Moondancerx's BIG adventure

This past Sunday we got up early - well earlyish and set off to Valletta to the market. I thought I already knew where they held the market, so we got off the bus and went through the entrance gates to the city, heading for Republic Street which is where I 'knew' the market was. The first thing that became evident was the Pulizia presence. We hardly ever see police anywhere, but there were lots of police and then as we came up to St. George's Square there were crowds everywhere, a stage had been set up in the square and we asked what was about to happen. A parade. Great - we love pomp and circumstance, and the next couple of hours was filled with pomp. Having grown as a soldier's daughter I was well used to the parade that followed - and there is video attached. The Maltese Army, whose dress uniform is exactly the same as my father's, were out in force. They were lead by their marching band who were excellent, and then mounted soldiers on beautiful horses, followed ...

Sunday 6th December we had a very long day. We started out in Valetta in the morning and then went over to Cospicua. We were expecting to meet up with cousin Annie and her family and then go over to Maria's house (my other cousin)to surprise her. I knew that their other siblings (my cousins) would all be there, but didn't realise that it would be the Feast day of Cospicua. This day celebrates the day that the Virgin Mary conceived Jesus Christ. It is one of the biggest festas in Malta - more so because Cospicua was 90% destroyed during WWII and their statue of the Virgin Mary, which you will see in the attached videa had to be removed from their parish church for its safe keeping. It was removed to a village called Birkirkara a few miles away which was not such a target for the bombing.(Cospicua was a major target because it was home to the naval dockyards.) The statue survived and the people really do love this statue. About 10 men carried the statue on their shoulders out of ...

Tony wants me to write something sophisticated, so here goes, we heard overtures from Rossini and Verdi, the overtures of Rossini are gems in their own right, bearing an economy of 'ideation' yet an extraordinary flair for melodic invention ------------ pleeeeeease ------------that sounds like such a bloody croc. Back to what I thought of our night at the theatre. It was a lovely evening, starting with being picked up in a car - not having to walk meant that we - no - I could wear decent clothes and sort of shoes, well I still have to climb over the pulpit at the front of the bowsprit and manoevre around to compensate for the 30kn winds which are moving Moondancer around considerably, so I can't actually wear a dress, but at least something other than hiking boots and jeans. So that's how it started, and then we got to the Theatre and met with our Danish and Dutch friends in the courtyard lobby - (just remember that this theatre dates back to 1732, which makes me feel a...

Here's a job that most of us would dearly love to have, if we had ever heard of it. We have recently met a gentleman called Morgan, and ex-pat from Sweden. He's probably about 40 and came here 10 years ago. His first job in Malta was as a diver. In many bays around Malta are Tuna storage containers. The Tuna fishermen bring their catch into these storage nets and they are collected and fed and left there to grow until they are big enough to ship off to Japan who seem to be the world's biggest buyers of very large Tuna. Up to 200 kilos, twice as big as Morgan. So sometimes the Tuna die and if left in these containers will contaminate the live fish, which means that somebody has to take out the dead fish. That was Morgan's job. Unblievable, he would swim around in very close quarters packed in with hundreds of Tuna. Sometimes he would get cut by their sharp fins. That's not what he does now. He's become a shipwright and he and an Irishman called Ken seem to ...

Now that we have moved into our new ‘home’, which incidentally is across the dock from George, the Royal Malta Yacht Club’s commodore who never knows who we are, we now have time to look around. The weather is much cooler now which is more conducive to doing just that. Malta is an extremely hot place in the summer months and its difficult to get motivated to do anything except lie down in the boat with a couple of fans blowing full force onto you, afraid to move because as soon as you do the sweat starts flowing. We’ve been welcomed into a community of Europeans who have made Malta their homes in the winter, coming back to their spots in the marina and then take off traveling around the Med in the summer. They have lots to tell us about Greece, Turkey, Croatia and Italy. Sicily of course is only about 50 miles from here, so we look forward to taking some trips there during the winter months. Though the winds can get really nasty there is also mild weather and some people still cr...

We were very lucky to catch the dock guy Chris in the morning on monday. We let him know that we are on the wall still looking for space. We mentioned that we had met a fellow who has just had his boat lifted out for four months. The guy's spot is on the very end of N dock. Chris said, sounds good , go ahead and take it. So we were very happy. The only problem was the wind has picked up and blowing us right on to the wall with not too much room for manuvering. We'll just wait till it dies down. Nancy wakes me up at 3am and say's "look it's so calm right now. Lets go" So we fired up and slid down to our new location. It's nice to have power and water again. The view is not to bad either.

We woke up early this morning, before the wind got up, took a couple of pictures of Moondancer in the water - 'yawn' and then made ready to leave Amazon's mooring and come around to Msida Marina. It looks good for space in here now for the next couple of months. We'll wait until Monday to check in officially, as we want to deal with the manager, not his staff. Where we are on the quay is very ice, there are trees and flowers and birds singing and people walking by, stopping to admire our lovely home, and some stop to talk which Tony loves, and our new friends dropping by to welcome us. After a few months in the yard this is very welcome. Tomorrow there will be a barbeque on the dock for all of the liveaboards in the marina who want to come. We look forward to getting to know our neighbours. So, a couple more pictures of Moondancer and then - well whatever the next phase brings.

This morning we woke up thinking things should be o.k. But alas, they were not.We tried to start the engine but it only ran for a short period. Yesterday we tried bypassing the racor filter and that seemed to work for a while. So maybe it's time to check the forward tank to see if there is micro crap inside. We pumped out 25 gallons into our jerry cans and found some crap but not enough to warrent our problem. so after cleaning the tank and then pouring the fuel back into the tank via a baha filter which has 3 screens to filter out crap and then down to sludge and water, this must be the cure! O.k. Nancy turn over the engine. Yea it's running. Then quit again! Is it time to call a mechanic. Nancy say's maybe we should bleed it some more. I say we've tried that.By this time we both are ready to call it quits. I say "i want to try one more thing" i disconnect the fuel lines from the forward tank and the aft tank which connect to a ball valve. We open it up and...

I've posted the pictures in a smaller format which takes less time to download. To view them larger just double click on the picture.

So you may be sick of these pictures by now, but we have put so much work into making Moondancer look good, that we have to show the evidence. Here are a couple of cockpit pictures. We are more optimistic about the engine situation. It seems to be fuel that's the problem. We did an experiment yesterday and by-passed the raycor filter. By doing so the engine ran for a couple of hours at low revs. We did a bit of research on bio growth in the fuel and the fuel we emptied out of the raycor filters showed small sludgey particles which we think is bio growth. So we bought a product - a very expensive product which we put into the tanks which is supposed to kill the bio growth and absorb it. As suggested we gave the tanks a shock treatment - which means put it all in - and today we are going to try again. We are hoping to go into the marina today - if there's room.

So those videos were then and this is now - Wednesday evening on the same day at 8.45We're in the water, we motored out of the sling out into the bay and got about 10 boat lengths before the engine died. One of those deaths that usually means fuel starvation caused by something simple. We coasted up to a mooring, which incidentally happens to belong to a classic old converted steamship called Amazon who we met in Bermuda. They aren't here but we are. Tony managed to steer her up to the mooring without the engine and we grabbed it and have been tied to it all day. We've worked most of this day changing fuel filters, twice for the racor and one for the primary, pulled off fuel lines to check they are clear, which they are, and have not reached a conclusion. The engine sometimes runs for a short while gulping a bit of fuel and then stops. The bowl at the bottom of the racor filters have been full of muck, which sounds like we have a batch of dirty fuel. But we did a few...

Today's the day we go back in to water. Everything all prepared and ready to go. It feels like ages since we have been swaying about!

Actually we know exactly where it went. We have worked and worked and worked on our home, MoonancerX and it sure has paid off. She looks gorgeous, better than she has ever looked since we've owned her, not to mention some of the underwater issues that we have found, and dealt with properly. She has 4 coats of paint on her hull, the cockpit is completely scraped, sanded and cetolled with the recommended 3 coats. Our living quarters right now look like hell and its hard to move around because so much of the 'stuff' that usually lives up on deck and in the cockpit is stored down below. Anyway here are some pictures of her from the outside, we'll post cockpit pictures later.

The wall on which this was carved was entirely strafed with bullet holes. The royal Artillery was my father's regiment. I wondered as I stood there if he had also stood in the same place as a young gunner.

Living on the Hard in Malta It has been brought to my attention that my blog entries have been tardy of late. Actually they’ve been non-existent. Could that be indicative of how interesting our new life in this boat yard is? Yes it could appear that way, but our in-communicability has been very frustrating, and we have been working very hard on MoondancerX. When we got a good look at her on our return from Canada/England we thought she looked very sad and shabby, and the initial chore which in itself was major – scraping and re-finishing all of her woodwork, has now turned into a mammoth task. We are now re-painting her entire hull aswell. And when all that’s done before we return her to the water we’ll give her a couple of coats of bottom paint. Painting the hull has incurred lots of preparation work, and locating the paint a lot of leg work. So during these days of hard physical labour, where are upper bodies are either being built up to gargantuum proportions OR just wrecke...

Here are a couple of videos which we found recently after our return from Canada and England. A very unfortunate thing happened to most of the pictures we took. The C-drive on our computer filled to the point where it would take no more - and while transferring the entire My Pictures file over to D-drive I lost some. Fortunately the videos were still in the camera, I had not cleared them out. So here they are - Playing pool with Nadine and Lorne in Canada, and fishing with brother Mick and Ann in England. Sorry that I could not furnish more pictures, there are a few on webshots which I put there before losing the files.

Sounds rude doesn’t it – well it is pretty rude, or maybe crude is a better word for this type of living. Having returned to Malta after living in our friends’ various beautiful homes this is definitely a rude awakening. Yes this is what its like to live on a boat some of the time. Time your toilet use because the walk to the toilet takes about 5 minutes over fairly rough terrain. Don’t wear any decent footwear that you don’t want to have destroyed by said rough terrain. There is garbage all around Moondancer chucked down on the ground by the last boat owners who occupied this space. That just about describes what its like on the hard in Manoel Island Yacht Yard. But its only 70 Euros per week and we really need to get a lot of work done to get Moondancer back to the lovely girl she was 13,000 miles ago. What is interesting is that its not hot anymore. Within the space of 3 weeks which is how long we were away from here the temperature changed quite a bit. It seems so stran...

A few pictures here of Tony with narrow boat and Ken, Chris and I trying to decide what to order from an Indian restaurant menu. See web shots for more

After our 2 weeks flying visit to Canada, sleeping around and eating way too much, we flew to England, started out with my brothers in Dartford for a couple of days. Showed Tony the last home town I lived in before emigrating to Canada - where most of the rest of my family still live, went fishing with Michael and Anne, took loads of photos to post on this site, but promptly lost them all when transferring the entire My Pics file from C-drive to D-drive. Fortunately however I did not lose the other photos which we took while visiting with Tony's relatives in Frimley and Portsmouth. Tony's cousin Ken and his wife Chris very kindly took us in for a couple of days, picked us up in Dartford and not only showed us their own fabulous hospitality but also drove us around to do a bit of sight seeing and then drove us down to Portsmouth to meet with Tony's other cousin Jane and her brood - the Coppinis, who, wouldn't you know just happen to be Maltese derivatives. We found...

We arrived in Vancouver on a bright sunshiney warm day and that's exactly how we left. We are very grateful to our good friends Lorne and Nadine who very kindly opened their home to us for our stay in the White Rock area. They hosted a gathering of our old friends which was loads of fun. Seeing friends who had been so much a part of our lives before moving to Vancouver Island 3 years ago was such a treat. Sometimes it seems to people who move away and then come back that things just don't change while they are away. That certainly has not been the case with our group of friends. Their lives have all moved along in such a positive manner, their relationships have blossomed, their homes are all lovely and their lives have grown so much over those few years. Unfortunately a couple of them have experienced ill health but have turned their experience into a positive thing. Any of you reading this know who you all are. I'm not currently using our computer so I cannot dow...

My little alien friend Anne - looking lovely and getting better Captain Pedro and Michel, wedding date - August 7th 2010 Tony, Tim and Ray on Lazy Bones Peter and Wendy and Peter's Boat Did all of those things really happen to us over the last 12 months. We've told and retold our stories so much in the past 10 days to our friends and families, and the more we were complemented on our bravery and adventurous spirit and all of the other complements it definitely seemed that we were talking about someone else's experience - to me. I think that's called something - 'the imposter syndrome'. How could that have been me - its all gone by - water under the bridge and if it weren't for the thousand or so photographs we've taken and this interminable blog I keep writing I would probably have lost alot of those memories by now. Incredible how that happens. But this entry is about being here and meeting up with our good friends and our children and more than once be...

Sorry, no pictures, I'm on a public computer. How lovely to be in Courtenay, the drive up was gorgeous, a balmy Indian summer in British Columbia. Green, crisp, sunny and clean. I picked up my son, Johnny at the new Richmond skytrian station - strategically place beside the River Rock gambling casino - do you think they helped pay for it, and we got on the 10.15am ferry to Nanaimo. The ferry ride over was such a treat. Even though it was blowing about 25-30 I couldn't care less - it wasn't my responsibility and the great big ferry didn't seem to mind a bit. Would have gone to Victoria to pick up youngest daughter Josie and brought her up to Courtenay but she had school commitments. We came to Courtenay to see my other daughter Mary, who has moved here with her partner, Elias. They've found themselves a restaurant music venue called Joe's Garage to help manage, Elias is a very good Chef and Mary works the front. Its actually a great place right down by the ...

Does this feel strange - or what? The last month has definitely been a departure from the routine we have been living to for the last year. Once we had arrived in Malta our time there was split between putting a great deal of effort into finding moorage for the winter and seeing as much as possible of my brothers and wives. The moorage situation was a bit of an eye-opener and something we hadn't really anticipated. We had heard from other yachties on the way that its difficult to find moorage and we should probably book into somewhere before arriving. Had we done that we would not have arrived in Malta at all as we would have been told the situation. We've learned that its usually best just to show up somewhere and they'll try to fit you in. But the main marina in Malta is government run, is in the throes of privatization, some of the employees are a bit ticked off with their lot, and it took more than merely asking for a splot to get one. We do think that our time on the w...

So the family are almost all gone to their respective homes, Michael and Anne back to Dartford, Lucy and Ross back to Dartford, Ronnie and Sherida back to France, Peter and Sue will go back to Dartford on Monday. And today we left the wall. We'll haul the boat out tomorrow morning with a view to doing some regular maintainance and bottom paint. We've had a lovely time with my brothers, sisters in law and neice and nephew. Tony has been thoroughly welcomed into the fold and we really feel that the 13000 mile effort was worth it. We haven't done much sight seeing yet, but we certainly do love Valletta and the fantastic churches. They are not only in Valletta, they are everywhere. This is a Catholic country and the people put a great deal of their money and their souls into their Churches. A non-Catholic could easily see this as unfair as the churches seem so wealthy and some of the people seem poor. But its not a tax, people give what they can, and its pretty obvious tha...

Aunt Mary and Sisters in Law, Sue, Anne and Sherida We've been in Malta almost 2 weeks now and we are still toughing it out 'on the wall' at Sliema. This is actually a mooring and we do have access to water and electricity but it is very exposed to north easterly winds, and as usual it is not the wind really that is the problem, but the seas created by the wind. The surge through the harbour entrance builds up big swells that hit the boat sideways on which is very uncomfortable when the winds are up to 15 - 20 knots, which we have had for a couple of days. The latest forecast for the next few days shows a change in wind direction and though its still a bit bumpy it is certainly tolerable. The night before last we actually left Moondancer tied up safely off the wall about half a boat length and slept on shore at my brother Peter's house. That night there was quite a storm, but we were completely oblivious to anything as it was the first night we enjoyed undisturbed sleep...

Brother Peter's Boat - after meeting up in St. Pauls Bay Well today is the first day that we fully realise why the marina manager did not suggest that we tie up to the wall. We've woken up to a north easterly which is blowing hard enough (not very hard) to bring in a swell that is really tossing us about on the wall. We do not yet have the equipment needed to decrease the force of the tug when we reach the end of docking line. So before we do much else today we'll have to do something to improve the situation. Other than that we actually really like this spot. Sliema is a pretty upbeat part of Valletta; technically it is not part of Valletta but it is pretty close. Unlike Valletta which is a very old city Sliema has hundreds of modern apartment buildings, shops such as Armani, Versace, Marks and Spencer etc. Its close to bus stops and we can get a ferry across Marsamxett harbour into Valletta at a cost of 85Euros, and sometimes we can get internet on the boat. So we quite l...

We are now tied up to a wall in Sliema which is close to downtown Valletta. We are trying to figure out this blog thing. For some reason it is not posting our new updates unless you click search blog. This is a test, so please stand by for further updates!

At last we have arrived in Malta, Gozo actually. We arrived here yesterday afternoon, tied up at the downtown fuel dock in Mgarr on Gozo, spent the evening in the local village where they were celebrating the life of the Virgin Mary in great style. The churches were all incredibly decorated as were the streets. We arrived in town to see marching bands who played really good music and left town to a spectacular fireworks show which lasted hours. It was the perfect first day in Malta. We have to leave the fuel dock now, at 06.30am before the business day starts and will head down the coast to meet up with my brother. I still haven't figured out how to enter the saved text, but when we are settled in somewhere that is possible I'll do that and enter more pictures.

Until today I have been writing my blogs in My Documents in between internet connections and then, when possible posting them when we have internet access. The way that I post them is by going into My Documents, highlighting all of the text and then copy and pasting into the posting template on the blogsite. Unfortunately in between my last blog entry and now Tony unfortunately downloaded a windows upgrade and I can no longer copy and paste. The reason I am posting this pathetic bit of news is that I have no way to post all of the stuff I have written between Lagos and now. Already my frustration level has become very unpleasant and I think the best thing to do is give up and hope that someone who reads this entry will have some insight as to how I can get the text from My Documents onto the blogsite. Remembering of course that I am only barely computer literate. Anyway, we're in Spain on the fantastic Costa Brava in a place called Ifach. The marina we are in is nestled behind the ...

So we are in Lagos, on the Algarve, Portugal. It seems almost unbelievable. We arrived 2 days ago, and are just beginning to feel less overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people. We have come into a marina which has really nice facilities and it feels good to be still. Most of the way from Horta to here was fairly rigorous sailing, particularly the last couple of days. Usually we sail quite conservatively when the wind pipes up in the 20 - 30 range, but we were very keen to get here and the last day we sailed at sustained speeds of around 7 knots, and though at the time it felt like we were hurtling along a little out of control we are very glad we did it. We arrived early afternoon and couldn't believe our eyes as we encountered so much hustle and bustle; a typical holiday resort. We are no longer seeing ocean going boats, but coastal cruisers. Coming into the inlet which leads to the marina we were dodging all types of boats, very few of whom observed any type of 'rule of the...

Arrived in Horta - July 18th – 5.00pm We had quite the reception when we got in as we were a couple of days later than everyone else, i.e. The Wind Cries, our Dutch friends, Guns and Roses – Barbarossa who took the northern track with much more westerly wind (they sail well downwind), Exiles the 2 ‘boys’ from Montreal who managed to get about 150 miles ahead of us and avoided the north easter wind which really set us back the last 3-4 days. Anyway, enough excuses we were just late, but that didn’t deter our enthusiasm to party when we got in, even if we had only a couple of hours sleep in the last 24. So, no sooner were we tied up than our boat filled up with our friends who all brought the necessary party ecoutrements. So yesterday was a bit of a write-off, though we did walk around town and have some idea where things are. And what a place Horta is. It is such a gorgeous town, plus it doesn’t cost a fortune to be here. We have a slip in the marina, a very nice marina with good facili...

Atlantic Crossing Bermuda to Horta Left 26th June 2009 – Posted July 20th Its amazing to us that we left Bermuda so late in the season. Even more that many more boats were arriving in Bermuda from the Caribbean to complete their journeys home to the US east coast or to come across the Atlantic. Newbies like us are very concerned about being in the hurricane belt after the end of May as that’s when the likelihood of early hurricanes can happen. But according to some of the locals we met in Bermuda, hurricanes hardly ever happen this early. The ARC ‘race’, which is an organized Atlantic crossing from the Caribbean to Europe left May 8th, which is a helluvalot earlier than June 26th. As said in earlier posts we were in Bermuda almost 2 weeks longer than intended due to weather, and when we left we knew that we had a window of a couple of days to get away from the bad weather which was hovering over Bermuda and into the ocean. We knew we would get ‘clobbered’, and we did. But we would stil...

Two days ago we moved Moondancer over to a safer anchorage having spent the first night of winds gusting to 40 knots blowing right down the middle of St. George's bay producing quite a fetch to go with the gusts. This is the 3rd day of that now, but the weather report has been downgraded from gale warnings to small craft warnings until Thursday afternoon. Pretty much all of the boats in the anchorage moved over. Its still very gusty but we are getting used to it and are looking forward to a good night's sleep.