Ready to depart Malta

Posted at 8:35 PM, May. 1, 2007

After 41 long hours of travel we finally made it to Malta....................!

Every morning the church bells ring, from 6am all through the day every fifteen minutes until midnight.  I love the sound of the bells waking me up in the morning, Mum puts her ear plugs straight in, her eye mask on and rolls over for a silent sleep in and Keith, of course, gets up and starts working.  So here we all are on Savarna, “daughter of the ocean,” ready to set sail………………….……….once the motor is fixed, the 829 sq ft mainsail is sparkling clean, the 53 ft hull is polished, the deck has been scrubbed…………and all of the little jobs. 

Today is Malta’s labour day.  For three nights now they have held a fireworks competition.  Spectacular .  Fire sparkles fill the whole sky, exploding with a great echo and then falling like waterfalls through the black sky into the black water.  The harbour is surrounded by huge stone walls and forts and deep pink bougainvillea’s grow out of the cracks.  Such pleasure for the eyes, the contrast of the vibrant new blossoms growing out of structures built hundreds and hundreds of years ago, now wrinkled and worn with memory

Dark hair, strong noses, high cheek bones and deep brown eyes.  The Maltese seem like strong people.  The older ones are my favourites, with such huge expression in their faces as their arms wave about, they talk so quickly and so vibrantly our laughter fits in just fine with the conversation even when we don’t understand it. 

The sun is very hot but the nights are still cool.  From here we’ll head to the island of Gozo, 15 miles NW of Malta stopping on the island of Comino to visit the “Blue lagoon.”  I am really looking forward to that first dive into the sea, the water here in Grand Harbour will not compete with the Blue Lagoon!

That’s all for now.

Love to all

Ali (not Keith this time)

                             The north side of Grand Harbour