Part 4 - Malta

After a cracking 3 dives in the deeper sections, Howard and I thought we would join Paul Toomer and his IANTD ART student, Adam Fish (A Fish!!) on Adam’s first ‘deco’ dive to the El Faroud. So cylinders loaded onto the flatbed and off down the coast to the gulley and local swimming area which is the entry point to the Al Faroud. The pickup was parked on a very steep slope and to prevent it becoming a wreck of its own we made sure the front wheels were jammed with a breeze block before we left. Getting kitted up in a drysuit and thermals on the shore in front on scantily-clad locals is an interesting experience, especially as we were carrying stages of 100% too! I got kitted up very quickly as I was cooking my nadgers off and getting in the water was a welcome relief. The others (Paul, Adam, Howard and Hayden) joined me and Hayden led off towards the wreck surfacing swimming to the drop-down point and Adam leading the surface checks just before dropping down. We swam past a memorial to commercial divers on the way to the wreck. Once you pass the vast expanse of sea-grass, you come across white sand and the dark outline of the El Faroud.


L-R, Paul Toomer, Adam Fish, Howard Payne

Again, a little about the wreck

“M/t Um el Faroud was built in 1969 at Smith Dock Co. Ltd., Middlesborough, UK and was owned by the General National Maritime Transport Company, Tripoli. (GNMTC)
It had been operating between Italy and Libya carrying refined fuel up to the 1st of February 1995. On the 3rd of February 1995 it was docked at Dock no.3 of Malta Dry-docks. During that night an explosion occurred in one of the fuel tanks and 9 shipyard workers lost their lives. The vessel suffered structured deformation and was written off after following inspection and survey. It had been occupying the dock ever since the explosion until was decided that the best option to utilize its remaining value was to scuttle her as a diving attraction and to start a new life as an artificial reef.”


After the explosion


On the surface before scuttling

Once we got a little closer to the wreck I could see the scour around the rudder and propeller, so went over to get some shots of the guys coming across the sand and into the prop area.


Mr Payne above the huge prop


Adam above the same


Howard looking at some squidgy stuff just before crushing it with the torch head!! (1)

Paul and Adam started down the port side of the wreck with Howard and I hanging slightly back. Howard then spotted a hole in the side…here we go again!!


Howard entering the El Faroud

I followed Howard up into the wreck and then through a section before coming back out. Shame, it looked like it would go but we said we would stay with Paul and Adam. So further forward and towards the massive clean break in the ship. It looks like someone cut it cleanly in half at the stage and moved one section 30ft to the left! The penetration opportunities look massive!! This reminded me of the wrecks which Howard and I dived in Narvik last summer…through a bulkhead and out into another section. A quick goodbye to Paul for an explore…


Howard squeezing his tiny body through a bulkhead door…

..and back through the same hatchway so we didn’t lose Paul for too long. Then up onto the deck area in front of the bridge and superstructure; we could see Paul and Adam off to the left making their way back. We signalled that we might join them at the stern…





(1) Howard didn't really do that!!

Both Howard and I saw the entrance at the top of the stairs at the same time but I beat him to it to get some shots of him coming through the companion way with the daylight behind him…


What you can’t see is the massive fish that got in the way above Howard’s left shoulder (PS magic ;) )!!

Not that fish, a much bigger one!

Howard then turned right into the superstructure and first into what looks like the messhall/café…


Tables and ceiling lying on the floor…

Through another passageway making our way rearwards we passed a couple of other rooms which looked like they would entertain some penetration and then into the galley


Howard, the masterchef, fish anyone? :)

I exited the galley (just to the right of the cooker in the shot above) and waiting for Howard to exit behind me so that we could get some more shots of the hull before, hopefully, catching up with Paul and Adam.


Coming out of the Galley

One thing I did learn on this trip is that having lots of light can be a pain in the arse sometimes. Most of my stuff in the UK you don’t normally have a problem with shooting into sun because (1) there normally isn’t any and (2) if there is, it isn’t too bright and you don’t have too much of a contrast problem. The following shots were very hard to get sorted because the vis wasn’t great (by Maltese standards) into sun because of the small ‘dust’ particles in the water. As such, detail of the hull was almost non-existent.


Howard over the rear-starboard quarter


Howard poncing with his light sabre

We then followed the return track back to the exit point, stopping at 6m for 8 mins to clean up and admire the view. Howard then tried the “who can I hit with the SMB” game with the swimmers above. We surfaced to be met by some holiday makers with a video camera…stars again!

This nice little dive rounded off an excellent long weekend in Malta. As Howard has already said, Divewise bent over backwards to help us and I would definitely recommend them when it comes to running a wreck trip from Malta. Paul Toomer is now planning on running 3-4 months worth of trips back to back, so if you are interested in IANTD training in a brilliant wreck environment, drop him a line. I had not met him before and he certainly seems to hold no prejudices and appears to be a really enthusiastic and knowledgeable instructor and instructor trainer.

This was my first experience of the island and it certainly won’t be the last. The food was cheap as was the beer (certainly cheaper than Stockholm where I was 3 weeks ago!!). The wrecks are awesome and from my point of view, very photogenic. As both Howard and I have alluded to, we are already planning on getting back there and we will be using Divewise.

Admin bits:

Flight from LHR Term 4 to Malta with Air Malta was around £120 return. £13 each way for 32kg of additional baggage (dive gear) but on the return leg we only paid 15eu for 2 x 32kgs :)

Accommodation was in “The President” which is a 5 min walk. 25eu pppn based on 2 sharing a twin-room.

Food and beer was mainly consumed in “Huggins” bar where Divewise have a 25% discount. Huge portions and good quality food.

Additional costs (Gas for 2 x T2, 1 x T1 and 1 x recreational dives, stage hiring and twinset hiring, boat costs and water in the centre) came to around £370

Part 3 - Malta

Owen has an important meeting to get back for so we have an early start this morning. Meet at the dive centre at 07:15 only to find that Howard (Shaw) has been up all night because the Haskell isn’t boosting like it should do. We go with 130 bar of 02 in the 7s as that is as much as we can get. The mixes are sorted and analysed. Kit is loaded and we set off through the small backstreets of St Julians and onward to Valetta. We arrive at the boat at 09:15 and quickly load the kit on. We have scared George off and we now have Hayden, another local who this time is diving air. We were also joined by Paul Toomer who was out running some tech courses. This week was an ART course but Paul was coming for a fun dive before diving with his student on the Al Faroud this afternoon. Paul is a really good guy and got our sense of humour straight off.

We are going out to dive the 153m long “Le Polynesien” which lies in 65m. Again a small bit on the wreck

“Like her sister ships “Australian”, “Armand Behic” and “Ville De La Ciotat”, she was quickly recognizable by her length, low profile on the water and the double funnels painted black. All ships were painted white between 1895 and 1905.

- In 1891 she started operating between France and Australia,
- through the Suez Canal.
- In 1903 her route was changed and she operated between France and the Far East mainly transporting passengers to the French colonies.
- In 1914 it operated towards Australia and New Caledonia,
- before being dispatched back to Europe were she was transformed into a troop transported for the first world war.

On the 10th of August 1918 she was hit by a torpedo from the German UC22 (which also sank Luciston Collier) and sank in 35 minutes, taking 10 lives. She now lies 7 miles outside the entrance of Valetta Grand Harbour.”


The Polynesien on the surface

A massive 5 mins out to the wreck again! I was starting to see a pattern here.

Leo, Howard and I roll in off the rib together with the O2 bottles being passed down again. I lead off again and down the shot we go. There is a little current here and we can see the sag in the shotline as it drops into the lee of the wreck. I reckon we have around 40m vis by the time we get to 30m! The wreck starts to come out of the deep blue. What a huge wreck she is! I make sure that Leo and Howard are sorted and we head off to the bow to get some shots and do a little exploring.


The gun on the bow


The gun on the bow

Unfortunately I hadn’t noticed that something had happened to the housing between the dive centre where I sit the kit up and getting into the water. There is a lever on the side of the Hugyfot housing which selects the focus mode (Single Shot, Continuous Auto-Focus or Manual). The camera was in manual focus :( and this is why the shots on this dive aren’t too good. Whilst they are just passable for on-screen display, they are pretty pants for printing. Oh well. I have now modified the housing levels so that that level doesn’t come anywhere near the switch on the camera!!

We moved aftwards now over the bow winch gear and one of the huge elevator sections into which we peered into. I could hear Howard giggling at this!! Maybe…

Bow winch gear


Cavernous hold

Under the structure Howard and I swapped from stage bottles to backgas. A quick clean up and then onwards through the decking.


Howard coming through the decking.

There is a huge coil of rope/cable lying on the deck just past the remaining top-deck structure and there is also another huge hole in the deck!! Just too tempting. I signalled to Howard that I wanted him to drop down and I would get a picture looking down the shaft towards him. Little did I know he was going to do some exploring!!


The coils on the deck

Howard down the shaft!

…then onto some exploring inside the wreck…[img]http://www.imagesoflife-online.co.uk/malta/DSC_8015.jpg[/img]


Howard inside a swim-through at 65m :)


..and back outside the other side with Hayden on the right hand-side. Leo is behind me when I taking this shot.


Howard and Leo coming through the swim-through.

Bottom time is now starting to come upon us so I pop down and see Paul who has joined us with his shiny Sentinel. This is a nice looking machine and Paul is very proud of his. He has now sold both of his Inspos due to his experience of diving this!


Paul on the bottom with his Sentinel

We gradually make our way back to the shot and as I look back I see Leo sitting nicely off to the side of the wreck


Leo above the wreckage of the Le Polynesien.

As Owen has a rib without a winch, he puts an SMB near the bottom of the shot to make it easier to haul the 20kg of lead back in again when we have finished the dive. Last man up fills it up. We leave Paul and Hayden on the wreck and start our way back up the shotline with huge grins on our faces giggling gently away having had a fantastic time…


L-R Howard, Paul and Leo.


Paul at 6m chilling away. That is a nice looking unit…

After 75 mins or so we surface and all proclaim that was the best wreck dive we had ever done. Leo says that this is also the calmest he has been out with the current being very slack. Paul comments that he has seen the lead weights (2-3kg) lifted from 9m where they normally sit to 6m due to the current!!

Kit packed up and on the boat we speed back to Valetta to allow Leo to get on with his prior arrangement. We drive back via an ice-cream shop! A well earned Magnum :) At Divewise we quickly decant everything, changing the cylinders over ready for a 32% and O2 dive on the Al Faroud.

Part 2 - Malta

So after a cracking day on the Stubborn we retired to the bar, Huggins, for a few carbonated adult beverages, mine tasted on lime and soda, Howard’s was Cisk! After a filling dinner in the same place we retired early as we were both knackered.

Meet time was 08:30 for a wheels away of 10:30 to drive down to meet Owen in Valetta. Gases were spot on and the most Leo could get out of the compressor (215 bar). Today was to be the Southwold which lies in 75 metres, a 3 stage dive for Howard and I using 15/45, 50% and 100%. Leo was going to be joined by George a local trimix diver. That meant we had a grand total of 5 on the boat including Leo! We were advised that we would have to pay a premium because of the small numbers – each trip was 50eu! More than worth it.

Here is a little about the events leading to her demise in 1942

“On the 23rd of March 1942, one of the merchant ships in this convoy, Breconshire was hit by enemy bombs and stopped a few miles off St Thomas bay. The weather was becoming rough and Breconshire was drifting helplessly towards shore. The crew on the Breconshire managed to anchor the ship 1.5 miles off Zonqor Point. The following morning on the 24th of March Breconshire was dragging it’s anchors over the sandy bottom. HMS Southwold was ordered to Breconshire, but while trying to pass a line to the disabled ship, a mine exploded under her engine room. One officer and four ratings were killed. All power and electrical services were lost, but the diesel generator could still be started. The engine room flooded but water flooding into the gearing room was held in check by shoring up the bulkheads and blocking leaks. A tow was attached to the Southwold by the tug Ancient, but the ships side plating abreast the engine room split right up to the upper deck on both sides. She sagged and took a list to starboard. The wounded were transferred to the destroyer Dulverton. The midship portion gradually sank lower and the ship started to work with the swell. She was then abandoned, started to settle with considerable sag and sank in two parts”

The Southwold before she sank. Note the guns at the back, more of them later

This time we had a massive 5 minutes drive out to the wreck site with a slight swell. Leo suggested that Howard and I go down before he and George so that we had the wreck to ourselves for photos, plus the fact we were looking at a bottom time of 20 mins and they were only looking at 15mins. We would meet on the ascent or maybe somewhere on the wreck. The water was a deep blue cobalt which could only mean one thing, cracking viz again! Rolling off a rib with 3 stages and a camera was going to be a challenge so I decided to get the O2 bottle passed down to me once I was settled in the water. Over to the shot, and a quick descent to 6m for the bubble check, as we were on 15/45 bottom stages at this point.

Down the shot line and at 45m I started to make out the wreck 30m below! I also started to see large white fish which I have no clue what they were, they looked about the size of small dolphins (I asked Leo what these might have been and he reckoned they were probably white grouper which can grow to around 1.5m). The shot was bang on the wreck just on the break line where the stern section begins (the bow section lies some 300m away in slightly shallower waters). Moving over the wreck down the port side, we passed a large pile of shells next to the rear superstructure area, just in front of the large 4in guns.



The rear superstructure


The piles of shells next to the 4in gun.


The twin barrels of the 4in gun

As we moved aft you can see a depth charger launcher complete with chargers. We spoke on the surface of taking a mallet down the next time…


Howard and the depth chargers

We then moved further aft and dropped over the stern to the seabed. I saw another white fish as it quickly swam off into the distance to get away from the noisy OC divers who were giggling with joy!!


Howard at the stern

We then spotted the large intact props underneath the rear. There is quite a lot of netting here, fortunately it is tidy and out of the way but it shows that even in nice places like this, netting could be a problem. This wreck had far more life on it that the Stubborn but still less than anything I have seen in the UK. The Mediterranean is somewhat fished out…


Howard and the props, with the netting in the foreground.

Back over the top past the rear gun again for some gratuitous photo shots next to the gun!!






I then led into the overhang between the gun and superstructure, turning around to fin backwards and get Howard coming through. As I was about to exit this area I nearly finned into a single strand of monofilament; photos taken and Howard cuts the line to make sure no-one else has an issue with it.



Underneath the superstructure between the guns and deck.

We then move forward towards the shot and pass over the break point where you can see the inwards of the ship with cable runs and such-like exposed. We leave the bottom a little early and send the Al10s which we are using as bottom stages up on an SMB (already coordinated with Owen) for no other reason that it is one set of bottles that don’t need to be rotated at 21m!! Just as we reach the shot we see Leo and George swimming the other way. Up we go and as we are passing through 45m we can see Leo and George making their way back to the shot, there bubbles creating a very artistic curtain above them. We reach 21m for the switch and can easily see Leo and George 30m below us!



Leo and George 30m below us!

More uneventful deco and whilst today was longer, 100mins run-time, it didn’t feel as boring as yesterday. Leo and George joined us and then passed through our stops and we joined them at 6m for our 20mins of O2 before ascending to the surface. All the dives are shot-line ascents which isn’t too much of a problem because Owen has rigged 3 drop-lines with weights at 9m which means everyone isn’t crowded at 6m and 9m doing their stops.



Leo and George at 6m bathing in the sunlight coming from the surface.

Big smiles all round and back onto the boat for the 5 mins back to the shore. Unload the boat and back to Divewise. Unfortunately Owen has an appointment at 14:30 which means we have to load the boat at 09:30, which means a start time of 07:15 the following morning. Whilst this isn’t a problem for us, it does mean that the gas monkeys have to work all through the night. A big hats off to Howard (Shaw from Divewise, not Mr Payne) for working through the night to get the trimix, 50% & 100% sorted for when we arrived. Without the dedication of the staff at Divewise we would not have got the dives we did.

I also must say a huge thank you to Howard Shaw for lending me his DS125 for the next day's diving. Somewhere between getting back on the boat and putting the camera gear in the dunk tank to clean it off, the SS200 strobe must have been banged because after I had rinsed the rig and taken the strobe back off to charge the battery I noticed that the pack was wet and the front of the strobe was full of black water :( One flooded strobe. A quick taste of the water showed that it wasn't salty so must have come from the dunk tank (as I managed to take shots at 6m with both strobes).

I would like to say that if anyone is planning on sharing a room with Howard after he has had a few beers, that they either take some tamazepam themselves or they buy a large blunt object to beat the sh*t out of Howard when he is snoring like a bull elephant. I have never heard or seen anyone snore like he does, even when he is on his side! Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep that night!

If Carlsberg Made Normoxic Wrecks...Malta Would be the Place...Part 1

Part 1

Last year I saw a video from Stuart Keasley of the bow section of the Southwold which lies in 68m off Malta and I immediately said that I had to go there. I contacted Howard about this and he said he was also interested.


Howard next to the conning tower of HMS Stubborn

We set about setting up a photography workshop for a weekend in March where we would teach for 2 days and then he and I would dive the Southwold. Unfortunately there wasn’t too much take up so we said “What the hell, let’s go and make a good weekend of it”. The plan was to fly out on the Thursday night with Stuart, dive HMS Stubborn on the Friday, HMS Southwold bow on the Saturday and then the stern section on the Sunday. However, after discussions with Stuart, he recommended binning one of the Southwold dives and do the Polynesia instead as it is a classic, this we did. Unfortunately the weather gods weren’t playing in March and the weather was crap so the trip was binned. Some rapid re-planning ensued and we rebooked for this weekend just gone.

Unfortunately Stuart was running a photography and video workshop this weekend and I couldn’t move my dates due to having my kids over, so he didn’t join us. Howard and I met on Thursday evening at the X-ray machines where the security staff were looking over his collection of things… (mainly regs, HID and battery!) and making his hand-luggage not look like it weighed 20kg! I had already been rumbled when I put my hand-luggage on the scales at the request of the check-in staff and it came in at 19kg! I moved some regs over but it was still 14kg and I got away with that. We hadn’t pre-booked any extra kit so had to pay £13 (15eu) for the 32kg of dive kit which wasn’t too much of a problem.

Alan at Divewise had said that he would pick us at the airport, this he did, very good service considering we were landing at 00:45!! In fact Alan and Divewise provided an excellent service and I would definitely recommend using them as an operator (more of that later). Chatting with Alan on the way to the hotel we sorted out what gases we would be using the following day on the HMS Stubborn and he dropped us off saying he would pick us up at 08:30 the following morning for a 10:30 wheels to leave for the boat.

For those who have shared a room with Howard, you know what a snore-monster he can be. However, he does realise this and provides ear-plugs for his room-biddies! Fortunately I was knackered and he hadn’t had a beer so there gentle rumbling of a hippo didn’t materialise.

Up and off down to reception where Alan was waiting for us. The 5 min journey in the dive mobile might have seen excessive but carrying 2 x 32kg worth of dive gear plus camera gear wouldn’t have been fun in the 25 degree heat. The dive centre is very much set around recreational work but they have recently launched Techwise under the watchful eye of Paul Toomer who plans to run the majority of his summer courses from the facility. They currently have plenty of twinsets and Al7 but they lack 80s which means the bottom stages are limited to Al10s which don’t sit as well, or hang as well empty. They are addressing this shortfall. They are also upgrading their gas panel to pump beyond their current limit of 215 bar. They have a Haskell but the air-lines are limited to 215 bar. Gas is pretty cheap compared to the UK too; a twinset of 18/45 fill was 29eu!! Paul was running an Advanced Rec Trimix course when we got there and just as we left he had started a Normoxic Trimix course. He had something like 8 courses planned back-to-back there as it is an ideal facility. The staff couldn’t do more to help. Their other Tec instructor is a dutch guy called Leo who was an absolute star; he was the mix gas monkey, dive buddy and overall good egg and he would be joining us for 2 of the 3 mix dives we had planned.

Once all the kit was sorted and gas analysed we found that we had a little more spare time; as we were the only people on Owen’s boat, he was going to bring it up to the centre and drive the whole 7 mins out to the Stubborn site! Owen’s boat is great, a fast rib with enough room to take 8 divers equipped with twins and 3 stages.

He shotted the wreck just as we finished get the drysuits on. Whilst the air temps were in the high 20’s and the top 6m was 24 degrees, the bottom temps were around 15 degrees. I was sweating like a para in a maths test by the time I was ready to jump in with twin 12s and an Al7 of 50%. Rolled over the side into the relatively cool water and over to the shot to meet up with Howard and Leo. I led down the shot, bubble checks in the crystal clear water. At around 20m, shapes on the seabed at 58m started to become visible! At 35m I looked between my legs and noticed the wreck behind me (the shot was about 10m off the port side of the wreck, up current on a sandy bed). I couldn’t believe what I saw, the whole of the 66m long submarine was visible in one go. If this is what wreck diving in Malta was like, I was sold.

We had already discussed that we were going to move to the bow to get some photos of Howard and Leo near the 3 torpedo tubes on the port side. This we duly did. The seabed is a nice white sand so the abundant ambient light was reflected back making shots my ambient light/fill shots relatively easy compared to UK diving. Most of the shots were ISO 250, 1/40th and f6.7 on a Sigma 10mm/Nikon D200 for those who are interested.


Howard moving from the shot to HMS Stubborn.


The bow of HMS Stubborn


The bow of HMS Stubborn


Howard next to the conning tower


Howard looking into the escape hatch (Mark Ellyat allegedly has penetrated this hatch with just a single while the rest of his kit was taken off and staged on the outside)


Howard next to the conning tower


Howard next to the conning tower


Howard next to the conning tower


Howard and Leo at the stern section

After 23 mins on the bottom we called it on min gas and ascended for a warm relaxing deco before getting back on the rib with massive smiles on our faces. We couldn’t believe what we had seen down there and more importantly, why hadn’t we been out here before? Leo was a happy bunny too; he is TDI Adv Trimix trained and a Trimix Instructor but also has a strong GUE bent and really wants to develop his GUE tech side (he is Fundies trained) but funds are the limiting factor at the moment. Having a pair of chimps who didn’t need looking after, like some of the clients, made for a relaxing dive for him too.

Back to the centre for a swim from the RIB to the shore, which was made the more interesting by Howard having to have his clothes and shoes (which he had worn to the jetty around the corner from the dive centre) stuffed inside his drysuit.

What a cracking first day, we were certainly looking forward to days 2 and 3 if today was anything to go by.