The Malta Airport Foundation has launched Submerged World, a mini-series documenting six of the Maltese islands’ most popular diveable wrecks.

The six-part series kicked off with an instalment on the tanker Um El Faroud, which was scuttled 1998, becoming one of the Maltese Islands’ first artificial reefs and diving attractions.

The six-minute episode shows that, over the past 24 years, diversified marine life has colonised the tanker’s decks, making for a most fascinating underwater experience for divers.

“Through Submerged World, we want to promote Malta’s underwater offering to tourists, while increasing the visibility of this remote world among the local non-diving community," Malta Airport Foundation chairman Josef Formosa Gauci said.

The mini-series is the work of production house Monolith and executive producer Alan Deidun, a marine biologist and professor. 

“Wrecks are one of the best ways through which man can attempt to turn back time and try to restore elements of the marine environment that have been lost through his actions.

"By concentrating marine life, wrecks very often act as oases within barren deserts, representing an opportunity for man to give back to nature and thus help to redress the balance,” Deidun said.

Works are currently under way on the production of the next five episodes, set to be released between December 2022 and 2023, plunging audiences into varying depths to discover how a wartime aircraft and different vessels with interesting pasts have now become habitats for a myriad of marine organisms. 

Submerged World is not the first collaboration between the foundation, Monolith and Deidun. The foundation had already partnered with them for the production of another two documentaries shot in the waters surrounding Filfla and Comino.

The foundation was established in 2014 with the aim of safeguarding and promoting the Maltese Islands’ environmental, cultural and artistic heritage.