I was not surprised to read the other day that the swimming zone in Sliema is, according to the people who know it well, on a very strict and effective diet. The strange bit was the fuss that was being made about it, or rather the assumption behind that fuss.

The logic is as follows. Swimming zones are a good thing, because they are the only places where people can swim safely without the risk of being mowed down by boats. The more of them there are, and the larger, the better the chances people have to safely access the sea. And vice versa – which is why swimmers at Tigné, and a few weeks ago those at Ramla in Gozo, complained.

Except there is a problem with the first part of that reasoning. Swimming zones are not a bonus. It’s not as if swimmers suddenly found they had safe access to the water. What really happened was that they lost much of their access to a swimming zone that once existed, and that was known simply as ‘the sea’.

Every year around June, Transport Malta breaks the good news about the increase of swimming zones, up to 50 this year. My point is that it’s all a sleight and that what seems like an increase is actually the opposite. Swimming zones are a restriction. They cordon off, contain, and segregate swimmers into relatively tiny areas. They are Transport Malta’s ongoing and generous gift to boaters, a gift known simply as ‘the sea’.

Now some might object that fair’s fair, and that boaters – about 99 per cent of the population, if the size of the fleets at Marsascala and St Paul’s Bay is anything to go by – are humans with needs and feelings, just as swimmers are. To which I’d say that the whole point of boats is for people to boat – to put a boat to sea, that is, as opposed to dropping anchor five metres away from the towels or providing beaches with unasked-for wave action.

The restriction of swimmers to roped-off areas, and the deadly dangers that lurk beyond those areas, have been accepted as a given. The Malta Tourism Authority (MTA), for example, tells us in its Beach News 2016 that “swimmers are requested to remain in the swimming zones”. When 76-year-old Allan Stanley died at Ħondoq a few weeks ago, TVM reported that he “lost his life after he was hit by a boat’s propeller as he was swimming outside the zone reserved for swimmers”.

Swimming zones are not a bonus. It’s not as if swimmers suddenly found they had safe access to the water

There’s a strong sense of déjà vu about this way of seeing things. It is, in fact, straight out of medieval and Renaissance maps, where we find two kinds of sea. The first, usually close to land, is well-known, navigable and inhabited by ships. The second, typically the open ocean, is largely unknown and fraught with danger. It is populated by terrifying sea monsters that like nothing better than to swallow ships whole and spit out the masts, among other mischief.

The main difference is that, while the sea monsters gradually disappeared from maps as nautical technology improved during the 17th century, Transport Malta’s cartography displays the opposite tendency. The other difference is cosmetic. Transport Malta’s monsters may not be as charismatic as, say, the feathered sea dragons of Porcacchi’s map of 1572, but they share their inclination to cut people to ribbons.

Swimming zones are just a small part of a wider crisis of space and access. Every summer I find myself subtracting a name, or 10, from a list of bathing spots. (Transport Malta would probably say I’m actually adding to a list of non-bathing spots, but never mind.) Some examples are in order, and they fall into three categories.

The first includes spots where coastal development has developed the coast to the extent that it has become an intolerable place to be. The stretch between White Rocks and St Andrews is a case in point.

White Rocks used to be a quiet and accessible beach but is now off-limits unless one has a penchant for garish skylines and incessant loud music courtesy of the Splash and Fun water park. Moving one’s towel further down the coast would be construed as an act of war by the caravan squatters, and I don’t even want to think what will happen once the White Rocks development gets under way.

The second category includes places where service providers provide such a fine service that one is left with two options – to take it, or to leave. Fra Ben in Qawra, for example, has been colonised by a chap who parks his umbrellas and sunbeds over every inch of beach. Marfa, too, is on that list, as is Paradise Bay. The Blue Lagoon is unmentionable, and Peter’s Pool in Delimara is in the process of becoming so.

The third category is somewhat more erratic and depends on things like currents and the bowel movements of caged fish. Every summer, the newspapers carry reports of oily and smelly tuna-farm sludge drifting into popular swimming places like St Paul’s Bay and Xrobb l-Għaġin. Every summer, the people in offices tell us that even if it walks and quacks like tuna sludge, it may be some other mysterious substance. That, or they don’t bother to say (let alone do) anything at all.

Little wonder, then, that swimmers at Tigné are in such a state over a few metres of sea. Even as Transport Malta worships at the altar of boats, the carbuncles mushroom, the incorrigibles expand their empires, and the tuna do their business, those few metres matter more and more. The day cannot be too far away when the sea monsters take over the entire map.

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