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malta - love it or..

It is an old cliche but one that is very true and therefore worth repeating - Malta is a place that you love or hate. Hot, dirty, roads full of potholes, the friendliest people in Europe, fascinating history and somewhere to get away from the stress of modern life; you see it the way that you wish. In early 2004 Mrs Musgrove travelled out to the island for a second time to visit a Maltese friend. Within a week she had agreed to buy a house with no windows and one outside door which had not been lived in for a couple of decades.

So it came to pass that a few months later husband of Mrs Musgrove (me) found himself cleaning many years of rubbish from the house and wondering why he had to give up many weeks of sailing in order to re-build a house originally constructed many centuries ago. That period of life lasted for a year and a bit and as the "project" came to an end I found myself wondering how I would occupy my days in Malta when the plumbing and other skills were no longer required. After a brief evening working out the time it might take to sail the Shrimper out from the UK to Malta (I reckoned on about 3 months) it became apparent that the only choice was between shipping Blue Moon out in a container or driving out through France and Italy.

The next part of planning was to compare the costs and logisistics of the alternatives. it didn't take long. A 20 foot container is, I am well informed, a little too short for a Shrimper on its trailer. A 40 foot container from Avonmouth to Malta would cost in excess of £1,100 for shipping and charges. The alternative of driving would be less than that and have the advantage of having the car, a Land Rover Freelander, in Malta for 6 weeks of the summer. So the bookings were made for the ferries from Dover to Calais and then Pozallo, in southern Sicily, to Valetta.

At 1900 hours on the 25th July 2006 we set off from Bristol; the we being Blue Moon and I as the other members of the family who were in Malta this year had preceded by air a few weeks in advance. The Freelander is an automatic diesel and an easy thing to drive although not as rock steady as the old Discovery used to be. By midnight we had traversed the south of England and found a place to have a quick kip on the ferry across the Channel. Over the next three days we travelled on without mishap through France, Switzerland, and Italy to arrive at Pozallo 6 hours early after 1,800 miles. The trip was surprisingly pleasant and easy. I drove, listened to music and a couple of stories on CDs, and religiously stopped every 2 to 3 hours for a quick walk around the block of a motorway service station. As dusk fell I would stop and get into Blue Moon for a spot of supper and sleep in a truck stop. At dawn I rose and drove on. As we went south the driving became more apparently Italian until in Sicily it was every man, or women, for themselves. I got on the catamaran ferry 68 hours after leaving Bristol.

Ninety minutes later we docked in the Grand Harbour. Valetta is a beautiful city of great architecture and no rush. A place where you can sit in a Mediterranean cafe underneath a statue of Queen Victoria, listen to the locals speaking in a language that has no equal being a mix of arabic and italian, drink very acceptable local beer, eat a pizza and still feel "at home". More importantly the Maltese are predicable drivers so the final 5 miles to our Maltese home in the town of Zejtun was absolutely delightful in the eveing sun.

The choice of mooring for Blue Moon during her stay in Malta was tricky. There are many harbours on the island. The best known are the Grand Harbour to the east of Valetta and Marsamxett to the west. The former was the port of call of the capital ships of the Royal Navy whilst the latter was the home of the submarines and destroyer flotillas. It is in this area that most marinas and moorings for yachts are now found but a recent addition to the facilities is the "Grand Harbout Marina" which has probaly the best outlook on the island and is relatively cheap. This marina was also 15 minutes on bike or 5 minutes by car from home but somehow morring Blue Moon in such a place didn't fit. There is another place not frequented by the mega-yachts and even closer to home - St Thomas' Bay.

There was a time, presumably, when if you needed a mooring in the British Isles you put one down on the bottom of a protected piece of water. My first boat sat for a year or two on the River Plym for the princely sum of £150 per year. Before going to Malta I had become so attuned to paying dues and being regulated that these ideas of putting my own mooring down where I wished and not having to gain permission were completely alien to me. St Thomas' Bay is a dirty little bay which I have come to love. It is populated by the Maltese who keep their boats for fishing and fun moored in the bay, who sleep in their converted boat houses and see little need for regulations. It is a place where there is no charge for using the slip but you may have to wait for the bakers horse to finish its therapy session. It is a place which Blue Moon now knows as home.

We launched the day after arrival on the island and spent a couple of days bimbling about locally with a family who were staying with us for week. The sea was crystal clear and 26 degrees centigrade which made for plenty of swimming for the kids and even I jump in when it is that warm. The wind is something which I had not noticed before whilst working on the house or visiting other parts of the island. Now that I had Blue Moon available for use it became apparent that the wind in this part of the Mediterranean generally comes from the North West at anything from Force 1 to 5 for the majority of the time. Every now and again it will go around to the East for a day or two but then revert to the North West. It sets up quite a chop as well which surprised me because once you are about 250 metres off the depth is over 20 metres.

Malta from the sea is a place of two halves. The easy side lies to the north east, the less easy (due to continuous cliffs and no safe anchorages lies to the south west. Our first outing up the easy side was a stiff tack into a Force 4 NW to reach the Grand Harbour. This, once the home of the Mediterranean Fleet and for a time during 1942 and 1943 the most heavily bombed part of the world, is now a haven for sailing small boats yet there are few there! Valetta lies to the north west whilst the creeks to the south are now the home of Malta Dockyard, the marina and moorings for local boats. Getting in and out of the Harbour can be exciting because the number and size of the cruise liners is increasing and they take little notice of a Shrimper bobbing around in the entrance when they are on their way in or out. Once in there are numerous places to drop the hook or pick up a mooring for lunch or you can just mooch around taking in the sights.

To the north west of the main island of Malta lies two smaller island, Comino and Gozo. Comino is nearly uninhabited as it has one hotel, one police hut, a church and a few old fortifications. It is quite wonderful especially in the spring when the local holiday makers deem it to be too cold to visit. The sailing time from St Thomas Bay is a day in a Shrimper (against the NW wind!). Once there the anchorages are great; very deep so a great deal of chain and line are needed but absolutely clear and looking down on to an azure blue limestone floor with shoals of fish between you and the bottom.

Over the next few weeks we sailed around and about a great deal although we never did succeed in circumnavigating Gozo as well as Malta. When the wind came in from the east we dropped our mooring in St Thomas Bay and pottered around to Marsaxlok Bay and used the anchor for a temporary stay. Generally we sailed a little, dropped the anchor in a bay, had lunch and then sailed back home. Bliss..

If anyone would like any more information about sailing in Malta or might like to stay there and use the house and boat please drop me a line to soa@shrimperowner.org.