A group of diving enthusiasts, all members of Seahorse diving club which usually meets at Aquabubbles Diving School situated at the Corinthia Jerma Palace Hotel - Marsascala, www.sportdivingmalta.com, grabbed their diving bags and decided that they wanted to do something different from the usual Maltese sites.

After going on the internet they decided that Taormina will be as good a dive site as any. They got the catamaran and took off for a day trip to Sicily armed with two video cameras and God knows how many still cameras to bring their memories back.

Most of our members are night lovers and being woken up at 2.00 a.m. was not a very welcoming thought. Most of them are usually going home at this time. Any way the van did its rounds and picked up most of us, the lazier ones got somebody else to drop them to the customs to gain that extra hour or so sleep.

None of us were very lively but the holiday spirit was already in the air. After declaring our diving equipment to customs we proceeded to load all the gear into the catamaran garage. To avoid anybody running away with one of our kits we decided to put everything into the one bag manufactured by Mr. Tony Wellman. While doing so other passengers thought that we are catamaran crew and they wanted to put their luggage into our big bag. But anyway we were too tired to argue.

The trip going over was quite enough, except for some of our members trying to pick up the bar lady on the catamaran. Reasons for this: Still asleep, and still sober. Landed at Catania harbour and picked up the air-conditioned coach for the day. The tiredness was taking its toll and most of us fell asleep on the coach especially the young ones. The older ones proved that they still had the stamina and started collecting all the evidence regarding this. They filmed all the young ones while sleeping.

We arrived at the dive shop, www.divesicily.com, and met Alex - the dive leader for the day - and his crew. The dive school was a well organised little school, but it has a long enough walk, while carrying all the kit, to get to/from the main road. We had to pay as soon as we arrived, which was the same irrespective of whether you do one or two dives. We put this down to the fact that, due to the state some of us were in, we looked like gangsters.

We all got our qualifications checked and no medical was necessary. In fact they nearly laughed at us when we offered them our medical certificates. We all got our cylinders and the diving school staff were very helpful and accommodating. The area for kitting up was well kept, clean and very inviting. Looking over a sandy beach full of holiday makers lapping up the sun. The female part of this crowd proved to be very distracting to some of our male members and kitting up took a bit longer than it usually does.

The first dive was to be on those Roman columns that were left behind when a Roman ship ran aground 2000 years ago. The Maximum depth was 28 metres.

We boarded our two dinghies and off we went. The diving was well organised, and we split up into three groups and off we went to see these columns. The columns themselves are not very much to look at but the sea was nice and warm, the visibility was good and the underwater scenery and fish life was identical to the Maltese waters. The diving was very relaxed and we were blessed with the current. We found a very strong current going away from the dinghy and I personally was worried about coming back, I was imagining this hard fin back to the boat, but amazingly enough as soon as we turned around it was like somebody flicked the switch and the current changed direction pushing us back towards the boat. The columns were not exactly what we expected but you still get that eerie feeling that these columns had a lot of history attached to them. Anyway it was a nice relaxing, well organised and enjoyable dive. With a bottom time of roughly 30 minutes it wasn’t our usual lengthy dive, but when we mentioned this to Alex, he told us that if that’s what we preferred he will keep it in mind for the second dive, and he did. More about the second dive to come later though.

De-kitting and dinner was next. We all gathered at the dinner tables and were a bit disappointed that we were put on different tables but ce’ la vie. We all ordered our dinners and the food was good. Not to be cruel we will assume that the portions were normal but we were abnormal people.

I myself was alright, I had my starter, then went on to my other half’s starter, then I had my dinner and went on to finish the other half’s dinner as well. so I was satisfied. Luckily she was not feeling hungry. We had a couple of glasses of wine but not as much as we would have liked to because we still had the second dive to do.

After dinner we did a bit of a presentation where we presented Alex and the staff with a Maltese ceramic plate with the Seahorse emblem on it and t-shirts for everybody.

In the afternoon we split in two groups, the divers and the non divers. Some decided that they will not do the second dive but go to Taormina centre with the funicular (or as some were calling it the eurocar) but that is another story.

The second dive was the blue cave, supposed to be full of shrimps, moray eels and groupers. This time we split into two groups and the maximum depth was to be around 20 metres. The site wasn’t very far away from the shop so in a few minutes we were there, this dive is a marine reserve and well marked as one. The visibility was good, (like what you would get in Gozo or Comino). As soon as we went down the guys came across a playful octopus who obliged us by coming out of his hole to have a little dance and play with us. We proceeded to a spot  where we saw a moray eel slithering up the cliff edge. At one stage Alex seemed to be getting something out from a crack in the rocks and when one of our members got closer to him to see what he is doing he brought out this plastic moray ell and stuck right up to his face. This scared the living daylights out of him, it was a good laugh. We proceeded round the corner to the cave, had a good look around and proceeded to the boat. Some stayed under the boat and the rest of us who had air left followed Alex to another little cave, I think this was to keep his promise and give us a longer dive. It was a good effort and it was also very appreciated - anyway the dive time for the second dive was close to an hour (more our usual dive times).

We arrived back to the changing area and the fun and games started with the water. These were only interrupted by Alex bringing me and some of the other guys a stiff brandy, which I must say, went down very well and gave me the urge for more. So we couldn’t be unsociable and we were forced under protest to go to the bar. The beer and the Jack Daniels were flying, The younger guys were after anything with a skirt or without as the case may be. The video cameras came out for evidence again. Even the bar ladies were involved in the filming, most of the guys wanted to be filmed by them, God knows what stories they will tell about them when they see the video, but don’t listen to anything they say as it was all kept very clean and above board.

The ‘market’ group arrived and we were worried that they will be sober and annoyed at us for having a few drinks. Our worries were over, the secretary was scared on the cable car and they used this as an excuse to bring her into a bar and poor half a bottle of Jack Daniels down her throat. She was merry to say the least. We had another few drinks and took the coach over to the catamaran again, Needless to say with the drink flying the return trip was not as boring, in fact I would say it was a bit too lively.

The catamaran was very upsetting at first  and we were very disappointed, We had a group booking but we were not reserved any seats besides each other, while the catamaran crew were very unhelpful and in fact some of them were downright rude. It spoilt our day as we couldn’t very well sit all over the catamaran. All this happened because they had so many cars in the garage that they had to fill the whole front of the catamaran with suitcases instead of people.  We would strongly advice anybody organising something of the sort to make sure that the catamaran does not let them down like they did to us. Before this incident we were left waiting on the jetty in Catania for well over an hour because of this disorganisation. This resulted in us arriving in Malta at 12.15a.m. instead of 11.00a.m.

Apart from the disaster with the catamaran the day was a total success and special thanks go to Mr. Anthony Wellman for organising this club day out. We would also like to thank the diving school staff  at www.sportdivingmalta.com for all their co-operation.

Look out for our next article about our Lampedusa trip and the adventures of Ivan the sailor man.

Written by the President

Seahorse diving club