Bubbles January February 2017

THE A TL A M SU B A Q U A CL U B E-M A GA Z I N E

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

2017 Atlam Committee Members :Joseph Azzopardi President guzeppi56@gmail.com Anton Debattista Secretary andeb@go.net.mt Peter Attard Treasurer Alex Arena P.R.O. Victor Fabri Diving Officer vfabri@gmail.com Alvin Pace Activity Officer tamsinjane@yahoo.com George Mugliett Activity Officer

IN THIS ISSUE

page

Editor’s Note 2 Species Page - Short Beaked Dolphin - Edward Vella 3 A Trip to the Red Sea - Part 7 - David Agius Malta Wrecks - HMS Maori - Dorian Law

www.atlam.org

4/7 8/10

The Editorial Its that time of the year again – that time when the year adds one to the previous, and the time for Annual General Meetings – the one where committee members get voted in. The plural in Annual General Meetings is intentional, for apart from our own Atlam SAC AGM, we also had the same for the FUAM (Federation of Underwater Activities Malta), of which Atlam is a member. The FUAM AGM was held on the 6th February at the Atlam club house – further details on the FUAM website.

Atlam’s was held on the 23rd February – as anticipated, Guzi Azzopardi was reelected President – and making up the committee for 2017 are: Anton Debattista, Alex Arena, Victor Fabri, Peter Attard, Alvin Pace and George Mugliett. Obviously any committee on its own will not succeed in its work, unless it has the support and co-operation of its members, so it is really up to each and everyone of us to make this a successful year.

The new committee, has in fact already launched the first initiative, by intending to organise a series of forums covering strategic subjects for discussion. This should give the committee a good opportunity to gauge what the members think and is therefore a helping hand to decide which course the club should take. It goes without saying that a group of well intentioned people pooling their ideas, stand a better chance of success than individuals pulling at each end of a rope.

The first forum was held on the 9th March having the subject ‘Poor Attendance’.

The meeting was ably chaired by Louis Debono, and the members reaction to this committee invitation was a very good attendance. Actually it crossed my mind that if a forum was organised every week, the poor attendance trend would surely be reversed! Lots of perceptions were given for the attendance decline, but when several ‘perceptions’ turn out to be consistently similar, then perhaps the ‘perception’ might well become a ‘reason’. Anyway, lots of data gathered at this forum, and now it is up to the new committee to analyse and react.

This year started off with a January determined to keep everyone on dry land, and now the sea is at its coldest, although the official 15 degrees can still be successfully countered by a 7 mm wet suit. Of course this does not apply to the seasonal divers who normally venture forth towards the end of Spring – again diving is a sport which allows one to enjoy it at the individual’s own pace and at a custom level of involvement. Anyway, there is no sign that the sea is drying up just yet!

Keep Diving!

Edward Vella evella@onvol.net

M A L T A

established 1955

2017 Atlam SAC Membership Fee Your 2017 Atlam SAC Membership Fee is now due.

Membership fees of €25 may be submitted to any committee member.

Support Atlam by paying your Membership Fee as soon as possible.

Many Thanks.

Looking forward to a super Atlam SAC diving 2017.

The Committee

JOIN ATLAM SUBAQUA CLUB and share the fun & experience Activities for Divers: • Shore Dives • Boat Dives • Night Dive • Diving Excursions Abroad • U/W Photo Competitions • Lectures on various subjects • Nitrox Courses.

• Free e-magazine

Activities for the whole family • Weekly Club Nights & Bar • Barbecues • Majjalata • Pasta Nights • Boat Parties • Gozo Diving Breaks • Camping on Comino and other places.

For more info contact the President Guzi Azzopardi on 79493275

Species Page Research by Edward Vella

Short Beaked Common Dolphin

It is indeed considered a lucky day, when a sighting is made of a single or a group of dolphins – well actually the proper term for a group of dolphins is a pod. Long ago and far away, when still a young lad, a village priest took us youngsters on a day trip to Gozo, and I still remember as if it were yesterday, when some dolphins came and seemingly effortlessly rode the Gozo ferry’s bow wave. Since then during our boat dives, there were two occasions when I was there that we saw dolphins, but on both occasions, they were quite a distance away, so it was impossible to tell to which species they belonged.

The more widely known dolphins are the Bottlenose, probably Flipper had a fin in this, but actually, the smaller Short Beaked is the more numerous and therefore also called ‘common’.

Apart from its shorter snout, perhaps the main identifying feature is a pattern on each side coloured light grey, yellow or gold in front and dirty grey in back. The back is dark and the belly is white.

The Short Beaked Common Dolphin has the traits of several land based mammals, in that it lives in groups with a social structure. Typically when these dolphins are not hunting they tend to spend the time socialising and carry out many daily activities together, including type of activities that cannot be classified as having any specific use, and therefore it can be concluded that these dolphins like to play. They are very fast swimmers, fast enough to enable them to leap clear out of the water (breach), and perform aerial acrobatics like somersaults... a most uplifting show if you happen to be there!

However these dolphins face many dangers – the most serious ones originating from the planet’s most dangerous inhabitant – man also known as Homo sapiens - no prizes for guessing this one!

The dangers come in many forms: chemical pollution – remember Delphinus delphis is on top of the food chain, so its contaminated prey would have in turn caught other contaminated prey which would have caught

other contaminated prey, etc. etc.; noise pollution coming from vessels and more seriously from oil drilling operations, especially if these happen to be close to their breeding grounds; ingestion of plastic debris, which then accumulates and blocks vital organs such as the intestines. The list goes on...

A baby Delphinus delphis takes 10 to 11 months to see the light of day, after which it survives on its mother’s milk for another 6 months. During this time the calf swims close to its mother for protection. A curious fact which I learnt while compiling this article is that unlike

(Delfin) Delphinus delphis

humans, short-beaked common dolphins have no lips and therefore cannot suck on the teats of the mother.

If they did have this ability they would drown. Thus, the female dolphin’s mammary glands have a muscle that when contracted, squirts milk so that it can feed its calf!

I am sure that many see human like qualities in dolphins, not least that they live in communities and in their own way help out each other.

The official conservation status for Delphinus delphis is a Least Concern Species.

This does not mean, as the name may suggest, that they are not under threat, but on the contrary, it means that not enough is known in order to make an informed assessment of the real situation.

Next Species

Comb Jellies

(Ctenophores) Bram P L E A S E S E N D P H OTO S Photo courtesy of Tethys Research Institute

A Trip to the Red Sea •

A trip to the Red Sea – Part 7 – At some point... one has to come back home...

In last month’s article, I recounted the experience of seeing up close and personal a turtle and a dolphin. Last day into this six day diving trip, one could only hope for some more big game. Dives for the day were three and yes.. .big game was seen, more than once!

Big game...

Article & photos by David Agius

PA R

T7

Sunrise at Shaab el Erg

Shaab el Erg The previous day, as you may recall from my last article, we saw dolphins here and we had a bit of snorkeling with them. For this morning, no one was late for the briefing at 06:30am. Yes, you read right.. on holiday and attending a dive briefing at 06:30am... divers are nuts, for diving!

The reef plan was shown to us in the usual presentation briefing but the main expectation was dolphins and nice coral. Neither would be missing.

At one point I was shooting some pictures for a buddy who spotted a heart shape designed on the bottom by divers using broken coral and wanted some pics to send to his girlfriend back in Finland. Later I was adding some closeups to coral for me to check later for names when at home.

And that’s when out of the corner of my eye I spotted shadows coming towards us!

The dive progressed quite calmly, with a small opposing current initially and mainly swimming in a sandy valley between two reefs and we were quite eager to spot our friendly mammals.

At turnaround point, the corals and small fish were still very nice but after a week of corals maybe it was time you’d start wishing for something more unusual.

A nice group of nine dolphins made their way towards us. An automatic reaction brought the camera in front of me and thankfully, this time, with an SD card in the camera, I managed to shoot some pictures of these friendly giants. However, it appeared that they would not stop and play... maybe who knows, they were looking for their breakfast. All except one, which turned around and had a look at us, then continued on their graceful swim and out of sight. A few seconds which I think we wish could have become minutes, but alas, more reasons to think of return trips.

El Fanadir El Fanadir was meant to be the last dive before we return in front of Hurghada for the last dive (and as well the last wreck).

Although the site itself did not turn out to have the most best looking seabed, we were told that the reef, which sloped down to technical diving depths, could offer big game sightings. The guide himself had spotted whale sharks a couple of times here together with dolphins and other larger fish.

In our dive, we started off with a nice crocodile fish (not related to Nile crocodiles which are some of the nastiest in the world) who posed nicely for a few photos. Following that, our drift dive took us on a tour of the reef and its land side wall which proved to be a mix of the usual fish and corals in this area.

At one point, we also saw swimming by a fish (about 1.5m long) which we strongly believed was a shark! Hearts skipped a beat here but since it kept passing away and we saw it from a distance, we soon relaxed a bit more and continued the dive. It did make a second pass about 10 minutes later and the guide back on the boat explained to us that it was a popular fish (something with “M� if that helps) that is normally swimming together with whale sharks and thus he was looking for one in the area but to no avail.

The visbility here was also very good as in most of our previous dives and the last reef photos were thus taken for future memories, and to share with you readers as well. Once we spent our whole hour under, we put up DSMBs and the liveabord’s tenders came to pick us up to return to the boat, and, unfortunately from there the boat would take us for the last dive.

Looks like a shark but is not....

phyllidiella pustulosa.

Our guide observing some fish.

Crocodile fish

El Miniya The last wreck on our Wrecks and Reefs tour was an Egyptian Minesweeper, the “El Miniya”, which was given to the Egyptians by Russia (together with three sister ships) and had been sunk in an Israeli air attack in February 1970.

Conveniently it was sunk just outside the Hurghada harbour and thus this was also going to be our last dive.

Together with my buddies along this trip, a Belgian and a Finn with whom I made friends during this trip.

We went down a shot line from the boat down 30m to the seabed next to minesweeper which is lying on its side. Visibility was not the best as again, we’re just off the harbour.

The Miniya was sunk in action and in fact one could still see its anti-aircraft guns on the seabed where they fell and the huge gash in her front where it was hit by the aircraft. The dive itself gave us an opportunity to explore a bit the inside though in retrospect, maybe it was a bit too much for the end of the trip as we did quite a bit more penetration than we should have, arriving to its engine room through a narrow corridor at 25m depth.

On the bow, apart from the beautiful red coral we also spotted a nice crocodile fish and all around the wreck itself, fish life was plentiful. I was a bit intrigued by some unusal bits of equipment on her side which looked like torpedoes but these were more probably part of the minesweeping equipment.

Recap This being my last article in this series, I thank you for reading the articles and I have appreciated your comments on this trip. For those who maybe have been enticed to consider diving in Egypt, I have just a few words: Go for it!

Myself, I had originally planned to visit again this January but unfortunately due to change of jobs I haven’t yet found the time. My next trip there would probably be for the more southern diving spots for some nice reefs and bigger fish. Maybe a few wrecks could be on that itinerary too.

In the meantime, we can appreciate our own local reefs and wrecks, which have nothing less than these reefs I described, but rather, different life forms and environments which we can enjoy all year round.

Safe and Happy Diving to All!

Anti Aircaft guns

Engine room

Red coral and crocodile fish

Article compiled by Dorian Law Location: St. Elmo Bay, Valletta.

GPS position: 35°90’28”N, 14°51’57”E. Dive depth: 9 - 18meters.

Length: 115meters (35m intact).

Beam: 11meters.

Date of sinking: 12 February 1942.

Type of dive: Shore.

Suitable for: All levels.

The Ship: The HMS Maori was built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in the Govan area on the Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland, at a cost over £340,000 Sterling.

Being named after the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand, it was launched by Mrs. W. J. Jordan, the wife of the New Zealand High Commissioner William Jordan, in September 1937. It was completed nearly a year later, with a standard displacement over 1900tons and a draught of 3.5meters and commissioned for war action in January 1939. She sailed under her first commanding officer, Commander G.N. Brewer, with a pennant number L24/F24/G24. This 115meter long, 11meter beam, Tribal-Class Destroyer, could reach a top speed of 36knots.

This was possible due to the two steam turbines installed which were driven by 3 Admiralty boilers with a total shaft power output of about 45000 horse power. It had a range of approximately 5500 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 15knots and could accommodate a complement of 190 Royal Navy personnel on board.

The armament included 4 twin QF 120mm Mk XII guns, which were mounted on two forward and two aft turrets. These 45 calibre guns, could fire a 25kg (50lb) shell at over 800meters per second to a maximum range of 15 kilometers. Its antiaircraft armament included one quadruple QF 2-pounder gun, better known as the pom-pom gun (a 40-millimeter British auto-cannon, used as an anti-aircraft gun by the Royal Navy) and two quadruple QF 12.7mm MK III machineguns (upgraded Vickers machine guns, which could fire 12.7mm rounds and commonly used as a closing-in anti-aircraft weapon). The 533mm torpedo tubes could fire four 21-inch torpedoes, that were the largest size of torpedo in common use in the

HMS MAORI Malta’s Wrecks Series

Royal Navy. Its anti-submarine armament consisted of 20 depth charges contained on a single two-tower rack.

In January 1939, HMS Maori joined the Mediterranean Fleet, doing convoy escort duties, until her return back to Britain in October. During 1940, she patrolled the North Sea, took part in the Norway Campaign and served in Iceland and the Faroe Islands. In May 1941, while escorting Convoy WS-8B, HMS Maori, along with the other destroyers HMS Cossack, Sikh and Zulu, participated in the pursuit and destruction of the German battleship, the Bismarck. Before her return to the Mediterranean Fleet in Malta, she was involved in the Battle of Cape Bon in December 1941 with the 14th Destroyer Flotilla, which saw the sinking of two Italian Cruisers, the Alberico da Barbiano and Alberto da Giussano.

The Wreck:

The Dive:

Commanded by Commander R. E. Courage, the HMS Maori was moored at the emergency destroyer buoy just past the entrance to Dockyard Creek in the Grand Harbour. On the 12th February 1942 at 0200hrs, after that a parachute flare dropped from an enemy aircraft had become trapped in her foremast, the destroyer was attacked from the air and was hit amidships by a bomb that penetrated the engine and gear room. Only one man was killed in the attack, since it was custom that off-duty personnel sleep ashore in shelters while in Malta. The HMS Glowworm, which was almost alongside the HMS Maori, had two men killed and 20 injured. All attempts to put out the fires failed and after burning & exploding cordite for 5 hours she blew up and sank, stern first, at her moorings at about 0400hrs. At daybreak, the forepart still showed above the water and the wreck seriously interfered with ship movement.

The forward ‘A’ and ‘B” guns were removed and mounted on the Ricasoli Breakwater for use as shore batteries by the Army. The intention of the Admiralty was to scuttle the destroyer off Sliema.

The dive site is easily reached by car.

Driving through Floriana towards the island’s capital, Valletta, turn left just in front of the War Memorial, along Great Siege road, which ends just in front of a building, with options to turn either left or right. Take the turn on the right on Lanca road, which passes under a small arch (tunnel) going towards the Valletta United waterpolo pitch. Keep driving along this road until you are in front of Maori, a bluepainted cafeteria / bar, with alien-marine creatures, that cannot be missed. There used to be a bar in this area with its outside walls covered with a number of painted destroyers, amongst which the HMS Maori, nowadays with its walls painted in green.

This area, located beneath the bastions on the West side of Fort St. Elmo, is better The hull was cut in two and refloated. The aft section was scuttled in deep water off Malta (location still unknown) while the forward part, measuring less than 40meters, was scuttled in Saint Elmo Bay, about 150meters West from Fort Saint Elmo on 15 July 1945 at a depth of about 18meters, with the bow pointing Southwest.

known as ‘Il-Fossa’ or Jews Sally Port, where a series of shacks hide a boat slip and a small ‘weather protected port’, with boats exiting from under the street.

The entry point is at the bottom of the steps, opposite the cafeteria, that lead from the street to the shore line. The concrete pathway at the bottom of the steps can be quite slippery, so caution is necessary until the entry point is reached. With a shallow bottom depth at the entry point of about 2meters, it is best practice to walk down or slide into the water, with or without fins, rather than jump in. The wreck is located Northwest by North at a compass bearing of about 25° and slightly over 100meters from the shore. Swim over a sandy bottom with posidonia meadows at depths of 4 to 9meters until a rocky slope is reached which drops down to 15meters. This takes about 5minutes.

Upon reaching the deepest part of the dive, which is the starboard side, at about 14meters, the hull can be penetrated for exploration from two large holes at the forward hold section. Along the years, some of the weak structure has collapsed but it is still possible to swim inside the whole wreck. The silty bottom inside the wreck demands good finning techniques and buoyancy control. Exiting from the wreck, some more wreckage can be explored at the back of aft section. The port side can also be explored at a depth of about 10meters. Moving forward from the aft area to the top section, at a depth of about 9meters, the bases of the forward gun turrets can be explored. Upon reaching the bow area, which lies along the rocky slope, take a bearing approximately 200°, due Southwest, towards the exit point to end the dive.

Safety: The wreck is best dived when the wind is not coming from North to Northeast or in a very strong Northwesterly wind. Due to boat traffic to and from the sheltered port passing under the street from a small exit / entry passage, a surface marker buoy should be used to mark the divers’ location.

The slippery surface and the shallow depth at the dive entry / exit point are also a concern, so caution at this area is a must.

Note: The HMS Maori is by no means the best wreck that can be dived in the Maltese archipelago. It is however, considered as Malta’s most famous historical wreck due to the war action she saw in her life, including the defense of Malta and during the sinking of the Bismarck. This year and the month of February, mark the 75th year from that fateful day, when the HMS Maori became a World War 2 wreck. For this reason, the wreck of the HMS Maori was chosen as the first wreck in this series of articles about Malta’s wrecks..

Important Notice: The information contained might not be accurate or reflect the conditions found daily at the site. More accurate information should be obtained prior to planning to dive this wreck site.