Filfla Dive site : South Side

8^th August 2010

Following the Stork Rock dive, the Barbarossa felt its way gently towards Filfla. The sea bed is littered with lots of submerged boulders, so the Skipper kept a sharp look out here, and finally dropped anchor in about 10 metres at Filfla South Eastern corner, so that Filfla would shield from the light NW wind.

We were the same group as in the previous dive, with Tano again dive leading. The plan was to head Westerly until we came to a low reef made up of boulders carried here for sure from Filfla, by countless storms. Once at the reef, we followed it at its base, that is where it meets the sand, heading South – that is away from Filfla, and then back along the same route but keeping on top of this reef.

The sea bed here consists of hard packed sand, with a lot of small to medium sized vegetation covered boulders all over the place. These soon start to look very similar, so a compass heading here on both directions has to be maintained. The seabed at first slopes very gently seawards, and then the slope increases quite sharply. We followed it down until the depth gauges were showing just over 30 metres, at which point we turned back.

Again very low sea life – nothing of note except for a moray eel. But if the sea life was not so evident, the survivors from colonial times were very much in view! I am referring to unexploded shells and bombs from Filfla’s target practice days! They do not look dangerous – but they are! Those inconspicuous rusting cylindrical shapes – whose sizes (of those we saw) range from 30cm to about 1.75m could very easily have become unstable so touching them is definitely not even to be considered. Judging by the number of these unexploded duds, I wondered how effective her Majesty’s quality control department was!

Back to the dive! After a while on the Northerly heading, we ended up in the shallows among large sized boulders. We were actually close to the East side of Filfla. At this point Tano surfaced and indicated the way to the mother ship.

I found this side of Filfla more interesting than the more usual second dive on the West Side, although I was told that at that location, if on a Southerly heading, one comes across a drop off which apparently drops to about 50 metres.

An interesting dive none the less.