Living on the hard in Malta

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 wrecked rotator cuffs, at the end of our days we have tried to find internet cafes which are open and somewhere that we will not get smoked out. I have also bought phone cards and got up really early in the morning to find phone booths which are compatible with my phone cards. No luck. Those days were disheartening, and I’ve discovered that I really need regular contact with my family and friends to be happy away from home.
So now we have the Dongle, which is a mobile internet stick which goes into a USB port and guarantees us internet whenever we switch it on, providing of course we are within the range of Vodafone Cellular Wireless Network. Being such a small country that covers almost everywhere, so we are very happy with this new situation and can phone whenever we like over skype.
We haven’t done much sight seeing since we’ve been here but we have done a little. We go to Valletta fairly regularly as we are pretty close. There is a ferry from closeby which runs every half hour – we prefer this to a bus of course because it’s a boat and we love to be on boats. We’ve seen a little of family and have met new family, such as my Cousin Annie’s son Neville who has been a great help to us.
Last weekend we went to an open weekend at the Fort at Manoel Island. Manoel Island has been mostly purchased by a large development corporation called Midi and part of their deal with the Government of Malta in order to get the land they want to develop was they had to renovate this gorgeous old fort. Part of the fort were army barracks during WWII which made it a target for german bombs and bullets. The evidence of bombing is horrendous and so is the bullet (strafing) damage on the walls of the bastions. Walking around the fort I saw a Royal Artillery insignia carved into a wall and a bullet hole through it, I wondered if my father had stood in the same place as I was during the war.

I don’t know much about the politics of Malta – in fact practically nothing, but I like what Midi is doing. Their plan is to create a very exclusive Marina Village incorporating Manoel Island Yacht Yard, which the existing employees are resistant to, but along with this development they will create more employment and instill new accountability into the workers and management. There is a very obvious level of lethargy among the workers at the yard who up until Midi takes over are indirectly government employees. And there are far too many chiefs. I have sat in one of the offices in the main building using their internet connection and listened to the money being wasted almost all day. When presented with our bill, which is very high its hard to join in with the fun atmosphere. The fun they have when they come to work each day is costing their customers an unfair amount.

On the other hand there are many small businesses working very hard to make a living. Neville took me yesterday to a computer sign maker to have our name plates re-made. They had a good workshop and produce good work for less than half of what the same work would cost in Canada. The same thing applies to the small shops we regularly visit, the Tool Box run by Charlie who bends over backwards to find whatever we need, and the small supermarkets. The minimum wage in this country is very low – about 3.50 Euros per hour, which is about $5.00. The security guards looking after the yard earn 3.50 Euros per hour. These jobs seem to be done by new immigrants, Eastern Europeans, Serbians and Croatians or less educated Maltese. Servers in restaurants are largely Eastern Europeans also. When I was a child living in Malta the only foreigners here were British. We see that some of the African refugees are working in real grunt jobs, such as cleaning/scraping the bottom of boats, heavy loading and unloading of trucks, street cleaning. Doing their time coming into a new country. I remember doing that when I first emigrated to Canada, working as a housekeeper until I got my status.

Along with the work we are doing to Moondancer X we have registered with Crewseekers to see if we can find paid work on the water. We’re trying to find work together as Skipper/Cook/Steward or as members of crews on larger boats. So far we have already had a few good leads, so we are optimistic we will find something soon. I have also met a person who’s looking for a seamstress to repair a whole suit of sails for his own 50’ sailboat aswell as canvas and upholstery work. He has a workshop area but wants to buy his own machines and pay by the hour; we’ll see what will come of that.

We joined the Royal Malta Yacht Club yesterday. They’re a very gracious Club with reasonable membership fees and good reciprocals with other Royal clubs. They used to be in one of the ancient buildings on Manoel Island but have recently purchased and renovated abuilding close to Msida Creek Marina. This will give us a nice place to go occasionally where we will be able to talk sailing and perhaps get on a race boat for the Fall racing season when we are here.

We have also made new friends, Wendy and Phil (Phil is an R.Y.A sailing instructor for a small Maltese Company) who were our neighbours here in the yard for the last few weeks. A very nice English couple from Harwich who have come to live in Malta.
We hope to spend more time with them in the future. We’ve trusted each other with our entire movie collections. Other people we have met in the yard are here for a short time while they are preparing their boats to be left for the winter. Then they return to their homes or travel to other parts of the world that they don’t want to take their boats to.