Built on Dive Systems

I'm the TDI guy. But none of what I do happens on my own.

Every course I run, every wreck I take a team to, every cylinder of trimix breathed at depth — it all runs on Dive Systems. I'm proud to work for a local company with a genuinely deep history in Maltese diving, and lucky to be trusted to build the technical side of an operation that's been at the water's edge in Sliema since 1978.

Technical diving is never a solo effort. Not underwater, and not on the surface either. The boat, the gas, the compressors, the kit room, the team who know these waters better than anyone — that's the weight being carried behind every dive. My job is the technical instruction. Their job is everything that makes it possible.

Malta's Diving Home Since 1978

Dive Systems isn't a pop-up operation. It's a family-run dive centre established in 1978 — one of the longest-established and most reputable in the Maltese islands, and the largest dive facility in Malta. Founding members of the Malta Professional Diving Schools Association, a TDI Dive Centre, and an SSI centre with decades of local knowledge built into every briefing.

For a technical diver choosing a base in Malta, that history matters. It means infrastructure that actually supports the diving — not a compressor in a back room, but a full technical operation. It means a team who've dived these wrecks for decades. And it means the kind of safety culture and reliability that only comes from forty-plus years of doing it properly.

SIMO — Licensed for the Historic Wrecks

SIMO — our home on the water, licensed for Malta's historic wrecks.

Here's the part that matters most for technical diving in Malta: SIMO is licensed to dive Malta's protected historic wrecks. That licence is rare, and it's the difference between reading about the deep wrecks and actually diving them.

It's the licence that puts HMS Southwold, Le Polynesien, the deep aircraft and the German naval wrecks within reach — the exact sites my Trimix, Advanced Trimix and CCR courses are built around. Without a permitted boat, those dives simply don't happen. With SIMO, they do.

• 38-foot dive boat cruising at 14 knots, purpose-run for diving operations
• Configured for technical diving — up to 10 technical divers plus guide, with room for stages, twinsets and rebreathers
• Onboard oxygen and full first aid, skippered by a diving instructor and first-aid provider
• GPS, fishfinder, VHF, toilet, freshwater shower, dry area, fridge — comfort for long deco days
• Historic wreck permit — access to Malta's deepest and most significant protected wrecks

The Gas Station Technical Diving Demands

Technical diving lives and dies on gas. You can have the best training in the world, but if you can't get accurate, clean trimix when you need it, the diving doesn't happen. Dive Systems runs one of the most capable fill stations in Malta — and it's a genuine asset, not an afterthought.

• Air, nitrox and trimix filled to 200, 230 or 300 bar
• Helium and oxygen on tap for proper trimix and decompression gas blending
• Three compressors producing almost 2,000 litres per minute
• Over 640 litres of air banked at 300 bar — serious capacity for back-to-back technical days
• Water-bath cool fills to reduce cylinder stress and deliver the best possible fill
• CCR-friendly — Sofnolime and Intersorb in stock, and if it's a rebreather on the market, someone in-house understands it
• Air quality tested regularly — because at depth, what's in the cylinder is everything

The Team Behind Every Dive

A dive centre is only as good as its people, and this is where Dive Systems genuinely stands apart. Decades of combined experience, multilingual instruction, and a depth of in-house knowledge that covers SSI, PADI and TDI — plus the kind of rebreather expertise that's hard to find anywhere.

Behind Simon is a full team of in-house instructors and crew — recreational and technical, across multiple agencies and languages. Whatever you're diving, whatever you're learning, there's someone here who knows it inside out.

Where I Fit In

My role is the technical instruction — the TDI side of the operation. Trimix, decompression procedures, advanced wreck, CCR, sidemount, DPV and the full technical pathway, delivered on the infrastructure Dive Systems has spent forty years building.

For years, people told me to go and do my own thing. Easier said than done. In a lot of dive centres, an instructor building their own name is treated as a threat — the assumption being that if you back someone to promote themselves, they'll only ever look out for number one. So you keep your head down, you do the work, and putting your own name to it stays exactly that: an idea you never quite act on.

Simon and Dive Systems see it completely differently. They understand that a good instructor, doing good work, supported to build a reputation, is only ever a good thing — for the centre, for the wider industry, and for diving in Malta as a whole. Happy staff who push themselves raise the standard of everything around them. They bring in new divers, open new markets, and make the whole operation better for it.

That's why Diving The Dream exists — not in spite of the centre I work for, but because of it. Every diver I train stands on a forty-year foundation, and I get to do it with my own name on the work. That's rare in this industry, and I genuinely don't take it for granted.