Scuba Diving in Malta

Are you coming to Malta and thinking of what to do? Is there anything you haven’t done on your previous visits? Or are you living in Malta and trying to do something new, maybe a little bit out of your comfort zone? Well, have you thought of scuba diving? Just in case you didn’t know Malta won the 2018 Destination for diving, in 2017 Malta was voted second year in a row the 2nd best diving destination worldwide! And that’s just to mention the most recent awards!

So I thought why not to talk about scuba diving this time and walk you through the Introductory Scuba Diving session, where you will be shown the basic, learn what it feels like to breathe under water and find down if scuba diving is actually your thing.

Because I cannot dive at the moment for healthy reasons (as scuba diving is not recommended for pregnant women) I needed a volunteer! Below is my very good friend Kim, who hasn’t snorkeled or ever wore fins before this dive, so it is really suitable for complete beginners. I have a diving licence myself (Open Water up to 18 metres), which I have done couple of years ago, so next year, I can do a follow up blog for ‘intermediate’ divers. 🙂

There are dozens and dozens of diving centres around Malta, so you will have plenty of choice. Kim has done her Introductory Scuba Dive with the Corsair Diving Malta in Buggiba (5* reviews on Trip Advisor). It’s a small diving centre with a very friendly atmosphere and you immediately feel at ease. Here we met with Chris, the owner, as well as Fiona, who was Kim’s instructor for the dive. Kim filled a health questionnaire to make sure that she is healthy and good to dive together with some basic paper work. The next step was to try the wet-suit and goggles. Once this was chosen, we jumped into the car and moved to our diving location, which was just couple of blocks away.

This was our diving stop and also a place where Fiona familiarized Kim with some basic diving rules that she would need to know for her Introductory Scuba Dive. I always thought that theory is boring, but looking at these two they are having a lot of fun! Haha! The Corsair Diving Malta instructors are using this handy tool to show their students the theory in pictures, very simple and easy to understand.

This theoretical part was done on location, just before the actual dive and took approximately 20 minutes. At the end there was a quick quiz to check that you’ve understood what you’ve just learned and if there were any issues or misunderstanding, it would be addressed again.

And they are ready to go! I was getting a bit jealous at this point as I really wanted to do it myself, but better save than sorry so I stayed on the shore watching. 🙁 Kim’s diving instructor Fiona is already in the water, helping Kim to get ready and Chris kindly volunteered to dive as well so he can take some underwater pictures for us!

And here they are! The Introductory Scuba Dive normally starts in a natural pool similar to this one, so you can get used to the feeling of breathing under water, which is honestly pretty scary and it does freak you out at the beginning, but once you get used to it, it’s pretty awesome!

If you wish to do further dives you need to prove your comfort and safety in the water by learning the below three skills:

1) The Regulator Clear,

2) and the Regulator Recover basically mean that if you were to lose your regulator (the item from which you breath) then you are able to regain it, put it back in your mouth and successfully start to breath again.

3) The last skill is the Partial Mask Flood, which means that if your mask was to leak for any reason then you are able to clear this water from your mask and able to continue your dive in comfort.

Don’t worry if you don’t manage to master these skills at this very first scuba dive. The most important thing is that are actually enjoying the experience. So if it means just going for a swim with your instructor, learning how to equalize your ears properly and getting comfortable being underwater it’s all totally fine. Don’t stress yourself too much, this is not a competition, it’s fun and if you are getting out of your conform zone it’s already an accomplishment in itself!

The diving instructor is with you all the time, helping you with anything you need, so you can relax as there is always someone to assist you. Also you won’t be diving deeper than 4 meters at this try dive, so if something (very unlikely) happens, you can just go straight up. No need for a safety stop as you are not deep enough. So really don’t worry! 🙂

I know, there is a lot to take in on your very first dive, but don’t forget to look around! Malta haven’t won all those scuba diving awards for nothing! There is some great marine life down there so keep your eyes open! Look at this cool fish which they saw! It’s called a Cuttlefish.

And they survived! Big thank you to Chris and Fiona as well as my brave volunteer Kim, who wanted to try something new as well as to face some of her fears. Big well done to you, you did it!

Now it’s time to summarize what we have done here:

Diving Centre: Corsair Diving Malta (Trip Advisor)
Location: Buggiba
Dive: Introductory Scuba Dive
Duration: 2h (including: introduction, transportation and diving)
Number of students: 1 – 3 per instructor
Price: €45 (including all equipment)

This should be everything you need to know with the Google Map just below. Let me know if you are going to try it and how was your experience, so I can at least listen to your amazing experiences guys and wait a little bit for my own. 🙂