What it's actually like to Train here, on Gozo

Gozo has walls that keep dropping long after most reefs would've flattened out, and a coastline of famous sites divers travel for on their own. The Blue Hole stuns with dramatic rock formations riddled with swim-throughs. The Inland Sea runs an 80-metre tunnel from shallow water straight out to open water. Ras il-Hobz is a 40m tall pinnacle full with marine life. The legendary MV Karwela is one of four scuttled wrecks along the south coast, walk-in from shore, no boat needed. Add 30 metres of visibility on an average day and barely enough current to notice and you're not only training in a bay that happens to sit near a dive centre. You're training on one of the best diving destinations in the Mediterranean, and you get to dive it every day you're here.

Most centres take their students wherever they can get to that day. We walk down a set of stairs.

Bubbles Bay carries our name and we have it basically to ourselves. It's sheltered and stays diveable most year round. And the shape of it is almost absurdly convenient: a shelf at 2 metres easing out to 5m where skill circuits happen, then a slow slope offshore that bottoms out at 12. That means skill circuits, buoyancy work, rescue practice, course teaching and instructor demonstrations can all happen without wasting half the day on transport or site logistics. If something needs work you can back in with your fellow interns, instructor candidates or the training team beside you. Mask clear not clean enough? Demo too rushed? Buoyancy or fin technique needs work? You fix it in the water, not in theory.

Marsalforn

Marsalforn is the kind of place that you can fall in love with. It is quieter than party Malta, but in summer it still has lots of life: divers and instructors hanging around the bars, live music on the pier, Gozitan food, small beaches and ladders into the bay for a swim when you are not training. You are not stuck in a resort bubble, and you are not lost in a city. You are in a real Gozo harbour village where the dive community naturally ends up in the same places after work, after courses and after sunset.

The classroom

The classroom got renovated recently and it's set up properly: big screen for presentations, kit on hand for academic presentations, air conditioning and high-speed wifi. You can use it whenever it's free during your instructor course.

The bar

The bar is where everything else happens. It's a real bar, open to customers, doubles as the dive shop with local beer on tap. You and guests have lunch here between dives. In the evenings there are quiz nights, karaoke, whatever's on the screen when there's F1 or football.

That sounds like a nice-to-have but it isn't. You're moving to a small island, probably alone, for one to two months. The centre being somewhere people stay after they've finished diving is the difference between a course you did and a summer you still talk about.

Callum Rigby

Management, Divemaster training, equipment maintenance and general handyman.

Around them is a seasonal team of eight to ten instructors from different countries and backgrounds. The teaching standard is the same across the centre, but the personalities are different. You see how different instructors manage nervous students, brief a site, solve problems and keep the atmosphere calm. The system stays consistent, but you learn there is more than one good way to communicate, lead and teach.

Over time, you stop copying one person and start building your own style within the Bubbles standard.