Um El Faroud

The stern is the first part of her a diver meets. It lies closest to the Wied iz-Zurrieq inlet, and her huge propeller sits in a hollow in the sand below it. Getting there is a swim of about 150 metres: stride in below the small lower car park, cross the valley keeping some depth, follow the wall out of the valley mouth and then strike out south-west, passing a diving-helmet statue on the seabed that marks the halfway point. The tanker sits upright on her keel, parallel to the reef with her starboard side towards it.

One diver's route runs from the stern along her side, past the break amidships, to the bow, looks down from the bow to the sand, then turns back to the superstructure. From there it heads north-north-east along the reef to the valley mouth, exploring caverns on the way, and exits on the eastern wall below the diver ladders. Sponges cover most of the steel. Bogue shoal over the deck in their thousands and pour down the sides as divers come close, barracuda, tuna and jacks pass overhead, and squid and barracuda are sometimes met around the stern.

A full-size tanker, big enough that one dive only samples part of her, lies a short swim from a shore entry. Divers and dive shops single her out as one of Malta's best wreck dives, and the reason is as much her design as her size. Before she was scuttled, every door and window was removed and entry and exit holes were cut into her, so trained wreck divers have a choice of ways in: hatches on the bridge, the cabins and galleys, hull hatches just below the deck, stairs down to the engine room, a shaft from behind the funnel straight down into it, and a passage from the engine room forward and out through the bridge front. The holds lie open where the blast wrenched the deck apart.

Her break gave the site a second shape: bow and stern now lie as two sections, and divers treat the gap between them as a sight of its own. Regulars advise against trying to fit the interior and a full tour of the outside into one dive; the usual plan is two dives, one for the outside and one for the inside, or bow and stern on separate dives.

She was launched on 31 May 1969 at Smith's Dock Company, South Bank, for Graff-Wang & Evjen of Oslo, as the tanker Seafalcon. In 1973 she took the name Um El Faroud under Libyan ownership, and she carried refined fuel between Italy and Libya. Her length is given as both 109.5 and 115 metres.

On 3 February 1995 she was in Dock 3 of the Malta Drydocks for repairs when, at 10:15pm, an explosion ripped through the ship1. Nine dockyard workers were killed: seven at once, and two who died later at St Luke's Hospital. It is remembered as one of the worst disasters in Malta's peacetime history. The two inquiries that followed were merged under the same magistrate, and they found that the drydocks' management bore the lion's share of responsibility2. The families later received compensation from the government, on behalf of the Malta Drydocks, in an out-of-court settlement.

Judged beyond repair, the ship stayed in the dock for three years. After the inquiry closed she was patched and towed out of Grand Harbour on the morning of 2 September 1998, and after nearly four hours of filling through purpose-fitted sea valves she went down off Wied iz-Zurrieq as an artificial reef and dive site, watched by crowds on the shore. A brass plaque naming the nine men is fixed to the front of her bridge, and a monument at the entrance to Cospicua, near the dock, also commemorates them.

The minimum is Advanced Open Water or equivalent, which covers the funnel, bridge and deck. The propeller lies deeper than that range, and an operator that runs the dive asks for certification to 30 metres and recommends Deep Diver and Nitrox. Tourist boats use the valley, so cross it at depth on the way out. Parking at the bottom is limited and the hill down to the water is very steep: arrive early, or expect to drop your kit and park a long way from the entry. Going inside is a separate qualification: penetration requires Wreck Diver certification, and the engine room below is an overhead environment.

The wreck is not incident-free. In April 2016 a diver on a guided group dive to her died of barotrauma after a very rapid ascent. One diver in the group was short of air, so the whole group surfaced early, away from the planned exit, and drifted off course in the currents at the surface; some swam ashore and others had to be rescued by helicopter. A court cleared the instructor in 20183.