I took two photos a few days ago. One shows the weights being used for this year’s marker buoys while the other shows the weights from previous years left there and now practically covered (above).

This is the Xlendi seabed where several hundred tourists come diving every year.

It is truly a pity that year after year, when the swimmer’s zone buoys are set up in Xlendi and other bays, the heavy weights used to keep them in place are not a proper weight but three bricks tied together with wire rope. This is so amateurish. Worse still is the fact that not all of them are being collected at the end of the swimming season with the result that there is now an accumulation of bricks.

I have seen this also on other diving sites where there are also swimmers’ zones.

This is seabed pollution and gives the wrong image to our diving tourists apart from damaging the seabed in some cases. The same system is also used in sandy bays and I have witnessed swimmer’s zone markers come loose well before the end of the swimming season with the bricks remaining on the seabed.

Whoever is responsible should ensure that the contractor uses proper concrete weights and that these are collected when they are not required any more or else left there with a marker buoy to be used the following season.