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The Sinkable Cittadella
Diving centres in Gozo, Malta's sister island, are seeing the end of the line for further growth of the diving industry, partly because this Mediterranean island has lured too many scuba divers too soon. Now dive sites are overcrowded during the 2-month-peak summer season; while north westerly winds, which blast the island for about 70 days per year, often ground the divers that visit Gozo throughout winter, spring, and autumn. Diving centres need another attraction - a dessert to round off the mixed-dish diving experience that is Gozo and Malta.
Enter the Cittadella, an 87-metre long, 14-metre wide ferry that carted passengers and cars between Gozo and mainland Malta. After operating for several years the ferry was written off 2 years ago. What if the Gozo Dive Shops Association (GDSA) buy the ferry and sink it, creating an artificial reef?
That's how the idea sprang to life.
The Cittadella, an open-sided ferry built for use in rivers and lakes, traces its origin to Scandinavia. The Gozo Channel Company Ltd bought it, second-hand, to link Gozo's population to mainland Malta. Working with 5 ferries at any time, Gozo Channel ferries make the half-an-hour crossing between the islands every hour or so. The only other link Gozo has with Malta, and the rest of the world, is a helicopter service that hops commuters to Malta's International Airport.
As large as a small town, Gozo is one of the three islands that make the Maltese Islands, situated 60 km south of Sicily. Its population stands at 26,000; about that many more foreigners visit the island every year for diving. The total deluge of visitors rises to 800,000 a year, most of them day-trippers who hop to Gozo, drive around the main attractions, then retreat back to Malta by nightfall.
With a deal to buy the Cittadella agreed, the GDSA set out to find the ferry's final resting place. Their aim was to find a poor site with potential rather than put the ferry to rest on an already relatively rich diving site. That way they would create another dive site. Narrowing their search to the south coast of the island, which is shielded from north westerly winds and accessible via a country road, they soon pinpointed the ferry's burial place: 60 metres from the south coast at a depth of 35 metres, on a bed of sand and pebbles sparsely flanked by afew large boulders. An ideal seabed, that is, to let the ferry anchor itself to the bottom. Next, they commissioned an Environment Impact Statement, a prerequisite to get a permit to scuttle the ferry from the Planning Authority, the national planning body. The EIS echoed what the divers already knew - the site is quite poor ecologically. The GDSA were pleased.
A marine bilogist surveyed the area, highlighting in his report the three zones of biological communities that live there. Towards the rocky coast that slopes into the sea, there is a photophilic algae community, made up from various species of algae, sponges, and the hermit crab. Deeper into the water, where the rocky slope meets the sandy bottom, there is a meadow of Posidonia oceanica that grows among large boulders stretching in a band parallel to the coast. Posidonia oceanica is a plant that provides a nesting place for a lot of fishes breeding in the Mediterranean and buffers coastal erosion; for these reasons it is protected all over the Mediterranean. At the site where the Cittadella is going under, however, the meadow looks weak and sparse, probably because it is an exposed site. Said the report about the P. oceanica meadow: "The biota associated with this community type in the study area was impoverished as compared to denser meadows in other parts of the Maltese Infralittoral."
The rest of the area is a Bare Sand Community. According to the report, once again, this community "appeared to have a very impoverished biota." The fishes encountered during the survey were few; rainbow wrasses (Coris julis), sea perches (Epinephelus sp), painted combers (Serranus scriba), damsel fishes (Chromis chromis), wrasses (Symphodus sp), and a few others common fishes that roam the Maltese coast. But when the vessel digs its heel into the bottom marine life and fishes from further away will swarm towards it like bees to honey. Wrecks attract marine life from around the area and also increase diversity due to the niche habitats, nooks and crannies, they provide. And the Cittadella, to be sited in an exposed site, will be to marine life what a pond is to birds in a desert. It will stand out like an oasis, promising refuge and food. Discussing wreck colonisation, the report said: "The close proximity of the vessel to the community of photophilic algae on hard substrata will probably enable rapid colonisation of the wreck surface by several species originating from this community. Cavities within the wreck should enhance the spaces available for cryptic species, small demersal fishes and larger territorial fishes such as groupers; at present limited due to lack of large boulders or overhangs."
The GDSA will have another dive location added to the 15 they already use. Each location is broken down into several dives; the Blue Hole, for example, has 8 dives, including cave-diving through lace-coral-covered walls.
Peter Rowland, the renowned underwater photographer, would nod in growing gusto at the news of the wreck. He used to visit the islands frequently and, in his book, rated the islands as one of the best places in the Mediterranean for underwater photography.
Rowland's verdict involves the play of light and underwater visibility. Ask any diver what's the speciality of diving in the Maltese islands and the orchestrated response will be: excellent underwater visibility. As you float around rock-columns, under overhangs, and into caves, your gaze sweeps 30 metres ahead, taking in impressive architecture sculpted by the currents into the soft limestone. "We lack the riots of colours found in tropical coral reefs," says Patrick Bugeja, instructor and owner of the Gozo Aqua Sports diving centre. "But we have a sea clear enough to enjoy underwater scenery. Our sea is so clear that P. oceanica grows at 43 metres deep in some places, proving that light, by which it grows, penetrates to that depth."
Bugeja opened the first dive shop in Gozo in 1981; today another 8 have sprouted. And the number of tourist divers hitting the Maltese Islands has swelled from a trickle in the seventies' to an estimated 50,000 per year last year. "We do not have as many fish as you would find around a coral reef, but we do have our own," observes Tonio Anastasi, a diving instructer. "We get migratory fish, which makes diving exciting because you go under without knowing what fish you may encounter. Divers with experience can sustain up to 12 dives here without getting bored; while if diving around coral elsewhere, you see the same thing on every dive, becoming monotonous after 4 or 5 dives."
The Maltese islands are known, according to Patrick Bugeja, "as a learning and training destination." Underwater allures aside, this reputation hinges on a combination of 4 reasons:
they're close to Europe, you're never more than 15 minutes drive to the coast, the sea and weather are warm, and there is a general holiday atmosphere. Yet most divers come in the peak summer season, even though many divers say that spring and autumn are better - the colours are more saturated, the sea clearer, and the dive sites uncrowded. The sea is colder,
however, but it never drops below 16 degrees Celsius.
Growth in the diving industry is leading to an attempt to protect, and enhance, the marine environment. There are no marine parks yet, but 14 candidate sites are being considered. Surveys are underway to set up the first park in the north coast of Gozo. And, besides the Cittadella, diving centres in Malta plan to wreck another three smaller boats. Such an euphoria to put wrecks underwater started 5 years ago when a company organising underwater trips in a submarine sank an old barge, called Rosi. Today, up to 200 divers a day visit the barge in the peak season.
But before anyone can sink more wrecks, the Planning Authority has to issue a permit to do so; the application to sink the Cittadella is being processed by the Planning Authority, to make sure there won't be a negative impact on the marine ecology. Negative impact? The GDSA are keen to protect the sea themselves. A dockyard will wash off the oil and grease with an environmentally harmless detergent, and remove anything that may float off. The paint will be left alone since its anti-fouling deterrent has rubbed off.
The wreck is, of course, a long-term investment that will attract more divers to Gozo. Many divers already think that Gozo offers a better diving experience than mainland Malta. "There is more fish in Gozo and the scenery is more dramatic," says Mark Vassallo, a 30-year-old local diver. "I meet a lot of diving tourists who dive in Malta, then hop to Gozo for one dive and regret not diving in Gozo throughout their holiday."
With a 12-mile belt of territorial waters, the Maltese islands have an area of territorial waters as large as the land area of the islands combined. Centuries ago, a series of invaders from the Middle East region, especially Ottoman Turks, continously ransacked the islands. Their trails are still visible in the form of archaeological remains that litter the seabed. Now it's divers, both locals and Europeans, who are roaming and exploring the islands' other half.
© Victor Paul Borg
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