole' to complete a 52 minute dive reaching a maximum depth of 27 mtrs.
Good news, sweet choices were back up to five tonight! It's hard to describe the ripple of excitement that flowed through the assembled diners. Finally had a change from wine with the meal and decided to try one of the locally brewed, bottle conditioned craft beers they were advertising. The glass they brought to drink it from was far too small to get it all into which meant that you had to stop pouring about halfway through, which in turn meant that the yeast sediment in the bottom of the bottle got mixed into the beer and ruined it. The head waiter (Manuel or Basil?) looked around for an easy exit route when he saw me approaching with bottle and glass of ruined beer in hand, but he could not escape! After explaining at some length what the problem was we settled on using a pint glass because 'we only have one of the proper glasses for the beer left', he said.
Sunday 14th
The afternoon dive on Saturday was called off due to a rise in wind which caused the sea to become very lumpy indeed. They tried 3 different sites to no avail so it was lucky I'd completed all the dives I wanted to do. We were going to hire a motorboat from the harbour for the afternoon but that was off for the same reason, so we used the local buses to visit the Craft Village that Mrs C wanted to go to.
We spent the morning today collecting all my dive gear from the dive shop, paying the bill, which was quite reasonable for seven dives, oh, and a new battery for my tank pressure sensor transmitter which they fitted for me at the dive shop, and updating this blog on our spacious balcony. Sally and Neil were very professional and accommodating and Toby who was my dive guide was excellent. I can't recommend Utina Diving College highly enough, they lived up to my expectations of what a professional dive centre should be like, and more. Thank you Utina!
St. Patrick's Hotel
Blue Hole with divers in water.
St Patricks Hotel was overall quite reasonable; the room was spacious and the balcony gave us spectacular views over the bay. Each evening we ate outside next to the lapping water of the bay which was very enjoyable and relaxing. Well, god knows, we had plenty of time to take in the wonderful view as we waited for our food. One cannot help, however, but draw similarities between St. Pats and that classic British hotel sitcom 'Fawlty Towers' (Basil?), but that all adds to the unique charm of the place. We would definitely come back again, perhaps to St. Pats on B&B basis rather than Half Board, given the 20 or more restaurants that surround the hotel and the bay/harbour, or perhaps to one of the many apartments that also surround the bay.