Hanging Around Malta
After last Tuesday'S our failed attempt to head to Cap Monastir we
are now enjoying cruising around Malta.
The plan to go to Tunisia for haul-out and bottom work has been
scrapped for this year, like many previous plans in our long cruising life,
maybe next year we shall see, but that is way too far in the future.
We arrived in Malta last Wednesday morning at 01:00 am and anchored
in 20ft of water at Mellieha Bay, a very good anchorage with spectacular
scenery all around, crystal clear water and excellent protection from the NW,
which kept blowing nonstop since we arrived till Saturday evening. While at anchor
in Mallieha Bay I didn't even go to shore but caught up on my reading, fixed
the outboard motor steering, re-commissioned the water maker and a few other
chores.
The weather grib files showed a massive low pressure system
passing over us that would bring gale force winds from the East to North East
by this morning and last till tomorrow evening. With this info in hand we left
Mellieha Bay on Sunday morning and headed south east towards Marsaxlok fishing
harbour. On the way down we entered The Grand Harbour to check out Dock # 1
creek but on inspection there we found that no improvement has been done since
our stay there in 2010, if anything it is in worst shape than ever. So we
carried on towards our intended destination arrived around 10:00 am and grabbed
one of the large mooring just before the big boat yard. We drove the dingy to
shore and tied up between two local boats. It is very crowded in town, every
Sunday the hawkers are selling their goods and tourists line up the seashore
restaurants, the whole place is a buzz and very enjoyable sitting down at one
of the cafes and watch the people go about. This is a very picturesque fishing
village with many colorful Maltese fishing boats to take picture with or of. We
will be here for a while likely till the end of the week.
