Diving in Malta on cruise

[mhughes]

My wife and I will be on a cruise in August that stops at Valleta Malta and it looks as though there is some good diving there. We both have advanced and nitrox certifications. I have emailed a dive operation there called Anchor Diving Systems and they have responded back that they can pick us up at the pier and then go to a sight for shore diving. My questions are 1.Is this the best company to deal with or is there someone better? 2. Is shore diving there the best idea or is there a better opportunity from a boat dive seeing better life and features? 3.Lastly what would be considered fair prices in that region. Thank You for any assistance you could offer.
Mike Hughes

 

[cherrie_bec]

Hi,
I have just come back from diving in Malta last month, mid June. I did my dives with a company called Delfini Dives in St julians bay which is about 15mins from Valleta. Most of the dives in Malta are from the shore. I did 2 dives on the Maori which is a good dive to get back in the water if you havent been for a while, but there wasnt too much to see. I did my wreck specialty so it was great for skills practice.
My next two dives were on the Um El Fraud which is off the south coast of malta, you get to it by the Blue Grotto, the bottom sits at about 30m, it was my first big wreck and I was in awe. it has great swim throughs and is good to explore. You definatly need more than one dive on it though, its so big. 2 other dives from Malta that I was really keen to do but ran out of time for was the P29 (shore dive) and the bristol bomber (boat dive).
My other dives took place from Gozo, once again all shore dives, or rock climbing dives which was a bit warm in the sun at times but always worth it when I got in the water. There are so many really good diving places in Malta, and I am dying to get back, It has been one of my best diving holidays so far, up there with Egypt and New Zealand. There isnt a huge amount of sea life, not what I am used to anyway but seeing big schools of large fish definately made up for it.
I really hope you enjoy your holiday as much as I did. I checked out about 5 different dive companies while I was there and they all seemed about the same price, around 35-40 euros per shore dive with guide and transport.

 

[String]

As stated most of Maltas diving is shore diving but thats because the wrecks are in easy reach of shore.

HMS Maori comes to mind as a valletta based shore dive they might take you to. Faroud, Gozo and so on likely to be too far for a cruise stop but Maori and so on are decent dives and doable.

As for which company - for an island only about 8 miles across it has 40+ dive centres because the diving there is so good. All offer about the same product and service for about the same price so really doesn't matter who you chose.