Malta - Scuba diving and more

Malta is an Eurpean islands state, located in the center of the Mediterranean Sea between the North African coast and Sicily from which it distances only 80 Km. It actually comprises of three islands, Malta, Comino and Gozo with a population of less then 500k people on 316 square Km.

Malta has an extremely rich history, starting from amazing prehistoric misterious temples till the WWII, passing through several invasions and the famous knights od Saint John's ruling.

We just spent two weeks of our summer vacation in Malta where we equally divided our time between diving and sightseeing with just only few beach days in between.


Diving is mainly from shore, the coast has very attractive and scenographic sea bottom landscapes with plenty of caves, fractures, arches and walls. There are lots of wrecks, some sunked on purpose within the maximum recreational depth limit of 40 meters  and others, generally deeper, as consequence of WWII battles or bad weather.

On the contrary to our expectations, the marine life is quite various and abundant, actually it is one of the most alive bottoms we saw in the Mediterranean Sea.


Diving is not only the main touristic attraction but it is also the national hobby, especially tec diving. In fact lots of Malteses take a dive as soon as they can to visit the deeper wrecks of reefs. We have been told that in Malta there are more than 200 CCR (read rebreathers) divers.

Malta is definetly one of the most attractive diving destination in the Mediterranean but it is not only about diving because Malta and Gozo have so much to offer in terms of sighteeing. There are lots of museums, historical sites and natural spots all over the islands. Valletta, Rbat and Vittoria are must see cities together with the prehistoric temples.


In two weeks we have been able to see only a small portion of what the two islands have to offer but we went to the most iconic dive sites.

You can get an idea of what we've experienced by watching the videos we took during our vacation, on our YouTube playlist dedicated to Malta and Gozo.

Malta is definetly a nice and convinient touristic destination with excellent opportunites for divers and non divers.

The prices of real estare are not excessively expensive but not cheap either. At the present there are a lot of construction activities on going and the future availablity of houses will substantially increase in the next coming years and that could likley lower the average properties' cost; something to monitor in the future.

There is only one negative side for our Project Calypso: there is a winter season and local people we met confirmed that is quite normal for coldest days to reach 10C deg. Not a freezing winter but much colder than what we are looking for.

For this reason, we would not consider Malta as our primary choice for the plan B.

Next year our summer vacation will be dedicated to Lanzarote, the other potential plan B destination. 

Stay tuned.


Location: Malta

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular

Jamaica

Image
  Jamaica is one of the most famous island countries in the Caribbean thanks to its history, nature, rum and lifestyle but also to popular Jamaicans such as Bob Marley and Usain Bolt. The Island is located 145 km south of Cuba and 191 Km west of Hispaniola and after them, it is the third largest one of the Caribbean Under Spanish domain till 1655 when the island was conquered by British who renamed it Jamaica. During the English period, Jamaica was leading the sugar export with its plantations.  Independent since 1962, today Jamaica has a population of almost 3 million people, a stable democratic government with a constitutional monarchy headed by Elizabeth II as Queen of Jamaica. In the last decade, the island saw an important economic growth and a general improvement of life quality. Mining, agriculture and tourism are the main pillars of the Jamaican economy. With an average of 4,3 millions visitors a year, in 2019 tourism accounted for 20% of the Country GDP with a positive trend
Read more

Ehi wait a sec! What about a Plan C?

Image
Portoferraio - Elba Island - Mediterranean Sea Do we really need a plan C?  Actually not, one back-up plan is normally more than enough unless you are NASA trying to send people on Mars and we definitely are not. The fact is that in the last weeks....maybe more months....thoughts went wild, focusing a lot on ocean conservation, minimalism, freedom, scuba diving as inner peace and self rediscovery experience. So these new ideas coming up are now slowly distancing us from a classic touristic model and moving to explore alternatives which are looking more at our impact on the environment, on our and others lives and less at how to get an income, even if low.. Plan C in fact starts from a totally different prospective. It is not about finding the best way to ensure a minimum income to be able to live sufficiently comfortable in a warm place with limited responsibilities. No, this plan starts from thinking which would be the best way to live with the minimum possible cost in a warm place wi
Read more

Barbados

Image
Barbados is an independent island Country of 432 sq Km in the Lesser Antilles with a population of less than 300,000 people, part of the Commonwealth.  Independent since 1966, Barbados is expected to remove the Queen and to become a republic  by November 2021. The capital of this former British colony is Bridgetown. The economy is mixed and well developed. Historically, the local economy was based on sugar cane cultivation but gradually tourism and finance became the main drivers. In the recent years, Barbados attracted an average of 1,2M tourists equally divided between cruises and stayovers. Almost 90% of the tourists came from UK and North America, very few from Europe and almost exclusively from Germany. Due to hurricanes season, the tourism peaks between December and April and in July. Stayovers accommodation is mainly in hotels and resort even though the offer of houses and apartment is growing. The prices of real estate properties are middle-high but it seems possibl
Read more