Successful Diving Trip to Malta for Ellesmere Students

Students at Ellesmere College returned from a successful diving trip to Malta this summer where they all obtained their Open Water certification. Students and staff headed off to the southern European country in the beautiful Mediterranean for a five day course which included classroom based theory sessions, training dives and eventually open water dives. The training was provided by a family run dive school known as 'Buddies' who offer a team of highly qualified PADI instructors.

Martin Stanhope, Buddies Course Director said "the course consists of knowledge development and training sessions, which teaches students all the basic skills that they need for diving and qualifies them to dive to a depth of 18 metres. Once qualified you can then dive with a buddy independent of an Instructor all over the world, so you can enjoy beautiful reefs, wrecks and the many inland dive sites and coastal wrecks around the UK"

Over the five days of training, students practiced the art of diving in a small swimming pool before heading out into the Mediterranean Sea, at St. Pauls' Bay. Here the students started to experience the thrill of diving and being able to stay under the water. The next couple of days were spent close to shore at Cirkewwa where students demonstrated they were capable of swimming 200 metres without swim aids or 300 metres with a mask, fins and snorkel.

On the final day of qualification students were escorted to the island of Gozo which is also known as the Calypso Island. Here they dived on two of the best dive sites in the Mediterranean Sea. Diving between 14 to 18 meters students experienced, possibly the most popular dive site, the "Blue Hole" where they swam through an arch into the open sea and proceeded to circle the "Azure Window" at 18 meters,

Michael Coats, Head of Department IT at the School, said "All of the students had a great time and successfully obtained their certification. This was the first time that this expedition had been planned and it is hoped that future expeditions will allow the students to gain further certification and experience just like they have in Malta."

2nd October 2013  Back to News