DIVING WITH CALYPSO - SEPTEMBER 2003

by Dave Barratt

Legend has it that Odysseus was tempted to Gozo by Calypso and was so entranced, he stayed for seven years. George Vella and his team at Calypso Diving run a pretty good operation, but we only had a week at our disposal.

As the only BSAC operation on Gozo, and with it's own resident Regional Coach, Mike Crampton, Calypso offered us an all-inclusive package, for a little over £200 each, to include:
* transfers to and from Luqa airport on Malta
* accommodation (in self-catering apartments)
* jeep-hire
* unlimited unaccompanied diving - tank and weights (including the required Sport Diving permit)

All we had to arrange was our flights to and from Malta. Flights are the most costly item of a Maltese holiday. Now that EasyJet will fly you to Spain for little more than the price of a pint, having to pay Air Malta upwards of £200 for a return flight to Malta makes a big difference to your holiday budget. It is possible to get cheaper flights, but they are invariably from Gatwick, in the middle of the night. As we are based in the Midlands, we wanted to fly from Birmingham at a respectable hour.

It's also necessary to remember that once you get to Malta you've still got a minibus ride to the ferry terminal at Cirkewwa (about 45 minutes), a ferry to Mgarr on Gozo (about 30 minutes plus hanging around time), and then another minibus transfer to your resort. During the summer the ferries continue all night, but the summer schedule finishes at the end of September.

You cross to Gozo on the ferry as a foot passenger (one minibus leaves you at Cirkewwa, and another picks you up at Mgarr). Beforehand, I wondered how we would cope with heavy dive bags on the ferry. However, the bags were loaded, airline style, into a baggage container (for which we were given a receipt) and then we collected them on the other side - simple.

At the moment there is a helicopter transfer from Malta Luqa airport to the heliport on Gozo, but this is due to end during 2004. For most dive groups this is no great loss, as the cost is much greater than the ferry and the departure times are not always convenient.

On arrival in Marsalforn, on the north coast, we found the apartments we were allocated to be clean and tidy, with plenty of room. The family who own/manage the apartments live in the next-door building and are very helpful and friendly. There were seven of us, so we had two two-bedroom apartments in a building just off the seafront at Marsalforn. The dive shop is just along the seafront, and there are lots of bars and restaurants close at hand.

We were provided with two Maruti jeeps (with lots of ground clearance and 4WD) that were ready for our collection from the dive shop after we arrived. Some of the dive sites have rough road access, and we took the jeeps down some "roads" that I wouldn't have wanted to take a normal hire car along. With the two vehicles there was plenty of room for the seven of us, plus dive bags and cylinders.

The one concern is that there is nowhere to lock valuables (or your clothes etc) while you are diving. If you have a non-diving member of your party, they can keep keys, money and so forth, but if not, I would suggest you take as little cash and valuables out with you as possible. Gozo is not quite the crime-free island that it once was.

As an island, there is always a sheltered lee side, regardless of the wind direction. The Maltese islands are prone to winds, particularly from the Northwest. The major dive sites tend to be around the north and west coasts, and so a period of high winds can severely limit the dive options.