Gozo : Sept 2009

Some Indepth holiday "die-hards" and lots of "newbies" all met at Heathrow and bonded over a quick drink before our flight to Malta. This bonding and drinking theme continued over the next 5 evenings along with some great dives during the day!

After a short flight to Malta, we travelled in taxis across the island to catch the ferry to Gozo where Stephania, our diving host from Atlantis Diving Centre was waiting to greet us. Thanks to Dave who bought enough beers for a whole round on the ferry, unlike someone else who didn't buy enough whilst waiting for the crossing. (I told you I would not forget this ...... !!)

The Group

Helen Geall
Sue Upton
Kevin Gleeson
Richard Poppe
Dave Sharp

Accommodation

We stayed in the Lantern Guesthouse, a small family run business, based in Marselforn. Joseph the owner made us all very welcome again and the rooms were perfect for the short amount of time we spent in the guesthouse. Although some rooms were a bit noisy, most of us thought that the short walk to and from the bars and restaurants more than compensated for this!

Dave Cheshire
Mark Pile
Gary Tarbuck
Kathy Morris
Alan Morris

DIVE CLUB

News

Diving with Atlantis Diving Centre

Gozo is a small island off Malta in the Mediterranean. This island has some of the best diving the Med has to offer with a wide selection of shore or boat dives, caves, caverns and wrecks.

We dived with Atlantis, an extremely professional and well-organised dive centre run by Brian and Stephania. Indepth had used the centre in previous years and we were treated like old friends. Although we were not the only group diving with Atlantis, we received excellent service and personal attention and even managed to keep to Brian's strict time keeping!

During our trip we dived some wonderful sites, including the Blue Hole and Inland Sea, two famous sites on Gozo. Congratulations to everyone on being willing to brave the cliff on Day 1 to see Cathedral Cave which made the entry at the Blue Hole seem so easy on Day 2! Think one of the highlights of the trip for many of us was feeding the fish and swimming through the tunnels at Comino Caves - it certainly was for me seeing Kathy in "heaven" surrounded by the bream.

Quotes

Thanks again for organizing a great trip cant wait to go again....
Gary. X

REALLY looking forward to it..... (another trip with Indepth). I just want to see if you can reproduce the same amazing holiday as you did in Gozo!
Richard

A pleasure…
Pissheads? Pot and kettle me thinks…
Kevin

Pebbles Restaurant & Bo Jangles

These trip notes would not be complete if Pebbles Restaurant and Bo Jangles were not mentioned. We spent so much time in these establishments (some more than others!) and I am sure their profits have been severely reduced since we left Gozo!

Many thanks to Teddy at Pebbles for looking after us so well and providing extra drinks, when to be honest, we had all drunk more than enough before the "freebies"! Thanks also to the owners of Bo Jangles for putting up with the late boozers, Kevin and Dave, and for tolerating our groups' rather inebriated behaviour on the last night.

Memorable Moments

* Dave Cheshire, old Dave but best known as Dangerous for his awesome skills as a buddy.
* The morning that Kevin didn't have a hangover ...... oh, that didn't happen!
* The morning that Helen didn't have a hangover ....... yes, this surprisingly did happen, twice!!
* Meeting Sue, who can drink as much wine as me and slur like the best of us!
* The hat (how did we manage not to destroy this?!)
* Alan's (Tony's) expertise and knowledge of kitting up .... and being our holiday photographer!

Conclusion

It was "MARVELLOUS"!! Thank you all for making it such a great trip and for my lovely present. It nearly made up for all the piss-taking
I had to endure!!

I believe that the email from Sue below sums up our trip and what fun we had. I look forwad to diving with you all again soon!

"Well, I was a little apprehensive before the start of the trip not knowing anyone, but my fears were soon dispelled after the first large glass of rosé. Little was I to know that things were to continue in the same vein...! The diving was great, despite some challenging entries and exits; but nothing was more challenging than trying to get into my wetsuit and I must thank Dangerous Dave for carrying out wetsuit buddying, beyond the call of duty.

Every dive revealed something special: the intense colour of The Blue Hole, the magical aspect of the Cathedral, and the fish feeding frenzy at the Comino Caves, to name but a few. Many thanks go to: Helen for her amazing organisation, even down to picking the restaurant every night to save us the trouble; Brain and his team at Atlantis for their expert diving knowledge, organisations and stupendous help; but most of all to the rest of you for making my trip something special, that even includes the Arsenal supporter. "