Diving in Malta

Um El Faroud, the 115-metre tanker off Wied iz-Zurrieq, tops most lists as the island's biggest and most complete wreck. The Cirkewwa circuit is the other headline dive, pairing the P29 and Rozi wrecks with a limestone arch from one shore entry. For a shallow, gentle option, HMS Maori is a real WWII destroyer bow at 14 metres. Gozo and Comino, Malta's island neighbours, have their own signature dives and are usually done as separate trips.

Most of the famous wrecks are shore dives. Um El Faroud is a surface swim from the Wied iz-Zurrieq slipway, and the P29 and Rozi sit a couple of hundred metres off the Cirkewwa entry. A handful of sites are boat-only, including the Bristol Blenheim bomber and the Imperial Eagle ferry, but shore access is the norm here rather than the exception.

It depends on your certification. Maltese rules let you dive independently only if you are qualified to 30 metres, meaning Advanced Open Water, CMAS two-star or an equivalent. Divers below that level must be accompanied by a licensed instructor. Even certified visitors often dive with a local centre anyway, since wind and swell make same-day local knowledge valuable.

No. Much of Malta's coast lies inside the Natura 2000 network, but those are habitat-conservation designations, not no-take reserves, and they carry no diving permit, quota or fee. The 'Cirkewwa Marine Park' you see in dive marketing is a managed dive-tourism zone, not a legally closed reserve. You pay for a centre's services, nothing more.

May to October brings the warmest water, longest days and fullest centre schedules, and September is the single most-recommended month for its warm sea and thinning crowds. Malta dives year-round, though: winter water sits around 14 to 17 degrees and asks for a 7mm semi-dry or drysuit, and the deeper wrecks stay cool below the summer thermocline whatever the surface reads.

Summer surface temperatures run 22 to 28 degrees, dropping to the mid-to-high teens on the deeper wrecks below the thermocline; a 5mm wetsuit or thin semi-dry suits most summer diving. Winter surface water falls to 14 to 17 degrees, when a 7mm semi-dry or a drysuit is the sensible choice, especially for the deep Valletta wrecks.

Yes, though the depth range is wide. Shallow harbour wrecks like HMS Maori and X127, the training bays at Cirkewwa and Wied iz-Zurrieq, and the sunlit caverns at Ghar Lapsi and Qawra Point all sit within Open Water limits. The signature scuttled wrecks reach 34 metres or more and want Advanced Open Water, so a mixed group can share a coastline without sharing a dive.

Because wind direction, not water temperature, governs diving here. One coast shelters while the opposite is churned up, and the calm side changes day to day, so centres route divers to whichever access point is workable that morning. It is why a rigid site-by-site itinerary planned before you arrive rarely survives contact with the forecast.