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From Away.com

Multisport
Malta: Three Islands, 1,001 Options
Excellent weather, endless seascapes, and rutted limestone cliffs strung together by winding footpaths make this small archipelago a Mediterranean multisport masterpiece.

By Wendy Knight


Intro/Scuba Diving | Sea Kayaking, Rock Climbing, Rappelling, and Coastal Trekking | Access and Resources

Malta Multisport and Scuba Diving
The ahhhhs have it: Sunset over Malta's Grand Harbor (Courtesy, Visit Malta)
“Are you an American?” I asked the lone chap dining on pasta misto next to me.

“No, I’m Italian,” he replied in a non-descript accent. He took a sip of red wine and dug further into his plate. “Why? Are you with the CIA?”

Since arriving on Malta, a sun-kissed island 60 miles south of Sicily, I hadn’t encountered any other Americans, unless you count Brad Pitt, who had arrived the same day as me to begin filming Helen of Troy but who, sadly, I hadn’t actually “encountered.” But my curiosity about the scarcity of Americans on Malta and its smaller, sister islands of Gozo and Comino was yielding more unintended assumptions than practical insight, so I decided to abandon my queries and simply relish the notion of the island’s adventurous offerings all for myself. Stretched before me like a medieval feast were the archipelago’s shimmering turquoise waters, copious grottos and coves, soaring limestone cliffs, and nautical wrecks. Who cared why other Americans hadn’t discovered its allure.

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Scuba Diving
Something tugged insistently on my hand. Turning toward the urgency, I hoped the intended sight wasn’t a great white, known to lurk in these waters. I was relieved to find the hand of Martin Vella, the owner of Subway Scuba Diving School, gesturing to a plum-purple sponge attached to the underside of the jagged coral. The last time I breathed oxygen from a tank I was in the murky waters of New York’s Cayuga Lake, so the rainbow wrasse and slinky fire worms off Marfa Point were a refreshing sight. The Maltese archipelago serves up a slew of shore and boat dives, and what the Mediterranean lacks in natural coral reef it makes up for with crystal-clear waters and fascinating wrecks, such as the WWII British Destroyer—the HMS Maori—submerged 15 meters off Valletta, Malta’s capital.



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Intro/Scuba Diving | Sea Kayaking, Rock Climbing, Rappelling, and Coastal Trekking | Access and Resources