September 2013, Malta and Gozo

Malta is a small but densely populated island country in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Sicily and east of Tunisia. After visiting my friend Alex in her current home city Moscow, we traveled together to Malta for a land and sea adventure to ride motorcycles and scuba dive.

We did all of our diving off Gozo, one of the smaller of the three Maltese islands. Gozo has some of the world’s best dive sites, with super blue water with endless visibility and unique underwater rock formations and an intricate (and dangerous) network of caves. We found Next Dive and did our diving with Mike Bugeja, who is probably the best and most entertaining dive guide I’ve had the pleasure of diving with.

On land Malta and Gozo are equally impressive. Every building in Malta has been built from the local limestone for literally thousands of years, so the entire built island has taken on a monochromatic desert hue. Structures remain standing from prehistory, and we stayed at an Airbnb room in a 2000 year old home within the fortress walls of the city of Mdina.

Like most Mediterraneans, the Maltese love the water. Every beach you visit is filled with older people enjoying their retirement just bobbing around in the sea.

All photos are film, shot with Contax T3 and Mamiya 7ii.
Photos by Renee Lusano