Moondancerx's BIG adventure

The flavour of Antigua

2012-01-24T17:23:00.000-08:00

Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club

2012-01-24T17:19:00.000-08:00

Well represented in English Harbour, Antigua. Jonas and Heather Marshall on their
38' Ocean going Bavaria helped me celebrate my birthday. Their Club burgee put ours to shame - got to get new one. We've worn out about 3 now.

2012-01-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

Antigua – 2 weeks later – we’re almost natives
Antigua is beautiful, and we haven’t seen very much of it yet – our anchor is dug in very well which is important as the ‘williwaws’ in this part of the bay are interesting to say the least. Many times when we look out into the anchorage its possible to see wind gusts on the water in different places and the boats anchored will all be facing in different directions according to which ‘williwaw’ they happen to be in. Its actually been pretty windy and gusty for the past few days. Also some rainfall – we leave
the water catcher up all of the time now, plumbed directly into the water tank. We still have to collect water in our jerry cans from the gas station, but its supplementing it, and it certainly changed our attitude towards rain. Now when it rains we don’t complain – Oh no not again; now we’re happy, the bigger the deluge, the more we like it.
Wish I had taken my camera with me a couple of days ago when new friends Dana and Joe took us to the market in St. Johns in the back of their truck – not the back seat, but the box at the back. Never done that before, it was alright once I got used to the feeling of not being quite as dignified as I usually like to perceive myself. We also went into the countryside on some pretty rough roads as Dana wanted to pick lemon grass which grows wild in the remote area we found – also guavas, which we picked and ate right off the tree.
We’ve been on another hike from English Harbour to Falmouth Harbour which goes over a couple of pretty big hills and the ‘path’, a word I use loosely is sometimes a difficult climb up over rocks where one is actually looking for hand and toe holds. Its worth it when you get to the top – there are remains of a couple of forts – sorry I can’t remember the names and am too lazy to look them up. Anyway when standing on the now quite overgrown gun implacements the view is spectacular. A couple of pictures are herein and I’ll put a few on facebook.
Speaking of pictures – each time we dive now I find the environment around me so incredibly awesome that it takes my breath away – almost makes me cry, and each time I wish I had a camera so that I could share those images that I see. That will be the next addition to our cruising equipment.
Yesterday was my 61st birthday. Unbelievable, but true. I know all of the old people say it and so will I – how did that happen? But then I look at those years and all that I have accomplished in that time - the wonderful family that I have and the fact that I am still game to cram as much more in to it as I can and I’m grateful. I know that I can be intolerant and grumpy and a bit of a loner, but I thank God for my life. And I thank all of the people in my life for tolerating and loving me.
Yesterday, not long after we got up and were in the cockpit about to have our second cup of coffee, along came a dinghy bearing a couple who were saying ‘yes that’s Moondancer’. And then the woman who I did not recognise at all said ‘Hello Nancy’. I usually remember the people I meet even briefly, but people we meet in the winter in Canada, completely covered up with clothes and hats are quite different from the ones we meet in the Caribbean, wearing brief bikinis, sunglasses and no hats. The couple are Jonas and Heather Marshall on Sea Otter. We met them when they joined the Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club. It was a meet and greet day where existing members welcome new members into the club. Heather had been following the blog at various times over the past couple of years, and so remembered me.
We drank pina colada sundowners on their boat and then continued our information sharing over drinks for a couple of hours. Most of the flags in this harbour are Canadian, but almost all of them are from Toronto, Montreal and the East Coast. So far the opportunity to meet with them has not arisen. This is not like Mexico when people dinghy around to other boats just to introduce themselves and say welcome. It feels like it may be an intrusion on privacy here.
That’s it for now – I’m going to make dinner. We plan to sail around the island in the next few days – see what all the fuss is about – especially Barbuda.
Just tried to upload pics and videos. Internet connection too slow. I'll put an album on facebook - its quicker.

Freeman's Bay - English Harbour - Antigua

2012-01-10T04:40:00.000-08:00

Unbelievably we've been here 6 days already. And what have we done? A helluvalot of snorkelling. We are anchored behind a reef which has so many different species of fish to look at - we've already learned where most of the different species like to hang out. There is a wrecked both mostly submerged on white sand and a huge ancient anchor which is almost rock now. The reef is made up of natural boulders which have falled from cliffs in the area and been moved around by fierce hurricanes which come by from time to time. Its also home to many beautiful, colorful sponges and coral. We've snorkelled around the outside of the reef aswell and this is truly spectacular - we plan to dive there quite soon - we haven't located a air tank filling place yet. Yesterday we went to 'town' on a bus. The bus drive going in was very nice - a careful driver considerate of his passengers which felt like an economy sight seeing tour. 'Town' is St. John's harbour - a bit rough, actually we were quite glad to get back to English Harbour. There were a couple of cruise ships in, so being white pretty much brands one as cruise ship fodder. And a half pint of beer costs U$5. There was an impressive market near the bus station which will be worth the 45 minute bus ride for when we need to stock up on fresh produce.

We will have to learn to do without some of the food products we are used to eating which are imported and have high import duties added. Cheese for instance - but I've noticed lots of goats running around - in fact a herd of goats stopped our bus yesterday to cross the road - all by themselves. We like goat cheese, so hopefully someone here is producing that. I'm glad I make good bread - as the bread here is very basic, doughy stuff.
So a diet of salad, veggies, a little bit of meat, swimming every day, we should be quite sveldt pretty soon.
More pictures on facebook - upload much quicker

A few pics and videos taken on our Atlantic Crossing

2012-01-04T16:17:00.000-08:00

Arrived in Antigua - Anchored in beautiful Freemans Bay

2012-01-04T15:50:00.000-08:00

The following post is a daily I was keeping for the latter part of the Atlantic crossing. For the first week or so all I could really do was hold on - it was a rough ride - but then I got used to it enough to be able to sit and type a little on my night watches. Actually I started to look forward to doing it on the watch. 3 hours alone in the dark with nothing except the stars and the constant heaving of the ocean and the breaking waves that certainly keep the adrenalin flowing were a good reason to go below and turn on the computer.
Anyway its not much - but here goes. Pics and Vids to follow:

December 18th
One week away from Gran Canaria, and an unbelievable 3000 miles away from Malta. Since leaving Las Palmas on December 10th we’ve logged an unprecedented 980 miles – talk about a sleigh ride. Sleigh ride of course conjures up a pleasurable fun ride – not so with this sleigh ride, but can’t complain about the speed.
At time of writing its 10.47 UTC and we are rolling along with the same double reef main that we’ve been sailing with for almost the whole week keeping ahead of some pretty awesome waves. Actually today was the first day that we could see a change in the waves. For the past few days they have all been charging at us and overtaking us after dumping their frothy load tipping us over sideways at alarming 45 degree angles and sometimes unloading right on top of us, and water hitting us with that pressure behind it comes in, even through hatches that are very tightly secured. That really sucks.
I remember a few years ago attending a talk given by a seasoned cruiser at one of our Bluewater meetings. The first thing he strongly advised is to make sure you have a dry boat. Yeah right! In our dreams.
So in this week we have encountered only 2 ships, 2 pods of dolphins, and a couple of flyng fish.
We are almost at the 20th parallel which is where we want to stay for our crossing give or take a few degrees and once we are running roughly along this line we can make a choice to sail at a better angle on the wind which should reduce this bloody awful rolling.
Its amazing what we can get used to.
We have not been successful so far with SSB communication which is a bit disappointing and also means that we have been unable to post our position on ship trak. This worries us because we know our families will be looking for that info.
Well, back up top for my watch. What I’m looking at is pretty much waves and lots of bio luminesence – nice stars tonight too. Moon is not up yet.

December 19th

Had a few successes today. |Its great that we can actually DO things on board other than just hang on and sleep because we’re exhausted from just hanging on. Today we changed the propane tank – doesn’t sound like such a big deal unless you know where the full one is – bolted to the cabin top UNDER our deflated dinghy which is lashed securely to prevent It from being washed away in heavy weather. So now I don’t have to worry about the propane running out when I’m cooking our Christmas turkey. Speaking of which – I explained earlier that we bought a whole though small turkey in Las Palmas which would not fit into our freezer but will fit into a cold section pressed up against the outside of the freezer and packed in ice. Turkey checking has become a part of my daily routine. Its still always frozen on the side pressed up against the freezer and almost thawed on the other side – SO I turn it around each day. I really want to have the turkey on Christmas Day, not sooner because it thawed.

Now the turkey story leads to another accomplishment today – we lashed our honda generator up on top of our deck where we can see it, run it and not get poisoned by its exhaust. Which means that we were able to charge our batteries for 8 hours today – the first really full charge they have had since we bought them in Gibraltar.

The fully charged batteries now lead to another success. Our SSB radio which so far has not been much good to us since we left Las Palmas 1100 miles ago is now responding well to the fully charged batteries. We are now able to faintly hear the Maritime Mobile Nets we need to contact to get our position report onto Shiptrak on this blog.

This tiny floating island of ours is a very self contained system which though our sails will carry us along very efficiently to the other side of this vast ocean – the power we can generate on board is very important to our comfort and survival.

December 20th 0330 – 1634 miles to go

Five days until Christmas – Turkey still frozen, looking good. A couple of firsts today – we tried fishing, which also translates into – we threw away a perfectly good lure and leader in our first attempt. We use tackle which will probably catch us something around 3 – 5lbs, if its any bigger we can’t cope with it. So we lost our nice new lure – bright pink and fluorescent green wobbly squid thing. So we put an old one on and ran the line back out – no takers today.
Second first, I made my first loaf of bread on this trip. Now that its getting warm inside the cabin and still too rough to have portholes open I don’t really want to use the oven (except of course to roast the turkey). So I asked Tony ‘ do you prefer the bread made in the oven or the frying pan?’ (another method of cooking it which usually works well for me) - ‘either way is good with me as long as its not doughy’. So I made the bread, rose it to double its size, put it in the pan and covered it with the lid, which is glass. Checked it about 20 minutes later and was delighted to see that it was rising again to fill up the whole pan and come above the lip, and just as I was congratulating myself on another job well done the boat pitched, the lid slid off just as a gust of cool air hit the loaf. It fell in and never recovered – yep, doughy. Oh well it will be good for the stuffing. Actually I kinda like it.

When we left we had a full moon, now we have a thin sliver left – a couple more nights and there will be no moon. Its very dark out here without a moon and though that allows the stars to take centre stage the light they give off doesn’t compare to that of the moon.

We had a little rain today – just enough to wash the salt off the windows. The rain arrived with a beautiful vivid rainbow (another of the great wonders of nature).

Getting closer to the US we are able to hear quite clearly their Maritime Mobile Net – but they can’t hear us yet. It shouldn’t take much longer before we can log our position on shiptrak.

As I write Tony snores away – while at sea we sleep on the low side settee in our main cabin with lee cloths to hold us in. It doesn’t really work to sleep on our sides with the constant sideways roll of the boat and when Tony sleeps on his back he snores. Its just aswell I’m usually outside in the cockpit while he sleeps or I’d have to keep smacking him awake.

Sleeeeeep – only another hour and a quarter and I get my turn. Ciao!

December 21st – 0530 – 1538 miles to go

We’re motoring for the first time in 11 days. The wind decreased considerably today. We set up our spinnaker and flew that for about 8 hours which was really
Gratifying. We’ve had a problem flying our spinnaker as a cruising chute because we didn’t have the right ‘tackle’ at the bow and were making do with something that was not good for our roller furling genoa stay. I made a ‘stiff’ penant which brings the tack of the spinnaker way above the furler now which worked really well. Setting that up took quite a while and unfortunately caused us to miss the mid-day SSB contact we have been trying to reach since we left.
We’ll keep trying.
Started a seed/bean sprouting terrerium today – see how that goes, maybe we’ll get our greens that way.
Was just saying today that we had not seen dolphins for quite awhile and tonight on my first watch we had a pod swimming with us for about half an hour. Though I could not see them very clearly I could hear them taking their breath and see the swath of bio luminescence they make as they dart through the water. When they make their sudden turns under water it causes a flash of light just as if a flashlight is suddenly turned on and off. The wonders of nature!
Turkey still ok. Only 4 days until Christmas – I hope Santa can find us.

December 22nd – 0350 – 1458 miles to go

We’re going along much slower now. We flew the spinnaker almost all day today on its own. Its doing a good job of converting about 10 knots of wind to about 4knots. Its very pleasant. It also feels really good to be able to move around on the boat without hanging on.
We had a disappointment today though when we realized that our batteries are not charging up when the engine is running. Tony used his volt meter to check the alternator output which is good. So today when he gets up he has more investigating to do.
On top of that disappointment our wonderful Honda generator had trouble starting. Tony virtually took the whole thing apart and found that the actually switch mechanism has something wrong with it, but its in a closed unit which he hasn’t found a way into yet. He did get it going though and was able to run it most of the day to charge our batteries. This power issue is a bit deal.
As the wind has been quite benign for the past couple of days we decided to leave the spinnaker up tonight. At about 2300 hrs we were hit by a gust of wind which knocked us sideways and had us flying along really fast – too fast for our comfort level with a spinnaker up. So we took it down, the wind died and we are now motoring – and unfortunately wasting the engine power as the batteries are not charging.
Hoping for a better day today.

December 23rd – 0600 - 1359 miles to go

Haven’t sorted out the batteries not charging when the engine’s running yet and its hanging over us like a pall – we do have the generator thank God.
Made a loaf of very heavy bread today and my germinator ‘garden’ looks like some of the mung beans have popped open soon to turn into bean sprouts which we will eat. If that works I’ll try to turn our muesli into plants.
Didn’t watch Christmas movie today but we did listen to a Christmas CD which Josie made for me a few years ago. It made me sad. In fact the closer to Christmas we get the sadder I feel about not being with my family and worse still not even being able to talk to them which I always have from wherever we were in the past. Still no Maritime Mobile Net communication so we cannot even let everyone know that we are alright . Another pall. We encountered a ship a few hours ago – a Russian freighter. Tony called them and asked if they have the ability to send e-mail – yes they did but it was not possible to send an e-mail for us because it was only for business use. Tony thanked them and wished them Merry Christmas anyway.
This is my second watch which started at about 0500 – I woke hearing Tony calling my name just as the boat pitched over at an alarming angle and as climbed over the lee cloth was thrown across the cabin. I dressed fast as Tony let go of the spinnaker sheet, letting it fly and taking the power out of it. We were hit by a squall which caused the knock down. We put on our gear and went out to get the spinnaker down, ropes all in and prepare to sail with our genoa, all this took place in blinding rain, which in other circumstances I would have been delighted to meet with soap and shampoo. The wind had done a complete switch from NE to SE, so nowwe are motoring. We’ll deal with it when Tony’s had his sleep.
Turkey’s still OK.

December 24th – 0300 – 1298 miles to go
Th highlight of today was definitely our visitor – Minky. A lone minky whale swam with us for several hours today. He/she continually circled around our boat, sometimes swimming underneath rolling right over onto his back showing all white, sometimes going up to the bow of the boat and ‘waiting’ for us as if he was leading the way and we should follow. |It was such a wonderful experience. We thought he was a lonely whale and our company was better than nothing.

Unfortunately the wonderful experience came to an end when our skipper toilet got blocked and for the next couple of hours Tony was working at chiselling out of the bronze pipes years of salt/shit deposit as hard as concrete. This certainly changed the atmosphere on our boat and perhaps Minky didn’t like to be around us anymore – or maybe he wasn’t getting enough attention. So he left.

Still haven’t sorted out the battery charging problem – and to add to the problem our generator is not starting. This appears to be due to the switch. This Honda generator has been fantastic for us and has never failed – but it was not designed specifically for a marine environment and the switch is probably corroded. We’ll take it apart today and see what we can do. One way or another we have to fix it or we have no method of charging our batteries other than solar and that will only do for the fridge.

We need a better day today – Christmas Eve.

December 25th – 0515 – 1200 miles to go

Ho Ho Ho – Merry Christmas.
This day started out pretty bad in the morale department. Tony took the generator apart but after thorough investigation decided that it was beyond him to fix it. Then because we did not have enough power in our batteries the fridge would not stay on – so we were faced with the prospect of no fridge for the next 12 days or so – that would mean canned food which we do not really have enough of. I was trying to think of ways to preserve the meat we have in our freezer.
Thank God it did not come to that – the next thing we did was to change our alternators – we carry a spare. This we did, but when we started the engine it was only producing 12 volts, not the 14 approx. we need to charge our batteries. So take it back out and put the original back in. One of the connectors at the back did not fit well – kinda loose, so Tony put on a new connector and Voila – we have charging. As I said before – thank God.
So we ended our day on a much happier note – as it was Christmas Eve we allowed ourselves a cocktail which we do not usually do while on passages.
On my first watch of the night from 2300 – 0200 we were hit by a thunder storm, lightning all around us – big seas, we’re pitching and rolling and I’m hoping it will die down in a few hours so that we can enjoy Christmas day with a dinner of roast turkey. Not eating out of our tupperware containers in the cockpit, but off plates at our dining table. I guess we’ll see.
So now while Tony is asleep I’m going to rummage around to find our stockings – I hope and fill them up with fruit and nuts. No presents I’m afraid – but hey how many people get to go to the Caribbean for Christmas.

December 25th – 2120 – 1160 miles to go

Well we had our Christmas day on the ocean. I’d much rather have Christmas day at home with family, but this is where we are and it worked ok.
We spent the first part of the day running away from a huge and nasty storm cell which we did actually avoid. During that time when the sky was a menacing dark grey we were visited by a big pod of dolphins who seemed to be having a really good time. I think Dolphins like storms – this is the second time on our travels we have encountered this.
We put the turkey in the oven at noon and ate it at abut 5.00. It was a remarkably lean bird but very tasty and tender. We’ve lots more for the next few days.
As I write this I see that another electrical storm is brewing outside though in general the sky is pretty clear. I hope for a peaceful night – I really need a good sleep.
Each day we listen to the US Maritime Mobile Net, which is getting much clearer as we get closer. So far, however they have not heard our transmissions. We both feel badly that family at home have not been able to follow our progress on Shiptrak as we told them they would be able to.

December 27 – 0700 – 1015 miles to go
Boxing Day was a much better day weather wise, sunny, good breeze in the right direction and we flew the spinnaker aswell as reefed main for quite awhile which gave us much better speed than we’ve had for the past few days. For the first night we have kept the spinnaker up all night and even though we’ve had a few squall clouds which pushed us over quite suddenly in general its been a comfortable night with good speeds. We’re excited to pass the 1000 miles to go mark, the countdown after that seems so much less.
As I’m typing Tony is sleeping and we’re trucking along between 6 – 7 knots, yeah!
We had another whale visitor – unfortunately I was off watch and sleeping at the time. Tony said he was similar to the last one and did not stay long.
We are still unsuccessful at being heard by Maritime Mobile, but we can hear them very well so it should only be a matter of time before someone hears us and we can report our position.

December 27 – 2200 – 938 miles to go

Second night under spinnaker – now that we have worked out the bugs in flying and mostly the take-down of our spinnaker we really like to fly it. Its by far the least complicated and most efficient of our downwind sails. We’ve had a gorgeous day of perfect trade wind conditions. This night is going quite well also. We’re pretty much on course sailing between 5 and 6 knots. Today we broke the 1000 miles to go barrier which feels really good. Looking at 3 digits rather than 4 is very encouraging.
Our alternator is now working properly to charge our batteries which is also a really good feeling. A great stress reducer.
Today we almost caught a mahi mahi, about a 5 pounder. We had it right to the boat and just as we were going to gaff it – it got away. We were doing about 6 knots when we hooked it. So I guess those are the condiitons in which we are likely to do it again. So maybe tomorrow we’ll be eating sashimi.
Still no luck with SSB communication. We are beginning to think that our radio is the problem again. Its frustrating that we cannot let people at home know where we are and that we’re ok.

December 28th – 2345 – 819 miles to go

Today was a red letter day – we broke the communication – or lack of it – barrier. As usual it came in a connected stream of events. We decided about 1700 it was time to take the spinnaker down. The wind had picked up to way over 15 knots and the sail was really looking very stretched out. Also we were heading too far south so a jibe was in order. We took down the spinnaker, jibed and put up the genoa, a bit slower and very much more rolly. We’d been on the port tack for a very long time and after we jibed some things went wrong with electrics and we lost our nav station gps. So Tony had to go into the back of the nav station where all of the ‘crappy, shitty’ wiring and fuses are – and he discovered a loose fuse which must have dislodged during the jibe. So he put it back in place along with all of the other fuses on that panel.
Most of the time when Tony is working on things I like to help him, thus familiarising myself with the boat’s systems – but when he gets angry and starts calling our boat and most of the systems on boat ‘a piece of crap’ or words to that effect, I usually go away and leave him to it. So I went up into the cockpit and there was a freighter a couple of miles away crossing our bow.
Freighter means possible communication with the outside world. So Tony hurriedly reconnected the nav station and vhf radio and called them. We asked if they would be able to send an e-mail for us to family as we had been at sea for 17 days without the use of our SSB radio. The 2nd mate, Nicholas asked his Captain who agreed. They also enquired after our health and safety and asked if we needed anything else. How nice of them and what a difference from the last ship we asked to do the same thing on Christmas eve. We also asked them if they had SSB and could be do a radio check with them. Yes again, and this time the radio check was good.
Then at 1900 hours we tried Maritime Mobile again in the US and Hooray – we got through, posted our position and all is right with the world. Perhaps the problem all along was a loose fuse.
We will try to contact Nicholas on the freighter again tomorrow at noon – and then perhaps we’ll be able to contact the other fellow sailors we had arranged SSB schedules with before leaving Gran Canaria.

December 29th – 0345 – 660 miles to go

Well we may have been wooed into thinking that the trade winds were a lovely gentle 10 – 15 knots and we would be able to sail along under spinnaker sunbathing on deck and taking naps whenever we felt like it – NOT. Thank God we took the spinnaker down when we did. This day started out with big swells and nasty choppy waves on top with the wind blowing about 20 knots and increasing. Perfect weather to catch a fish – which we did; our first of this crossing, a Mahi Mahi, about 3 – 4 lbs. Catching it was the easy bit, cleaning it on our aft deck with the boat pitching and rolling was very difficult, but Tony did it. Its all gone now. We have sashimi for lunch and then I cooked the rest for dinner. A pefect size fish for us. Maybe we’ll get another one before this trip ends.
So back to the weather – the speeds we are achieving are fantastic, but its very uncomfortable and sleeping with this much movement is only possible when extremely exhausted.
When I came on watch and sat down to enjoy my hot marmite, I took the perfunctory look around and about 2 miles on our portside was a ship pretty much on a collision course with us. Amazing how often that happens, being out in the middle of nowhere and there is another vessel in your path. We woke them up and they altered course, so no problem.
Looking forward to a smoother sail tomorrow.

December 31st – 0700 – 508 miles to go

I’m a bit late with my diary entry – usually do them during night watch. The sun has just come up behind another bloody cloud bank and as usual the wind has picked up to even more than the 20 – 25 knots we’ve been crashing through all night. Now we can see the heart stopping waves that seem to be chasing us and trying with all their might to catch us and dump a ton on water on top of us. And then just when I jump off my seat and crouch for cover another wave sideswipes us with a flick that seems to say – ‘you’re not worth the full deal, take that’. Hmm! Waves in first person? Well, other than Tony and the occasional flying fish or one that we are just about to kill those waves are the next animate object.
So there has not been much to say about the last day – a day of hanging on. We just have out our genoa, running broad reach to downwind. We are on course, going very fast most of the time. We’ve clocked 12.5 surfing down the waves. Shouldn’t complain because it means this will all be over much quicker.
Even though we are sleeping because we are both exhausted the sleep is not really regenerative which means we are just always tired.
Its New Years Eve of 2012 and the eve of Tony’s birthday. I hope it calms down a bit so that we can have a ‘jolly’ celebration.
If not – we’ll certainly make up for it when we reach Antigua.
We have had regular communication with Maritime Mobile net for the past few nights which has been a great comfort to us. We feel less alone.

January 1st 2012 – 0330am – 398 miles to go

Tony’s b irthday today. Unfortunately the conditions outside are not letting up at all. Knowing that we only have 3 – 4 days to go is making it possible to endure this. We are receiving weather faxes now and can see that there is a huge low covering most of the western north Atlantic region reaching down as far as the Caribbean. This may have something to do with what we are in here.
I am extremely tired and cannot wait for Tony to wake up at 0500 so that I can get back to sleep.

January 2nd 2012 – 0615 – 248 miles to go

So Christmas, New Year’s and Tony’s birthday are all behind us now. Poor Tony didn’t have much of a celebration for his birthday. I had planned to bake him a chocolate cake, but quite honestly couldn’t stand to be in the galley any longer than essential. Everything that we do down below in the boat is very difficult as the boat pitches and rolls so much in these seas. I suppose this is what the trade winds are like at 16 – 17 degrees at this time of year. Its been pretty much the same thing every day.
Not much happened in this last 24 hours except that we ate, slept, talked to each other a bit, looked at weather faxes as they came through.
Its been great getting onto the Maritime Mobile net every evening.
Hard to believe that we have covered 4,823 miles since we left Malta late October, and we weren’t even on the move all of the time. Stopped in Menorca for about 6 days, Gibraltar about 10 and Las Palmas 11. So out of 9 weeks we were not sailing for 3 weeks. No wonder we’re knackered.

January 3rd – 0437 - 126 miles to go

I wonder if we’ll be able to stand up when we get onto land without falling over. We are both really looking forward to pulling into an anchorage, dropping the anchor and not having to hang on to stand up. And I really look forward to putting our cabin back together and sleeping in our own bed, together.

This day has been fraught with problems – starting with Tony waking up to change the fuel filter right away because without the engine running the fridge was not working and we would lose all of our frozen goods in the freezer – all this before coffee. Then straight into dealing with a blockage in the pipe leading out of the water tank – no water coming out of tap, and then the bilge – that’s another story, won’t bother to add that one.
This list of early morning wake up problems was exacerbated by the fact that I had a pretty good size Mahi Mahi on the fishing line. Sort of unintentionally. So my morning started with the excitement of catching this fish as soon as I dropped the line into the water. I hadn’t even let half of the line out yet. As I was letting the line off the back of the boat I got it tangled around the lower part of Mr. Chubbs, and as I was trying to pull it off it became very heavy.
It was time to wake Tony up anyway so I called to him to come and see what I had. And that’s when the day went bad. Tony was already in ‘piece of crap mode’.
I left the poor Mahi Mahi on the hook dragging it through the water for about an hour, or so it seemed while I came in to help Tony. The fish, amazingly was still alive when I pulled it out and landed it in the fish killing bath, and then Tony did the filleting etc. and the fish is in the freezer, which thankfully is working now because Tony changed the fuel filter on the engine.
Its 0500 and I’m off watch now – handing over to Tony. One more day and one more night and then we’ll be in Antigua. Its been a long journey.

January 4th – 0535 – 16 miles to go

Whew! The island’s lights are visible and we are very much looking forward to making landfall. Next post will be in real time.

Preparing to Leave Gran Canaria

2011-12-08T01:16:00.000-08:00

Sorry still no pictures, but I am able to post text for now. We plan to leave here day after tomorrow, Saturday 10th. We did most of our provision shopping yesterday which included a small very frozen turkey which doesn't actually fit in our freezer. Uh Oh - but it does fit in a very cold section of the fridge right next to the freezer, so we've packed it in with bags of ice all around it - and when it thaws that will be our Christmas Day. It could be any day really - once we're out there because we'll be the only people who'll know. We haven't hung our Christmas tree up yet, we'll do that closer to the day.
Our transmission is back in - the Volvo people said that they tested it by running it on a lathe and it ran well and didn't leak - so that is our very expensive Christmas present to ourselves. Hope they're right.
Most of our time here has been spent working on Moondancer - our genoa got ripped on the way here from Gibraltar so it now has another patch, I've changed all of 'glass' in the 'windows' in the bimini. Tony has been all around the boat with a caulking gun filling whatever looks like it might be where water has been coming in. He's inspected and adjusted all of our standing rigging. We've got a couple of small jobs to do today and tomorrow we are going to drive around the island with another couple who've rented a car for the day. Then we'll know what the rest of this island looks like.
We will be sad not to be with our families and friends over the Christmas season but you will all be in our hearts. And when we get to the Caribbean we will be much closer to you which will make communication much easier.
Our love to you all.

2011-12-04T00:46:00.000-08:00

Gran Canaria

We came into the Marina Gran Canaria on Tuesday 29th – unbelievable that we’ve been here
5 days. We checked in for 4 days in beautiful bright sunny ‘summer’ weather. The marina is
full of boats with foreign flags, most of whom are enjoying their stay before heading across the
Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean. It’s a really first class marina with free water and electricity – close access to a beautiful manicured sandy beach and not bad access to shopping – BUT lousy internet, and no alterative aboard. i.e. we can’t buy a service or buy time on a dongle.
This means using internet cafes or bars which is what everyone else is trying to do – so all of that preamble is by way of apology for the long time it has taken to write this post. Also – don’t think I’ll be able to post any photos or videos as this sliver of a connection that I am lucky to have right now won’t let me. I’ll do that from a café later.
Our trip here was pretty ‘hairy’ – big winds, people who have wind measuring devices reported winds up to 50 knots – we don’t have one but we knew we were in some pretty big winds and the seas were huge but fortunately mostly behind us. That’s usually ok except we were being blown further into the coast of Africa that we were comfortable with. And turning into that wind with those seas was virtually impossible – so we just toughed it out until we got to the ‘corner’ of Africa which gave us a much better – less lee shore sailing position. (One of the things that’s really cool about coming into a harbour with other yachts who’ve all come the same way at roughly the same time is discussing these things and how we each coped with the situation.)
We made the decision to take out our transmission yet again – the ‘fix’ we had done in Malta was not satisfactory and though we could have ‘nursed’ our engine across the ocean by topping up the transmission fluid whenever we needed to use the engine we decided not to. There is a big marine Volvo distributor and service centre here, so Tony and their mechanic took out the transmission and they took it away and took it apart. The mechanic was very pleased to come back to us shortly after to show us the damaged ‘end seal’ which was badly damaged. They’ve ordered a new one and we hope to have her all put back together again early next week.
I’m very impressed with Tony’s ability to strip down the engine to the point of taking out the transmission himself – which he would do too if it did not weigh as much as Pavarotti and is not much smaller. So – hope springs eternal . This was the right place to do the work – it was vital that we get out of the Med when we did and the winter weather was just getting so much worse and getting down the African coast was no picnic either – until we got to a day or so before Lanzarote, then it was quite obvious that going south was the right thing to do.
We stopped for 2 nights of good sleep in a gorgeous little anchorage on an Island called Isla Graciosa – pictures to follow, we didn’t go ashore but we did don our wetsuits and snorkled among abundant shoals of healthy ‘tropical’ type fish, many of which were the same species we would see in the Med but much bigger. Tony saw a large moray eel swim under our boat as he was coming back to the boat.
We’ve met 2 couples here that we have met in the past in Malta, a couple from New Zealand who were moored next to us on the Breakwater our first winter in Malta and an Australian couple who were in the Manoel Island boat yard at the same time as us about 18 months ago. That’s what is so neat about these ‘way stations’ – everyone has been going off in different directions doing different things and then we all get lumped together in placed like this waiting for the ‘right time’ for us to go further.
I’ll post this as is and if I can get any pictures on will do so or they’ll have to wait until I get to a place with a decent internet signal.

2011-11-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

Today we went up to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar in the cable car. Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy so we didn't get to see the spectacular view which can be seen looking south towards Africa, Morocco which is only about 15 miles away. We did however get very close to the monkies who live up at the top. I was not too excited about seeing the monkies as last time I was here they were all very badly behaved towards the visitors. This time they were actually really nice and alot of fun to watch. Tony had a couple of close encounters as you'll see from the videos.
We took a walk this morning across the airport runway - its open to pedestrians except for when an aeroplane is taking off or landing and is actually the border between Gibraltar and Spain. I'm trying to get a video of a plane taking off or landing from the boat in the marina to show the close proximity of the runway. Tomorrow we'll provision shop as we wish to leave here on Sunday - looks like we have a weather window which should take us down the African coast to the Canary Islands - about 700 miles, which all being well should take us about a week.

Gibraltar - Whew!

2011-11-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

We got into Gibraltar day before yesterday - we've had the mandatory piss-up which we need after being at sea for awhile (we don't drink alcohol on passages)before really good fish'n chips in the local pub and when we started to feel better yesterday we got on with our chores. Coming into Gibraltar from Estepona was a delightful trip. We hugged the coast anticipating that as the tide came through the strait it would cause a back-eddy along the coast. We were right, so with the sun shining almost all of the way we snuck up on Gibraltar - whose way too high and mighty to see a little thing like us creeping in.

Coming into a 'way station' like Gibraltar is exciting. There is an expectant mood as many of the boats here are moving on to a long journey. So we share information with each other and compare our equipment and knowledge. Gibraltar is also a very nice place to live and many people like us come in expecting to transit but they stay and find a way to make a living here.
So now we need a 'weather window' to head south where we'll stop in the Canary Islands for another break and provisioning before heading across the Atlantic. We'll aim at Antigua.
We're still trying to work out problems with our SSB radio - we really want that to work for our crossing so that we can post our position on a regular basis as we did before. Its very reassuring for us to know that you all know where we are.
While we're here we'll take a cable car ride up to the top of the rock. Tony wants to see his monkey relatives. Must find out how they got here.

The Med has almost let us go

2011-11-15T00:16:00.000-08:00

Leaving Menorca was terrible. We had pretty good weather information and we knew that to get down and around the south coast of Spain we would have a couple of days of tough going. As soon as we left the protection of beautiful Menorca we were hit with electrical storms accompanied by torrential rain and strong winds - we motor sailed through it for many hours cussing and swearing all of the way - mopping up gallons of water - now that's the type of rain we need when our water tanks are empty. Its funny - we thought Menorca was so perfect and clean and friendly that we kept making jokes about how the inhabitants were all in a conspiracy for the 'common good'. 'Be really nice to them so that they'll stay - we need all the spenders we can get'. Well it felt like the actual weather was in on the conspiracy - it was hard not to run back in for protection. 3 days later we pulled into Forementera, a lovely small island south of Mallorca where we anchored long enough to try to fix our SSB antennae and have lunch on flat water - lunch was nice, antennae still not working. We can receive but not transmit. We'll try to fix it in Gibraltar - where we should be later today. So - it took us 6 days to get from Menorca to Estepona. We sailed as much as possible, motor sailed sometimes to push us along a bit faster, but when the wind was opposing us we had some days when even though we had travelled 100 miles only 30 of those miles were in the right direction. 20 miles from Gibraltar yesterday afternoon the favourable wind that had been pushing us along on a broad reach with a triple reefed main at 6 knots died - left us with a punishing slop and then turned to the West. Yes that's right in the direction we were attempting to go. Our motoring speed was cut down to about 3 knots. Knowing we would not get into Gib until way after dark we turned right into Estepona - a lovely little place, nice Marina, great rates and a free bottle of wine - 'All for the greater good' - we'll head out in about an hour for Gibraltar. Here's a couple of videos showing the complete contrast in weather conditions from 1 day to the next.

,

Why Menorca is Green

2011-11-06T13:27:00.000-08:00

Now I know why Menorca is so green - about a million gallons of rain fell in the past 24 hours. We actually didn't venture off the boat at all today - just did jobs inside the boat which needed to be done - lots of preparation for the upcoming long journey. We were amused when watching the coverage of the Volvo race which just started from Alicante, Spain - not very far from us. They talk about 'stacking' the boat which though it sounds very technical, basically means moving all of the moveable weight - i.e. sail bags from the low side to the high side of the boat which is like having about 5 more men sitting up on the rail.
'Oh yeah! we stack Moondancer too - we move everything to the low side so that it
doesn't all fall down there.'
That was one of the jobs I've been doing - improving the holding areas for all of the things that are necessary on our boat as its also our permanent home. Usually we take most things away from their normal living space when we are at sea - many things get put onto our bed in the aft cabin as we never get to sleep in there on passages. We sleep in the single bunks in the main cabin with lee cloths up to stop us from falling down to the low side.
Tony has been working on our SSB radio - though we are receiving well we are not being heard - looks like the antennae cable has some corrosion so tomorrow we'll try to search out and replace that cable.
The weather seems to change very quickly here and we are checking it regularly - it looks now as though we'll be able to leave on Tuesday and may be able to get all the way to Gibraltar.
My next post will verify whether we did.
We have made friends with an American boat called Sonrisa. We met in Malta while they were also undergoing repairs in the yard. They've made it to Mallorca, just south of us and are also planning to head across the Atlantic. Its nice to have
SSB radio contact with other boats on the ocean - we get to compare weather information etc.

Spiritual Experiences on board

2011-11-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

A few people have told me about 'spiritual experiences' they've had when sailing long distances - such as finding a dead relative sitting beside them in the cockpit on night watch which they found comforting. If that were to happen to me I'd probable die of fright, at the very least scream my head off and wake up Tony and the dead. I think these experiences are fuelled by extreme exhaustion. I had something like that happen on the last passage from Malta to Menorca, which is where we are now for a few days waiting out nasty weather. Just after we left Malta I got a very bad cold or flu - whatever it is its really horrible and should definitely be treated with rest - REST, that's a joke when there's just 2 of us running the boat and one of us is always awake. It may not be such a bad thing to nod off out in the ocean when its very unlikely that you'll hit anything, but in the Med its a bit different - there's quite alot of traffic day and night. In fact it seems like alot more ships show up on our AIS at night than during the day. So - 3 nights out in stormy conditions with a bad cold and very little sleep I was having a bad watch. Standing up in the wind and rain will certainly help to keep one awake but not as comfortable as sitting under cover in the cockpit. Every time I sat down I would nod off - and wake up just as my head hit something close by - the bimini/dodger framework or the edge of the steering pedestal. It happened many times but I couldn't wake Tony because he really needed his sleep too and had already been very generous with giving up some of his sleep to me as I was sick. So my spiritual experience was when I fell into more than a 'nod off' and something whacked me around the head pretty hard - this time it wasn't something I fell against. So someone else must have been on watch with me and obviously a gentle shake 'awake' wasn't going to work. So for the last hour of that watch I stood out in the rain and wind and kept myself busy. So we're in Menorca, the Ballearics, Spain. We got here 2 days ago. We had hoped to make it to Ibiza a bit further south west on this leg but we had to deal with a technical problem and Menorca was closer. We've not done much other than REST, check out the chandleries for things we need aboard and work on Moondancer. Today will be more of the same, but tomorrow we'll do some sight seeing. Its a very lovely island - so clean and the people are polite and courteous. Instead of running across the road in fear of one's life - we stand on the curb and wait and people actually stop to let us cross the road. Incredible. Menorca reminds us so much of other countries we have visited - particularly Bermuda in its tidiness and cleanliness. Funny how when we come to new places they always seem to have characteristics like other places we have been. The video and pictures I'm posting speak for themselves and as yet I know nothing about Menorca as we have not really been out and about - we hope to rectify that on Saturday, our last day here before the weather turns in our favour for getting further along. We knew when we left Malta that getting out of the Med was going to be tough - so far that's exactly what it has been. We'll have to work within weather systems and there are plenty of harbours on the Spanish coast to duck into until we finally get out, then once in the Atlantic we'll basically have to work with the wind direction until we get far enough south to head west. We obviously hope that the trade winds will then carry us across as fast as Moondancer can go.

MoondancerX's Blog Revival

2011-10-19T00:25:00.000-07:00

I know, I know its been 7 months since I last wrote anything on this blog - but those of you who've kept in touch through other mediums know that we've been very busy.
So I'll start with a short run-down on the past 7 months; none of which has really had anything to do with Moondancer which is why the news has not been entered herein.
Earlier this year - while Tony was still working for 'Cockroach' aka Malta Sailing Academy (see - this is my blogsite and I can say what I like)as a Sailing Instructor I launched Sail Like a Girl - Cruise and Learn Yacht Charters for Women. The launch and marketing of this venture took up alot of my time which was necessary as I didn't have a marketing budget - and in retrospect I received alot of help from certain people in Malta who believed in me - i.e. Vanessa MacDonald, a sailor and journalist in Malta who ensured that I received some very reasonable magazine and TV coverage - Simon Borg Cardona, owner of Nautica Yacht Charters who chartered his boats to me at a very reasonable rate and paid for 3000 brochures to be printed, Alfie Borg of the Hudson Group who made his flagship store available for promotion of Sail Like a Girl. Thinking back on it I had alot of tremendous support for this venture in Malta and feel badly that I did not stay with it.
BUT - When we were invited to join the Russian Yacht Scorpius as Skipper and Manager at a very nice salary for the trip of a lifetime on a fabulous 30 meter yacht there was no contest - what 'hot-blooded' sailor would not have dropped everything to join that voyage? And as it has come to pass 5 months later several'hot blooded' Russian sailors are lining up to join the crew without salaries - so we were ousted.
And that's basically it in the nutshell. If you want to ready more about either of those ventures see www.saillikeagirl.blogspot.com or www.nizovtsev.net for Scorpius website.
So we have come back to Moondancer - who was completely de-commissioned as we expected to leave her in the yard for a couple of years - and we are reviving her and hope to have her ready to set sail by next week.
We are now planning to head over the Atlantic to the Caribbean - aiming at Antigua where we will try to find work again as Charter Skippers and Sailing Instructors for the winter 'Summer' season. After that - who knows where we will go next. Maybe the Northwest passage route home - perhaps we'll see Scorpius coming the other way. We'll keep you posted.

Anchored at Comino Island, Malta

2011-02-12T23:28:00.000-08:00

Its not the first time we've anchored at Comino, mostly famous for the irridescent Blue Lagoon, but it is the first time we took a day to hike around the island, and what a pleasant surprise. The views from the cliff tops were breathtaking, and there is alot more to the island than it appears from the water. In the middle are buildings which were at one time quarantine hospital buildings and are now home to a few people. We met an elderly gentleman called Carmen who told us that only 7 people live on the island now, and he only comes there on the weekends, but there used to be 100 people living there in his lifetime.
There are remnants of farming; rusting farm tools and field dividing walls aswell as domestic plants which are now growing wild.
St Mary's Tower which is an impregnable fort built in 1618 to fight off pirates who plied the waters between Malta and Gozo has recently been renovated back to almost perfect condition - wasn't open - so we didn't go in, but did climb up onto the ramparts to take in the views.
Quite an incredible day really, dinghying around the caves to start with, seeing a really big shark at close quarters and feasting on the colours of Spring in Malta. This is our 2nd Spring here now and other than the water being a bit cold for swimming comfort I think this is probably the best time of year to visit Malta. Its absolutely blooming with plantlife, aqualife but less people life.

Back in Malta - Anchored in the beautiful Blue Lagoon - on our own

2011-02-11T01:42:00.000-08:00

We arrived back in Malta last night after a pretty boisterous sail back - sailed until just a few hours off the coast of Gozo - a beamer all the way - Moondancer X just loved it, and if it hadn't been for the bloody awful sideways chop it would have been 'perfect', but who expects perfect in February. It was a good sail back, and when Gozo was in sight it really felt like we were coming home.
So young Toni woke up this morning to the crystal clear waters of the Blue Lagoon on Comino, which is a small island in between Malta and Gozo, a rare privelege to be in this amazing place without the hoards who normally grace it in the summer months. Thought about going for a swim as the sun is shining and its quite warm - but Nah! that's pushing it a bit.
Glad to be out of Tunisia. Though we saw a few awesome things there, and regret not staying to see the Sahara, its not one of my favourite places.

Tunisia - Feb 2011 - Posted from the Blue Lagoon, Malta

2011-02-11T01:32:00.000-08:00

Tunisia February 2011-02-08

We’ve come to Tunisia of necessity; MoondancerX being Canadian can only be in the EU for 18 months without being officially imported or leaving. As we have been here for 18 months and have no desire to sail our boat under any other flag than Canadian we have come out of the EU and Tunisia is the closest place to Malta. Tunisia has just undergone what the local people refer to as a ‘revolution’, which I suppose it is – they have ousted their President of the last 23 years with some bloodshed – depending on which reports you read, about 40 people killed - but some pretty scary violent demonstrations.
This happened about 3 weeks ago mostly in the town of Tunis, and perhaps it is only in our imagination there does seem to be a residue of bad feeling about the place.
Of course that may just be the way it is here – we see groups of men everywhere sitting around in cafes doing nothing – when we walk past these ‘man caves’ they stare at us and it doesn’t feel like friendly staring. As we are almost always the only non-native people on the streets wherever we go they may just be curious as to why we are here when most of the other non-native people have fled. Also because we are the only people on the street who ‘presumably’ have any money we are ‘marks’ – and consequently the vendors try very hard to sell to us. We smile politely and say no-thankyou, maybe later, etc. , and keep on walking.
Our arrival in the Monastir Marina was good – the first person we met was Kamil, who is the Immigration Policeman; he took our lines and helped to dock our boat. The paper work was handled quickly and painlessly with lots of smiling, we had to wait awhile for the Customs lady to finish a phone conversation with one of her children, which she was not at all embarrassed about even though it was alot of googoo, gagaa type words, universal baby language. When the papers were all completed and stamped I asked for a copy, but was told I’d get it later, then they both came to our boat, which was still in much disarray, the salon being where we sleep during our overnight passages. They asked to see anything that we wished to declare – we didn’t understand; they meant alcohol, another universal word, so we showed them the worn down heels of a few bottles we had in the cupboard, then Kamil said everything is ok, just formalities and went away.
We spent that day and the next on the Visitors dock awaiting instructions from the Capitain de Marin as to where we should go. We slept a little, found the showers and went ashore.
Our first encounter was with 2 boys who asked us for cigarettes, then money, then responded with a very un-moslem sounding ‘ f---k you’ when we refused to give them either.

Monastir - is a good size town with a huge fort/Ribat right on the waterfront dating back to 796 AD and remodelled many times since, and incredible Mausoleum built by and dedicated to Habib Bourgiba by himself, reportedly having spent a few billion dinars of this poor country’s money to do so. He’s in it now, having died in 2000, along with his first and second wife. The Municipal market/souk is fantastic, the men selling fish are most prominent and working hard to make their sales for the day – after all fish doesn’t keep. The meat counters are a bit daunting – not at all like buying cuts of animals in our supermarkets where we know what to expect. And when skinned I can’t tell the difference between sheep and goat. Chickens all look alike so that was a safe buy.

We took a long walk down the waterfront in the direction of their equivalent of the Costa Del Sol, which because it is quite far away from the town centre has not changed Monastir very much. Being off-season and post revolution it was pretty dead and the only cafe we found which had a bit of life to offer was full of smoke. Literally full of smoke – alot of people sitting around smoking hookas - young Toni told us that they smoke some fruity tobacco compound which is not drugs, but I’m sure with that little oxygen getting through the smoke to the brain it probably acts as some type of anaesthetic. These hookas as quite common in the cafes. We sat outside to drink our very creamy coffee, Tony senior asked some young people what kind of drink they were drinking – a small glass of tea with almonds floating it in, they told us it is called The de blusse, tea with almonds and offered it to him to taste – of course he refused but they insisted. That is twice we have been offered a person’s food to taste, the other time at a Street Vendor’s booth selling garbanza bean soup. That is a very heart warming thing to do – not thinking that who you have offered it to may ‘contaminate’ your food. Very generous.

Another day we walked in the other direction, around a very craggy point which at one time – probably during WWII, must look that up – a very heavy duty boat ramp was built into the natural rock using a red brick which they make here and incorporating some ancient ruins. The video describes this quite well. Right out on the end of the point are the remains of a very ancient dwelling where people can walk around freely on mosaics which are crumbling away underfoot and pieces of ancient pots just lie around for anyone to pick up. We would have been content to walk around the outside perimeter of the place but were lured in by 2 men who may or may not have worked there, and were definitely trying to make money out of us. As we were the only people out there, miles away from the town we were a bit nervous – well perhaps I should speak for myself – I was quite nervous. Up to a point we followed where we were lured and politely steered our way out of the site aware of the disappointed muttering from the one who was trying the hardest. When we walked out they both took off on a motorcycle, which makes me think they were just 2 guys who saw some foreigners who might give them some money. At least if they swore at us I didn’t understand it.

Mahdia – on a train. There is a 2 track station in Monastir and the train that comes in will take you to Sousse or Mahdia. Mahdia is the end of the line, but Sousse being a bigger city has connections to other places. Good timing is probably not our strongest point. We got the train to Mahdia on Saturday at about 1.00pm, along with hundred of university students leaving Monastir for the weekend. So we stood in the space between cabins along with about 20 other people and enjoyed a long but fun train trip to Mahdia. We met a group of young men who really liked to joke alot, initially at our expense, but when we took it well we actually enjoyed some conversation. We met a young woman called Arij who spoke excellent English and told us alot about their lives. She is an engineering student at university with gentile manners and the desire to finish her studies in Canada. She gave us her phone number and offered to help us if we needed it while here in Monastir. The young men seemed to be under the impression that everyone in Canada is rich and they asked if we could help them to come and live in Canada. We didn’t get into the money conversation as they probably wouldn’t see it from our point of view, but we did tell them that they need relatives to emigrate to Canada.
One of the things that struck me during this time was how often I heard Arabic words which are the same as Maltese, and actually had the same meaning. I suppose that goes back to the Pheonicians who founded both Tunisia and Malta a few thousand years ago.
Most of our time in Mahdia was spent walking along the coast of the biggest cemetery I’ve ever seen – in the Moslem culture they believe that each person must have their own burial space, not on top of each other, which means that they need alot of space. And this graveyard in Mahdia is occupying the most spectacular real estate in the town. Can’t help but see that as valuing their ‘dead life’ more highly than their alive one. More fabulous ruins left behind by the Romans – a tall archway which leads nowhere now as most of what was on the sea side of it has fallen away, stands like a stately portal out into the sea. Other than the graveyard being extremely impressive the other impression was of motorcycles – load of them – small 50cc motorclycles bombing around everywhere – the noise on the roads becomes quite annoying, like loads of chainsaws going off all over the place.

El Jem – by louage – the louage is a shared taxi which holds about 7 people who will come and go during the trip. According to our guide book this costs about 4 dinars per person one way. We went to the louage station yesterday morning and started negotiations, which is a bit ridiculous really because we were trying to negotiate without understanding each other. We thought we were to be passengers on the louage along with others, and what the driver thought was he was being hired as a private driver. Had we joined a public louage the trip would have cost us 24 dinars for 3 of us there and back. It cost us 80 – which really didn’t feel good at all to us, and it wasn’t until we were on our way and saw that the driver was refusing to take other people that we realized what was going on. And when we got to El Jem and he wanted 40 dinars then and another 40 to bring us back we were a bit choked and saw our mistake. So another lesson learned in our travels.
We went to El Jem to see the remains of the Roman Colosseum, the 3rd largest in the Roman world, built between the years AD230 and 238. Only 8 years to build that incredible structure – oh what a wonderful thing slavery was. Imagine doing that and paying wages. Being there after driving one and a half hours through mostly decrepid Tunisia was quite difficult to take in. Incredibly sophisticated engineering went into building that structure. What went on in it sometimes doesn’t smack of highly evolved people, but its as if the Romans were a ‘superhuman’ culture who lived in that time, and when they were gone – all that was left behind was garbage. The photos and videos do a much better job than I can of describing it, and my feeling while walking around on stones which had been walked on by thousands of feet before mine can only be described as awe. There were several men working in various places; we spoke to one man who said that he was a student specialising in Roman archaeology. It was he that told us we could go underground to see where the gladiators waited in the dark for their turn to’ entertain’ the crowds.
After the Colosseum we went to the Mosaic museum – also incredible, the best of them were mounted on walls, but many of them are still on the floors to be walked on by everyone. The mosaics are housed in a beautiful villa like building with many curved windows complementing the square and rectangular mosaics.
I think that because we are brought up to value antiquities so much its hard to understand that such valuable artifacts can be enjoyed at such close quarters. If they were in Canada, they’d have fences around them or they’d be built into some type of humidor. I suppose they think that if they’ve been here this long, they’ll last alot longer, and they don’t have so much money available to preserve them. Actually some of the work they are doing to renovate these ruins isn’t that good, and if they keep doing it what they will have are not originals.
Coming out of these places and into the streets of El Jem were transported back to being the ‘marks’, and though we did it, its hard to keep smiling when one feels a bit invaded by the vendors, and knowing that ‘our driver’ has taken advantage of our ignorance and our fear of taking a stand.

The other big thing that we wanted to do while in Tunisia is to go to the Sahara desert. We made a decision at the end of the day not to do that. That will have to wait until some time in the future – or never in this life. We’ve heard that there are still troubles further south, so we do not feel comfortable to rent a car and drive ourselves, and most of the arranged tours have been cancelled as the country is still in a ‘state of emergency’. This is scheduled to be lifted on the 15th February – we have work to get back to in Malta, so we’ll leave day after tomorrow. - The wind’s in the right direction for our sail back.

Sorry - post not working

2011-02-08T09:52:00.001-08:00

Sorry, the 'longer post' did not work - please see facebook for what I had intended to put here. I'll figure it out when I get back to Malta. Not sure why, but I have limited time to work it out.

Tunisia - longer post

2011-02-08T09:07:00.000-08:00

This is the Roman Colliseum in El Jem, Tunisia, I have written much more to post here, but the blogsite is not working in its normal way while I'm here, but I'll keep trying. If unsuccessful I'll have to wait until we get back to Malta to post it.
I've got alot of spectacular photographs taken in Tunisia which I also cannot post here for some reason - I'm going to post a few on facebook, that seems to be working for me right now.

Tunisia -

2011-02-07T08:49:00.000-08:00

This is an abbreviated post - we don't have good internet access here. In fact up until today I have been unable to actually sign in to the blog. Not sure how I got on today, but here it is.

We arrived in Monastir Marina this time last week - it seems like alot longer than a week.

Since we've been here we've done a bit of sight seeing and have met the other liveaboards in the Marina who I already feel I will miss - but some of them may come to Malta while we are there. Our first day here was mostly taken up with sleep to make up for the overnight lack-of, the next day poured ferociously and since then it has been blowing like snot - lots of snot. Each day the weather reports have predicted the wind will ease and finally it has.

There were a couple of things that we really wanted to do while here - one to see the Roman Colusseum in El Jem and the other to take a trip to the Sahara.

We went to the Colusseum today and it was all that we could have hoped for - magnifique almost works, and then a trek across 'town' to the mosaic museum which was unimaginably incredible.

So the other thing - to go to the Sahara - not going to happen on this trip. Things are still a bit 'dodgey' here in Tunisia, we're not completely comfortable being the only 'stand-out' tourists wherever we go, and we have work to go back to Malta to do. Here are a few pictures - I'll post more on web-shots.

Dangerous Bread

2011-01-12T11:03:00.001-08:00

The best bread I have ever eaten in my life is Maltese Bread - just their simple everyday bread, some of which is still baked in ovens like these where they burn wood to heat the oven and then bake these round loaves with a thick dark crust. This bakery is about 80 years old, the stone oven photographed here has something like stalactites on the oven ceiling, probably built up doughy steam dripping down bake after bake for 80 years. The bakery is in Balzan, the village my family are from and where my Uncle Sav still lives. Each time we come to Balzan we stop to buy bread there and I always have to tell them that I remember it from when I was a kid, and they probably always think they should just humour the old broad.

They are very proud of their business though, and they work very hard at it and were pleased that I wanted to take pictures - they invited us to come back when they would actually be opening the oven to take out the cooked loaves so that I could get a better picture.

Why is it so dangerous - because we eat too much of it and are in danger of looking just

like these crusty round loaves. Mmmmm - hobsa; a thick chunk of this bread which olive oil, ripe tomatoes squashed onto it with olives, capers and bjeiniet - a homemade style of goat cheese. See I told you it was dangerous.

Spring has been in the air for the past 2 weeks, it has been so lovely, not warm enough for swimming, but very comfortable in the sun - hardly any rain, that just started today which is needed. We hope it doesn't stay long as Tony's son Toni is arriving this Friday and we'd like to show him Malta in the sunshine and now lots of flowers are blooming and the green is all very green - much less so in the summer.

Glad to see the Christmas Season behind us, now we are getting on with preparing the boat to accommodate Toni, and our trip to Tunisia, which we've been threatening to do for some time - in the next couple of weeks is probably best, so that we can get down to work when we get back. It looks like Tony will go back to Malta Sailing Academy and Charters and I'm working veyr hard on promoting Sail Like a Girl Charters. I'm learning alot about this charter business as I go along and a few avenues seen to be opening up.

Its actually turning things around - instead of me looking for work as a Charter Skipper, I'm looking for customers for my charters and then I will charter the boats to take them sailing. All I've got to do is find the customers.

I must say we are looking forward to a sailing trip - its been so long that we've been stagnant. Since hauling Moondancer in Fall 2009 we have accumulated alot of junk on her bottom that we've got to get off if we are going to get any speed out of her, but Tony will likely do that by diving under her with a scouring pad and sponge.

Our Christmas present to each other is almost installed now - the AIS/DSC/VHF radio. Its basically hooked up now and hooked into our C-MAP nav system. Tony has spent most of the day today learning its characteristics and basically playing with it. Telling me the names of all of the ships within a 20 mile radius of us, how fast they are going, where they are going etc. Having used similar systems on delivery boats I'm looking forward to its usefulness when we are in heavy traffic - always a bit nerve racking at night.

Saillikeagirl.blogspot.com

2010-12-06T02:38:00.000-08:00

For the past couple of days Tony has been back in Canada and I have been working on a new project .

Saillikeagirl.blogspot.com is a new blogsite which I'm using as a vehicle to help promote myself as a Charter Skipper for 'Women Only' sailing charters initially here in Malta and then who knows - if it becomes successful perhaps I'll charter boats in other locations and move around from location to location according to time of year. This is the start. I am happy with the company I have chosen to charter the boats from - Nautica, they have an excellent fleet and good reputation.

The focus of these charters is 'Cruise and Learn' at whatever level those women who come aboard want to participate.

I'm adding Saillikeagirl as a link to this website. Spread the word - the season kicks off here April or so and I'm looking forward to doing alot of sailing in 2011.

Also - any feedback on the site will be welcome and anything that I haven't covered let me know. I'll also be e-mailing everyone in my address book to spread the word.

Thank for your support.

Nancy

Breakwater Party - Nov 2010

2010-11-22T03:06:00.001-08:00

The following pictures were taken last evening - a few of us got together and shared our meal under a bright full moon. The 'cobs' which are those 'flying saucer' type barbeques on the ground are a great cooking device and our neighbours from Czech Republic, Bo and Rada cooked stuffed squid on theirs and Liz and John, alias Zee Zee John (can you guess which one he is) cooked sausages and we fired up our barbeque on the boat and added chicken and potato wedges.

As you can see we had quite a complement of furry guests too. These cats all live amongst the large rocks which make up the breakwater - the sad looking ginger/white tom cat is the daddy of many of the others. I would love to take him and look after him - he looks so sad. Unfortunately I don't think we would do very well travelling with him aboard - he's never been tame, chances are he'd rip our faces off if we tried to catch him.

We are enjoying incredible weather at present - truly and Indian Summer with bright crisp sunshine, 21 degrees and cool nights perfect for hunkering down under the duvet for a good sleep. Many of us are taking advantage of the good weather to work on our boats. The sound of power tools on the dock is the norm at present, and I'm about to get my sewing machine going again to carry on with replacing the boat canvasses which are all pretty worn out.

So far I've replaced the hatch covers - the bimini and the mainsail cover. Not too happy with the finishing on a couple of things so I'll go at them again to improve them.

Tony has been doing his favourite boat task - caulking - (definitely not his favourite). When Tony caulks his evil alter ego comes to the fore and makes the task even worse for him. Moondancer requires alot of caulking if we are to keep the water out and he's getting it done, albeit unhappily.

Breakwater Party 2010

2010-11-22T03:05:00.000-08:00

Breatwater Party - Nov 2010

2010-11-22T03:03:00.000-08:00

Breakwater Party - Nov 2010

2010-11-22T03:00:00.000-08:00

Breakwater Party - Nov 2010

2010-11-22T02:57:00.000-08:00

Video taken in Istanbul

2010-11-03T21:37:00.000-07:00

Just getting around to organising pictures and videos taken when I was in Istanbul. I wish that the uploading didn't take so long - then I would put loads more images on the blog. It now seems like such a long time ago that I was there.

While I was staying in the basement of the Dong Yang Hostel I found a couple of books. One of them is called The Historian and its all about Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula being buried in Istanbul, not Transylvania. Thank God it took me a couple of weeks to get to that part of the book otherwise I'd have had to sleep in a bed of garlic surrounded by crucifixes, sharpened wooden stake and hammer at the ready.

Random Pictures Taken in Istanbul

2010-10-29T04:02:00.000-07:00

A few pictures I took while in Istanbul. I've got loads more aswell as videos. Just trying to figure out how to get them directly from the Picasa files where I can do wonderful things to improve the pictures to the blogsite. This may take awhile but I think I prefer Picasa over Webshots.

Istanbul - Talk about Culture Shock

2010-10-23T03:30:00.000-07:00

Though this isn't Moondancer's adventure its the best place to post my latest journey and as I'm languishing in Sultanahmet, Istanbul with weary legs from walking a few miles before noon today I've decided to take this time to post a blog. Wish I had the log for the 12 day voyage to help jog the memory.
This was a delivery aboard a 57' Jeanneau - very roomy, brand new on its way from one boat show to another and then on to its new owner. This boat had 3 cabins, and as there were 2 females aboard we shared a room with 2 beds. Had to build a heavy duty bolster down the middle to keep us from rolling onto the floor depending on the heel. Actually the heel was mostly in my room-mate's favour, not mine so the bolster was an urgently needed device, after the first 2 nights of me sleeping around trying to find somewhere to sleep - sleeeeeeeep; a most precious skill which I seem to lack in almost all circumstances unfortunately.
The trip started at the Genova boat show, we arrived very late from our different parts of Europe and had to go through all kinds of antics to actually get onto our boat. This very large boat show - billed as the biggest in Europe was shutting down as we arrived and had already removed some temporary floating dock, which actually meant that the only way we could access the boat was to swim across a 60' span of water balancing my 80lb luggage on my head. This after travelling all day and walking a couple of miles pulling said luggage didn't go over too well. So we found someone who found us a dinghy with an outboard to use as a ferry. Good.
That could get John and I over the water but we had to go back and find the rest of the crew who were arriving later, and we had to find food, so we stashed our bags on the boat and went looking for the others knowing that we now had a way back.
We met them at the entrance to the marina and all took off in search of food.
Now that I've started writing this I remember that there are too many stories in this story, so I'll try to stay on track. There was only 1 restaurant within walking distance while the other 2 members of our team, Skipper and Kat (Kadri is the other female crew and the skipper wishes to remain nameless)dragged and carried their respective 100lbs of luggage. The restaurant was a ridiculously pompous affair which made us all feel like very hungry paupers wishing for a Pizza Hut.
So we ate, got back to the marina and the impassable but for our makeshift ferry docks to find you guessed it the makeshift ferry was gone to the other side. So after walking long distances in search of another way around we gave up and nicked another dinghy without a motor and punted across ferrying crew and baggage - finally we got our heads down for a sleep.
We had 10 days to get from Genova to Istanbul in hopes of getting the boat in time for the Ist. Boat Show on the 20th Oct. and my cheap flight back to Malta - Air Malta only flies twice a week to Istanbul at a very reasonable price - the flight was on the 20th. That's why I'm here in the basement of the very cheap hostel that I'm staying in. One thing that I've learned about yacht deliveries - there is always something that will happen to cause delay so never book the return flight.

The skipper had the same idea of route as I had hoped for which really pleased me - south with a bit of east from Genova - stopping at Capri for fuel and a bottom cleaning to speed us up, through the Messina Straits, which were much nicer than the last time I went through. On up to and through the Corinth Canal which is a remarkable though primitive 6km gouge through land separating mainland Greece from the Pellaponese (probably not spelled right) then down a bit until turning the corner into the Aegean (several warnings about how rough that would be - and it was) and then through the Dardanelles into the beautiful sea of Marmar up to Istanbul and the Bosphorous.
We did get to sail a bit - but mostly motored which was to be expected considering the time constraint. We basically had to keep going at mostly 8kn to make up for fuel stops and the times when headwinds just prevented us from doing that. No crashing through waves - sometimes we actually cut the revs down to a motoring speed of under 6 knots to prevent the crashing. (I mock only because in Moondancer we would feel really chuffed to do 6 knots - and that would have to be with a following wind).
The trip was not without a couple of dramas - in the Gulf of Corinth we were repeatedly hit with 48 knots of wind, hail stones that hurt when they hit you which were all happening in conjunction with vicious lightning and thunder. Motoring into that was not desirable and it was too much for autohelm or hand steering, so we waited it our just idling around at the mouth of the gulf doing 2knots in circles keeping out of the way of fishing trawlers who still fished in spite of it.
In fact lighting and rain were pretty routine at night. Though some of the days were bright and sunny each evening the clouds moved in - all thundery towering imposing looking clouds.
We pulled into what was to be our last fuel stop before the Aegean in Greece (I'm sorry to say I've forgotten the name of the place for now), fuelled up from a funny little tanker on the back of an ancient pick-up truck, got some provisions, I picked oranges from trees that lined all of the streets in the town, bought Greek Gyros cast off our lines to find - Uh oh quick tie back up again - we called to walkers on the wall to catch thrown lines and in we came. The engine would not keep running in gear - we speculated bad fuel as we'd just refuelled, then clutch, then fouled prop. This all happened at dusk so we opted to stay the night and dive under the boat in the morning - actually Kat dove under the boat and sure enough we have a whole fishing net wrapped around the prop.
We found a couple of local divers - not pros, but guys who liked diving. One of them was a physics Professor who was working on his dive master. They cut the net off which took about half and hour with 2 of them working on it and by noon we were on our way again - with due warnings about the Aegean.
We had also been doing regular weather checks and knew what to expect.
It took us that day and night to get around the bottom of whatever that part of Greece is called and around the corner into the Aegean early next morning. For the next 2 days we rolled from side to side in a following sea in 30 - 40 knots of wind. Thank God that was not on the nose.
Coming through the Dardanelles at night in heavy traffic took all of us on watch and the skipper hand steering - in pouring rain and of course the prerequisite lighting and thunder.
Once through we were rewarded by the beautiful relative calm of the Sea of Marmar which reminded me alot of British Columbia's Desolation Sound - similar looking land and waterways. The shipping lane was predictable and hazards were well marked - so the pressure was off. We also enjoyed our second visit from a large school of Dolphins who stayed and played with us for awhile - always very uplifting.
We came into the vicinity of Istanbul after dark, no rain and thunder now - and no autohelm. It quit about 3 hours out. But that was ok we still know how to steer with our hands. We came into Marinturk about 11.30pm - they were expecting us and sent a tender out to guide us in.
We were very glad to be in, and set about putting our belongings together before we retired for much desired sleep. Sleeeeeeeeeeeeep.
We were a good crew - we all got on well together and everybody pulled their weight, even John who was really guest crew getting in a few more miles while heading home to Turkey.
Everybody but I had flights booked home for the next day from the major airport in Istanbul which is on the European side of the Bosphorous. So somehow Kat and I had to get from one side to the other in a country where not only do they not speak the same language but their alphabet isn't even readable (by us).
Lucky for us the owner of the yacht delivery company was there and was going back himself at the end of the day - we accompanied him lugging our tons of luggage through the streets (actually he was now lugging my 80lb bag - with wheels) until we found the tiny bus which took us for the next one and a half hours to the ferry to cross the Bosphorous, where we had to buy a token (all instructions in Turkish of course), run to the turnstiles, and run on the ferry just before it pulled out. Cross the Bosphorous then lug and walk another distance to this hostel called the Dong Yang. If I didn't think that Istanbul was extremely foreign before its certainly been reinforced by the fact that most of the other inhabitants of this hostel are Orientals - not sure where from - some of the young men look like Genghis Kahn or Hannibal.
I'm in a district of Istanbul called Sultanahmet and I am being very careful about where I venture because the City is enormous and I will most certainly get lost if I don't leave a crumb trail. So I've already walked a hundred miles in the last couple of days - not dragging luggage - and will do a hundred more before I head home on Monday morning.
Not sure how successful I'll be with photographs but I've got lots and will try to post them on this antique computer - if not I'll do it when I get home.

MoondancerX Anchored in Dwerja, Gozo

2010-09-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

I've just posted 20 odd pictures on Webshots, the link at the side - go to Malta album and scroll through.

One year later - still in Malta

2010-09-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

Moondancer is all better now. The Manoel Island Yacht Yard did a good job of putting her back together properly - not just with spit and sawdust. She looks like she did before and so far everything seems to work ok. We've just taken her up to Gozo for a few days of 'sailing' - we actually did get a couple of hours sailing in - but mostly we were motoring. Our goal was to go diving in a place called the Blue Hole near Dwerja in Gozo. Dwerja is a small - almost totally enclosed bay guarded by Fungus Rock. We had a pretty dramatic storm on the way up to Gozo - very loud thunder and forked lightning - a 'twister' over Melieha bay and torrential rain all within about an hour. It was quite remarkable really - that we should have a few days off and head out of Marsamxett harbour in relative sunshine and head up the coast into every darkening skies. Then thunder almost as loud as the maltese fireworks, lightning which was easily better than the maltese fireworks and amazing rainfall - which we always welcome because Moondancer gets a good wash up in the rigging. Bu the time we got to Dwerja the storm had passed and we had a lovely sunny arrival, lots of swimming - unfortunately quite a bit of swell in the anchorage which is never enjoyable - but Captn. Tony assured me it was dying down and tomorrow would be a better day. So the next day after a very rolly night - where I actually dreamt that I was in a bed on a boat - but the bed had wheels on it and it kept crashing from one side of the cabin to another - not too far from the truth - we headed out of the enclosed bay in our dinghy with our little 2hp engine and went looking for the tunnel that leads in through the sheer cliff face on the outside to a hidden sea on the inside. This is called not surprisingly The Hidden Sea. The hidden sea and the blue hole are a mecca for divers and we were hoping at that time to join the throngs. We actually gave up on the idea of driving through a tunnel - which incidentally we didn't find - on a sheer rockface in swells that could quite easily plaster one or quite a few of us on the rock face above the tunnel opening. So we went back to the boat and decided to go ashore in the dinghy and walk around to the hidden sea and blue hole and check it out from land. Once again the swell got the better of us and we couldn't land the dinghy anywhere where it would not bet beaten up again the rocks during our absence - so we went back to Moondancer. We decided to put a change of clothes, shoes, camera, towel into water tight bags, swim ashore, dry off and carry our stuff with us to the inland sea. That worked very well - those water tight bags also work as floatation devices while one swims. We were impressed with the inland sea - where we paid a Maltese boatman to take us through the tunnel out to see the Azure Window which is an amazing rock formation on the outside of the cliffs. Then into a few caves, back into the tunnel. Having done this little trip in his big heavy wooden boat with a 60hp engine to combat the swell we could see that to attempt this in our dinghy in those conditions would have been bloody stupid. We saw the blue hole full of divers who can dive down to the bottom and then out through some caves into the caves surrounding the Azure Window. Most of these divers arrived in vehicles and rented equipment from dive companies. We could see doing this dive with our own equipment without bringing it around in the dinghy, so we did not dive there this time. We did however go back to the boat, by now the swell had died down quite a bit and we snorkelled into a couple of very dark caves with an underwater flashlight - a bit scary going further and further into the dark, but very cool when you turn around and come back out into the beautiful torquoise water with coral and bright sunlight showing it all off. I'm attaching some video and pictures to show these places. Unfortunately we don't have an underwater camera yet - so just above water pictures. So that was day 2. Day 3 we left Dwerja and headed for Crystal Bay on Comino Island, between Gozo and Malta where there is a wreck of a patrol boat - which has purposely been sunk there for the enjoyment of divers. We swam through the wreck which is 65' down sitting on a white sand seabed perfectly balanced on her hull - surrounded by so many different types of fish who were as curious about us as we were them - even a very large baracuda holding off in the distance - as they do - very intimidating looking. Before sinking the boat they had cut very large access holes so that divers can safely move around inside the boat. Its still a fairly new wreck - a few more years and the plantlife and coral that has already taken hold will take over. Before each dive I have undertaken so far (14 now) I am always so apprehensive - there is always something that I feel very nervous about - this time being anchored in 50' of water in an onshore wind with big swells - what if Moondancer drags up against the rocks while we are underwater? Tony is always calm and reassuring, he knows it will be alright and that when we are under the water I will forget the worry - he's right and I do. Its just so awesome that we can do this. And now we are back on our mooring, Tony is at work for the next couple of days and I have time to write this and post some pictures.

Nancy's at 'home' with family and Tony's still in Malta

2010-07-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

Main reason for this post is so that Tony can see his parents on video saying hello. The file was too big to send via e-mail.
Being back in Canada in the summer is such a treat. Not just to be with my family and friends, which is truly what I badly needed to do at this time on our journey, but also to look at how beautiful it is here and how 'temperate' everything is. And how nice Canadians are. When talking to other Canadian travellers who have returned home we all agree that its almost impossible to 'beat' British Columbia. How fortunate those of us who can call this place home are.
And its pretty evident that most of the rest of the world knows it too - we usually enjoy very good feed-back in the countries we visit when they know we are Canadian, though in Malta not many people know British Columbia - more familiar with Toronto and its suburbs. So I'll soak it all up, replenish my store of 'green', which is sorely missed in sun-burned Malta and when I get back and Tony's work slows down he can take a turn.

MoondancerX gets Clobbered by Sandstorm

2010-07-12T01:13:00.000-07:00

Quite the wake up call this morning - first alot of shouting, very close to us and the sound of a very large engine, very close to us - that got my heart pumping a little faster and Tony went to the companionway to see what was happening. Then the noise receded and I thought all was ok. Not so - the boat came back at us again and hit us very hard ripping off the back railing of the boat, the gunnel around the back, most of Mr. Chubbs is gone - and now we wait for a surveyor to tell us how bad it all is.
Sandstorm is about a 70' trawler style yacht, when it hit us I jumped out of bed so fast as I thought something was coming through the stern, and then the pasarrel (boarding ladder) hooked on and ripped through everything in its way as the driver was trying to pull away from us. There was alot of shouting and screaming cracking wood and tearing metal - and Tony standing, calmly watching until all was safe - then there was alot of swearing.
The skipper of Sandstorm took his boat back out into the channel and anchored, then came to us and apologised profusely - admitted full responsibility for the damage and now I'm waiting for a diver to recover the parts of Mr. Chubbs that fell in the water and a surveyor. Tony has gone to work and will drive past Moonancer which he usually does with pride as he shows us off to his students. Won't be doing that today. She looks horrible.

Eulogy to Grey Cat

2010-07-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

Grey Cat was the youngest and oldest member of my immediate family. He was born to Fluffy, Josie's 3rd birthday present when Fluffy was about 8 months old. He was a very strange looking kitten - his head was a funny shape and I thought it best the children did not grow too fond of him as I thought he would die. So we didn't give him a proper name. How wrong was I? Grey Cat survived chickens, ducks, dogs, my marriage, Siggy the Llama. He survived a mortal mauling by racoons or coyotes in his fighting youth, and he survived several near drownings in his later years living aboard MoondancerX with us. He survived living with Johnny in an all young men's apartment and a short time with Josie living in an all young women's shared home, and he spent his last days in the peaceful family home of Mary and Elias, Mission and Mole, their new kitten, who probably helped Grey Cat remember that he was young once.
He lived 18 years - so many memories of our lives include him. I feel so sad that I will never hold Grey Cat in my arms again (whether he liked it or not). I feel sad that I will never meet him again in this life. Maybe in the next.

HAPPY CANADA DAY

2010-07-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER WAY TO CONSERVE WATER - SHOWERING IN THE RAIN ON THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
I can't believe that I did not know it was Canada Day yesterday. This morning when I opened up Yahoo I realised that I had let the day go by with our big Canadian flag furled up - to protect it from wind damage - we do have a smaller one up high on one of our shrouds, slightly lower of course than the Maltese courtesy flag. I'm sure if Tony had been here we would have remembered.
Last Canada Day 2009 we were on the Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Azores; we happened to 'bump into' - not literally - an English boat we had met in Bermuda and as they knew it was Canada Day - they hailed us and wished us Happy Canada Day and held up their Canadian flag for our benefit. Funny huh!
Tony's been away all week on a charter around Malta and Gozo so I have had a fairly quiet time working on the boat, swimming when I got hot, lying in the sun to dry off (something I almost never do), lugging very heavy things around, i.e. Our dive tanks, laundry, 2 24 packs of beer for Tony, 2 10 gallon water containers which we take ashore, fill up at a friendly hosepipe, bring back, 'put' on the boat and fill the water tanks up. Now there's a way to improve water conservation. 'Putting' the jerry cans on the boat from the dinghy was very, very difficult. Here's how I used to do it - stand with one foot on the dinghy seat which is rigid and the other foot on the rubber side, not rigid - bend down with knees bent, lift the 10 gallon jerry can up onto the rigid seat, bend knees again and lift jerry can up to chest height and onto the deck. Sounds simple - and if I were alot stronger it would be - not. I did this about 6 times over the last 4 days, the last lift I fell backwards under the weight and decided not to do that again.
So - what do we women do when we don't have the brawn - we use our brains. Yesterday I used the running backs blocks which have twice the lifting power that I do, so I detached the running back block from the boat, brought it down to the jerry can, climbed back on the boat and pulled it aboard without straining myself at all.
Oh my God - you think - that's the highlight of her day???? Actually those small victories really do feel great - can't wait to show Tony, so that he doesn't have to keep struggling. No doubt he'll just continue the old way, doesn't take so long and my way might seem 'gay'.
He's back later today and tomorrow we plan to take off and sail to many of the beautiful places around the islands that we have not yet seen. We have 6 days holiday and I'm really looking forward to it.

Our new neighbourhood - Lazaretto Creek

2010-06-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

But not very far - just out of the marina. BUT - just out of the marina is so very nice. Now we have a little breeze blowing through the boat, the water is clean enough to swim in, not as clean as a bit further out into Marsamxett Harbour, but really doable. We have come around the corner of Msida Creek into Lazaretto Creek, as you see from the pictures we are in pretty good company. We are flanked by Ta'Xbiex 'wall' where there are many very large expensive yachts, and Manoel Island where again the super yachts tie to the wall of Manoel Island. We are on a mooring which we are told is available until September.
Who knows - we could just as easily be moved off here tomorrow. As I've said before there is a real problem with moorage availability in Malta. Its a very small country and everybody wants to pass through, which means the marinas have to keep some guest moorage available. That is where we have been for the past couple of months - on the guest moorage dock, so we were asked to leave, and quite honestly I hated being in there - so hot and smelly from all of the poor stray cats, and then being moored too close to our neighbours. I like neighbours alot more when I can keep them at bay - or arms length or at least boat width - that was not the case, we were packed in like sardines. Now we are on a mooring close to the channel, lots of boats pass us and make big wakes and we roll around alot, but I really like the change.
Tony is working on a charter this week which will keep him away until Thursday - overnight aswell, and I'm on my tod looking after the boat. Cleaning the hull was the first job, having been squeezed in between other boats for a couple of months with dirty fenders had made the hull filthy - now it looks almost as good as when we re-painted it last November. Can't use fresh water to wash it off though, now we have to ration water until we get back into a marina to fill up our tanks. Salt water works for scrubbing though, alot better than nothing.
So this is a bit like when we were on our way - we are now relying on solar panels and engine to power our fridge and lights, and we have to be careful with water.
Next week we have 6 days without being booked so we are going to have a holiday. We'll take Moondancer into some of the beautiful anchorages around Malta and enjoy them just for ourselves. We are really looking forward to the break from our daily routine.
So what about the World Cup - yesterday afternoon we rushed from place to place trying to find somewhere that was showing the game. We found a place alright - but it was the wrong place. We arrived at the beginning of the second half. The score was 2 - 1 to Germany. England had scored the second goal which was disallowed. When Germany scored their third goal the whole sports bar we were in errupted with glee - Oh oh, we're in the wrong bar, it got even worse when they scored again. There were quite alot of England supporters skulking out of bars before the end of the game - including us - it was just too painful to watch anymore. Poor England. I had this silly notion that because I was here in Malta when England beat Germany in 1966 that I would bring good luck to the team and it would happen again - NOT - sometimes silly notions are premonitions of fact - not that time.

A Day Charter to Comino

2010-06-23T23:45:00.000-07:00

Comino is a very small island between Malta and Gozo. As these pictures show it is beautiful all the way around, but the most popular anchorage, which I did not photograph, is called Blue Lagoon. Though the Blue Lagoon is a very beautiful place it has become the destination of hundreds of tour boats daily. So on that day we did take the charter clients into Blue Lagoon to show them what it was like, and as we suspected after they saw some of the more secluded places they preferred not to join the throngs in the lagoon.
When Tony and I first arrived in Malta we were very fortunate to anchor in the lagoon before the hoards arrived and it is absolutely gorgeous. The water is crystal clear and bright torquoise. Torquoise Lagoon would be a more accurate description. But once the visitors started to arrive we moved out.
So we are gradually finding our way around Malta and for all of her faults she definitely qualifies as a jewel in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Tony and his flock out for Nautical License Training

2010-06-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

Got this shot this morning as Tony was heading out the of marina with a group of students taking their 'Nautical License' training. The Maltese government has legislated that by 2011 all boaters sailing vessels with engines over 30hp must have a nautical license. The Malta Sailing Academy got a contract to teach this course and are already booking classes. Tony teaches the practical part of the course on the water in this R.I.D, which goes very fast. Tony took me for a spin in it today and when he opened up the 110hp engine I screamed and said nooooooooooooo. Didn't like it at all. I felt like a pea on a drum being bounced around with nothing to hold on to.
I don't think that's what he does with his students, quite the opposite, he is not teaching them to scare their wives and create a fist shaking wake around marinas, he's teaching them responsible boat handling, knowledge of buoyage systems, man overboard and general boat etiquette. They also have a classroom component to the course which deals with alot more theory.
Well I've finally skippered my first charter on a 43' Beneteau. My clients were a group of German insurance agents who were on an all paid for incentive reward holiday with the company they work for in Germany. There were 5 charter boats altogether. The others all had 6 insurance agents and I had 5. We staged a 'race', and as there was a bit of breeze we did actually do quite a bit of tacking. Half of my group were pretty enthusiastic about helping me - and because they're gentlemen, probably felt obliged to do that anyway. But I think they had a nice day. We sailed up to a small (very small) bay on the north west side of Comino, looking through a gap in the rocks to the famous 'Blue Lagoon'. We anchored there and had a nice lunch which was provided by the hotel. A couple of the men drank quite alot, but the others hardly at all.
We motored back to their hotel in about an hour and a half. The drinkers predictably fell asleep, draped in various places on the deck. The other 2 and I, one of whom had very good English and diligently translated for the other, talked about the history of Malta - and how it was here during WWII. How my dad met my mum. We talked about our children and how the world is so different for them than it was for us. About the Pope being here recently - which really surprised them. I suppose its quite something that the Pope came to a country of only 400,000 people.

All in all it was a good day - they all thanked me profusely, congratulated me on my first day on the job, and after a very ugly but safe docking I came home very pleased with myself. I hope they book me for more.

I'm coming home to Canada July 22nd for about a month, really looking forward to seeing my children, my new grandson and my friends. I'll fly to Victoria as Mary and Josie are there, have to go to Parksville to check up on the house and then over to the mainland. Taking in Capitain Pedro and Michelle's wedding and maybe I'll get down to San Fran to see my other daughter for the opening of her salon/studio.

Back home from Turkey

2010-06-04T05:24:00.000-07:00

Its great to be home. Got home on Sunday morning quite early. We came into Malta in a strong North Easterly which we had been racing ahead of the previous day and night, pushing Gaffer's Girl to get us home before the winds really picked up. Thank God that we were not facing those seas head on. When we were within the last half hour of the harbour entrance our skipper and first mate were at both wheels working quite hard to keep her on course.
We got in, docked (unfortunately in the wrong slip) which meant moving her in a deluge with wind which made for a sloppy mooring (my final attempt with her), but no harm done. I got what I went for which was to be out on the water again for a few days (750 odd miles from Gocek to Malta) and familiarisation and manoevering practice on a 50' Beneteau.
The gentleman from the yacht brokerage who took delivery of the yacht very kindly drove me back to Msida and into the arms of my lovely husband Tony, who said it was about time I got home. It certainly felt like it to me.
Here's a few pictures of what I saw in Gocek, which I was reminded by a seasoned Turkey traveller here 'is not turkey', funny I thought it was. Whatever it is its nice and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to charter a yacht for a sailing holiday.
Go to Webshots for more pictures.

Preparing to leave Gocek

2010-05-24T02:31:00.000-07:00

Looks like the documents are in Istanbul and may very well make it to Gocek today. All being well we will leave Gocek early in the morning. We're all very ready to leave. Not that this is not a lovely place, but we have all felt captive by the circumstances. This not being our boat, we have not been able to use it to go exploring the islands which I am sure are very beautiful.
As I said before the local people are very nice to us. Last night we were treated to dinner out by the Agency we are all working for as an apology for the extended delays. We had dinner at a new outdoor restaurant on the beach by the marina. The food was excellent. The Turks eat a style of food called Meses (not sure of that spelling), but it basically is a variety of small starters which you eat with bread. I think I could reproduce some of them. They were excellent. Everything was so good and we were very pleased to be able to spend the money with them as they have been so kind to us during our stay here. Letting me use the owner's lap-top when I needed to. Lending us an electric drill so that we could repair something on the boat. I don't know their names, but I certainly look forward to coming back here to see their business flourishing. They launch their restaurant as a live music venue on May 26th. We should be gone by then, but we wish them luck.

One of the things I love when I'm walking around, actually everywhere I go, is to see fruit growing everywhere. A couple of days ago I was walking past a group of 'traditional' looking Turkish people who were taking a break from cleaning up the pathway. They were pulling branches down from a tree and eating the berries from the tree. I asked them if they were good and they gave me some to eat. Then they kept picking more for me to eat until I felt like I was being a real pig. We were all having a good laugh about it.

Today I was walking past the same tree and was pulling down the branches to help myself. There were less ripe ones to eat so I only had a few. A man came out of his garden with a handful of the same berries, but they were huge and red. He gave them to me and invited me into his garden for more. They were incredible - I've never seen them anywhere else on my travels. He told me they were calle 'tut'. Again he was loading me up with them until I was embarrassed and had to make a polite escape.
These are very nice people. Their language is a bit beyond my ability to pronounce, or even remember. I've been told many time how to say thankyou - I even wrote it down, but I can't remember it.
Tony and I must come back to this part of the Med. Its gorgeous. There are 4 fairly good sized charter companies operating out of this marina too, Steelbird, Moorings, M.T.M., Sunsail, Top Yacht. Lots of potential here. Don't know how it would work for foreigners to work in Turkey though.
Next post should be back in Malta. Wish us luck. Weather looks alright until the end of the week, when it looks horrible.

Nancy in Gocek, Turkey

2010-05-22T04:36:00.000-07:00

Well that was the best communication I've had with Tony in almost a week. I didnt bring my own computer to Gocek and have only been able to use someone elses to check my e-mails. Today I have it for as long as I want so here I am. Sorry, no pictures, not that I haven't taken them, I've taken lots but cannot download them into this computer.
I arrived in Dalaman last Monday at about 2.00pm expecting to go to Gocek, TurkMarina and board a 50' Beneteau Oceanis to help bring the boat back to Malta.
The reason I wanted to do this trip is that I wanted the experience on the 50 footer for possible future work as a Charter skipper.
I started by trip from Malta at about 01.30am Monday morning - took 3 flights - all with the worst landings I've experienced to date - and arrived 13 hours later. Which was alright until I got here and found that the boat was actually on the hard in the boat yard having been there for a year without anyone paying attention to her. The yard people put her back in the water around 5.00pm.
It took me until about 7.00pm on Monday to convince the marina manager that he should let me get on board. I also gave him copies of every document I had on my person to assure him that I was an extremely trustworthy person, totally credible and reliable - and VERY TIRED. I did at one point lay my sleeping bag down in a shower cubicle (which by the way are very clean in Turkey) and have a nap for about 5 minutes before a cleaning person came in and wondered why the edge of a sleeping bag was poking out from under the door. So I got dressed again in my smart travelling clothes, which I took off so that I wouldn't crease them and walked out as if nothing was amiss.
Once aboard 'the Girl' I felt so sorry for her. She was covered with pine needles and very dirty. I looked around and found a broom, swept as much as possible, could not hook up to water or electricity as I didn't have the authority to get the meter going.
The skipper arrived at about 10.30 and fellow crew got in at about 05.00am next morning. He was delayed by the Volcanic Cloud problem in Gatwick airport. Thank God I didn't decide to go that route.
That was the first day. Each day has brought worse news than the day before and we are still here on Saturday. There has been one hold up after another, but basically we are waiting for the original Registration documents of the boat to be sent from Ireland, as I write they seem to be sitting in Dublin.
Not sure who owns the boat - but she's already listed on Yacht World for sale by B.J. Marine - apparently she's in Greece, is in perfect condition, has a white hull, and is worth about 220,000 Euros.
She's actually got a navy hull(it will be when someone compounds and polishes it), her canvasses are all shot and need replacing, needs batteries, some plumbing work and a damned good cleanup. Basically she's in a pretty sad state. Even though we are not supposed to, we have done quite a bit of repair work ourselves and yesterday we had to take her Genoa to a local sailmaker to have the luff tape fixed. The local riggers ripped a whole section off when they were trying to pull it up the foil. I have taken many pictures of her in the condition we found her and while various 'experts' have been working on her.

Gocek - what a beautiful place. Its a small resort in a bay surrounded by rocky hills which become mountains further inland. Its very green - rains quite a bit, hence the roofs are pitched like England and BC and there are beautiful flowers and fruit everywhere. Not many years ago - maybe 8, it was a small fishing village, now it houses 3 good sized marinas, many hotels of various star rating, some of which are simple guest houses. Looking out from the shore there are many small islands which Kim (who has been coming here for about 15 years) says have good swimming coves and sheltered anchorages. In the bigger part of the bay about 50 boats of all sizes are anchored, all of which are in very nice condition - no rotting hulks here. It costs nothing to anchor here and there are many places to bring your dinghy ashore. I wonder how long it will be before one has to pay to do that.
The marinas are lovely, their toilet and shower facilities are quite incredible. So far all of the Turkish people we have encountered have been extremely courteous and helpful. Though perhaps not as 'expert' as we had hoped.
So life aboard is good. We have a small budget for food - I'm sure the skipper will be compensated for the extra time we are waiting - its not his fault. We are all getting on well - we have a television and a few movies - watched Dodgeball a couple of nights ago. They love my cooking - sorry Tony - someone else is benefitting from my culinary skills right now. The deal is I cook, they clean up. I never mind doing that - it guarantees I get good food to eat. Last night I wowed them with my frying pan bread (I brought yeast.)
We are very keen to get going though. There is not much to do here except walk around the small town - can't go very far as its enclosed by the rocky hills and a major road. Also don't want to spend much money, and as none of us are drinking alcohol we aren't frequenting bars.
The cafe I sit in right now is used to us coming in and buying an iced tea or coffee and sitting for as long as it takes me to type this. They always smile - I suppose a person sitting in here with an empty cup is better than nobody.

I woke this morning at 06.00am to a raucous, rumbling thunder storm which I had to see, so I put my jacket on and came out to a place onshore where I could sit and enjoy the show. I took some pictures which I will post later.
Looking forward to getting underway - signing out for now.

Latest estimate of departure date now, May 23rd is Wednesday. All being well the Irish courier company will send the documents on Monday, we'll probably get them on Tuesday and we'll leave Wednesday. The skipper figures 5 days. Lets hope he's right.

Home Alone!

2010-05-21T23:39:00.000-07:00

Well,here is sit broken hearted.....It seem's quite strange not having Nancy around.She has been gone almost a week but it feels like much longer.Funny how you take things for granted untill there gone! Nancy is in Turkey waiting to bring a 50 ft Beneteau Oceanis back to Malta. They have had problems with paperwork so it's taking a bit longer than planned. I just received a text from her and she say's all is well and that Turkey is a wonderful place. I think I have lost a few pounds already. Beans on toast is no match for Nancy's culinary delights. Oh that reminds me I have a pressy coming back from Turkey "Turkish delight" yum!
Meanwhile back at the ranch. I have been busy with some charters and helping my friend get his boats ready for the season. Yesterday we had 17 sailboats doing a charter for a Russian company. I had 5 guests onboard a Bavaria 36. The wind was 25 gusting 32. I thought they would postpone the event, but no. By the time we reached St Pauls bay I was left with only 2 Ruskies, the others had to be taken back to land by speed boat because of sea sickness. I think they ended up taking back around 25 people. At least the one's that stayed had a rollicking broad reach back to the Hilton in St Julians. Today I will go out with a fellow Canadian named Brock who is preparing for his Yachtmaster exam on monday. The wind has eased so it should be a nice day to practice some MOB. Time to go and make some breakfast. Cereal I think, simple enough!

My Mosquito Screen Project

2010-05-06T02:44:00.000-07:00

MOSQUITO SCREENS
CUSTOM MADE TO FIT YOUR BOAT

Dreading the coming Mosquito season?
No Need To! Enjoy the summer months aboard without fear of being ‘eaten alive’ by Mosquitos and pestered by Flies or infested with Cockroaches.
PORTHOLE SCREENS – No invasive installation necessary. Once the screens have been made to fit your boat’s PORTLIGHTS/PORTHOLES they can easily be popped in and out as needed.
NO HOLES NO SCREWS NO VELCRO NO GLUE
CUSTOM MADE to fit most standard Portlights on your boat within a couple of hours at a fraction of the cost of permanently installed production screens. € 70 per set of 4 standard portlight screens. Hatch and Companionway Screens by quotation.
MATERIALS used are all designed for the marine industry, waterproof, corrosion proof, easy to wash and clean AND easy to store when not needed.
COMPANIONWAY and HATCH screens are offered for standard companionways and hatches. Some installations require screw-in snaps to be fitted to surrounding areas.

CALL BOAT-TEX® FOR YOUR MOSQUITO- FREE SUMMER SAILING SEASON
Nancy at 7994 0518 – moondancerx@yahoo.ca

So that's not the actual format, but I couldn't download the entire poster - that's just the content of the poster.
Just have to find a few boat owners who 'fear' mozzies as much as I do.

What are we up to these days?

2010-05-06T02:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry, no post for quite awhile. Tony and I have been very busy with establishing ourselves here in Malta. We know that we will be here for this summer season. Tony is working sporadically now with a couple of prominent charter companies here, and is also going through an Instructor's course so that he can teach sailing at a recreational level through the biggest sailing school in Malta.
I've also been putting the word around that I am available - I know that it will be harder for me to find work in that field as it is quite male dominated, but I'll keep trying, and who knows when the season picks up and the companies run out of male skippers and can't find a chimpanzee to skipper a boat - maybe they'll consider trusting a woman with 30,000 ocean miles under her keel.

What I have been doing is making things for boats. This is always a good standby for me to earn money and I do find it quite satisfying. So alongside the sail making, boat canvas sewing etc. I have also designed a pretty good porthole mosquito screen system which will fit most standard portlights. I've put together a poster which I'm inserting here which says it all.
I think it quite apt that I should try to make a living out of my arch enemy. Anyone who knows me knows that I am quite paranoid about mosquitos. They bite me mercilessly and if there is one mosquito in the boat it will fill up on my blood and make for an awful night.
I know that many other people who live on boats are always trying to find ways to keep the mosquitos out of their homes - so this is my latest attempt. So far they are working perfectly on MoondancerX and I've just sold a few to other boats, so with a bit more marketing we'll see how things go.
Well I can't insert it in with the text here, so I'll try to make it a separate post.

Whats going on in our lives these days.

2010-04-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

First sail with Moondancer's cruising chute. What fun that was. Putting it up Tony was almost hoisted up into the air. As soon as the chute filled we shot forward and had a romping sail.

My daughter Mary and her son Mission at a few days old, living in Victoria BC, Canada.

Wilfred Pirotta is a diver, who still works under boats replacing zincs, cleaning bottoms etc. even though he's in his 70's now. He carries his tank and equipment on this motor scooter which he bought a long time ago. The scooter still advertises the previous owners, Thomas Smith, Admiralty chart agents in Malta. He never bothered to take the name off.
I saw him later in the day after he had finished his dive and asked his name. I told him I would put him on the blog. He gave me his professional card and said that though he knew nothing about computers, perhaps his sister who lives in Canada would be able to see him.
We went to an exhibition of art by Wayne Attwood, a fellow sailor who has been travelling on his boat, Hitrapia with his wife Angie. He's been painting architecture in Malta, mostly water colors and now some oils. His show was very successful, half of his painting were sold by the end of the show. My brother Peter and wife Sue came to the party also and they found a painting they really liked for their home.
We spent yesterday being ambling tourists yesterday. We walked into Valletta and on the way found the most beautiful secluded gardens, directly across from our mooring on the other side of the creek. We couldn't find any plaque to tell us the history of the gardens, but we did find many carvings in the stone walls, which seemed to be memorials - perhaps it had been a graveyard in the past. We were the only people there and the gardens had such a beautiful, peaceful mood, the only sounds being many birds twittering and the palm leaves rustling in the wind. We found dates of the late 1800's and statues of lions which were almost completely eroded, which seemed to indicate older than that. Many of the wall engravings were dedicated to the queen - probably Queen Victoria who has quite a presence in Valletta.
This day started with a 'boat jumble' where we and other boaters took items we wanted to sell or swap at the marina. It was alot of fun and we sold most of what we didn't want, bought some things that we needed, but mostly enjoyed the company of friends. We shared a table with our new Canadian friends Trevor and Jean, who also live aboard their sailboat from Vancouver, Onward. They came into the harbour a couple of weeks ago, but we have been so busy with work and my exam that we had not had time to get together socially. The time we spent with them today was lots of fun, we all tried to sell the things we had, kept each other entertained and enjoyed lots of interaction with our neighbours.

Captain Nancy Hancock signing in

2010-04-07T23:51:00.001-07:00

I've been looking forward to posting this particular blog for quite some time now. Yesterday Steve, the Royal Yachting Association examiner came back to our boat and spent the day with us.
While Tony went out to get us some pastizzi (savoury Maltese heart attack pastries) we got the theory part of the exam out of the way, which I pretty much aced - which was a great relief to me, because then it was all down to the sailing skills and piloting - no electronics allowed. Tony was my crew and Steve told Tony that he was not to help me in any way to make any decisions, just to crew.
It turned into a blustery day with the wind between 20 - 25kn. Given the wind direction we basically sailed downwind for a couple of hours with me navigating using running fixes to find a spot that Steve marked on the chart. I found it and he was satisfied with my effort and asked me to head for another place. There was alot of jibing - all controlled I'm pleased to say. It was a bit rolly as the waves were quite high, but quite pleasant really - until we turned around to head back. With a double reefed main, mizzen and reefed genoa we were making very poor progress through the increasing wind and seas. So when Steve was satisfied that I knew how to sail the boat he suggested that if we were going to get back in time for the football game he wanted to watch at 9.00pm we should probably use the engine.
We still had to tack back and forth along the coast to plough through the waves, and we were noticeably the only "pleasure craft" out there. It felt like a long tiring day, but I was pretty buoyed up as I felt sure I was passing the exam.
We got a bit of a reprieve from the gusts - long enough to make a half decent docking and then 'the torture', as Steve put it, was over and he told me I had passed. What a happy woman I was at that point. Hugs all round and time for celebration. Don't know what I'm going to do with this certification yet - I just really wanted it.
Captain Nancy Hancock signing out. (Its alright I'll stop saying it soon.)

What we're up to in Malta

2010-03-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

For the past month,since Tony got his Captain's ticket and I didn't we've both been working very hard - I know, boring, but actually not so boring really. It looks like the work Tony has been doing pounding the pavements and using his 'idiot style charm' has paid off. It looks like he's got 2 different companies here to take him on as a charter skipper, which is what he wants. This will be a great start on the road as a Commercial Sailor, and perhaps lead to what we are still hoping will happen for us - to run a boat for other people - 'paid pets' is what we call it. So I'm uploading a video of Tony bringing Alouette back from Marsaxlokk where he hauled it out and worked on the hull, repainting the bottom and polishing the hull. He's very happy with the progress he is making, and I am very happy for him. The other
The other video I'm uploading is of the maiden sail of Sang Royale. She is a 60' schooner owned and built by a very nice man called Alex D'Agata. 12 years ago he bought an old steel hull, just that and has built this boat, for the past month I have been making her sails. These sails are all made from other used sails, they have all been re-cut to fit Sang Royale. It was quite hard work really. Sewing sails is hard on my hands and elbows and shoulders, but after I got over the initial 'shock' of working at 7.30am - 4.00pm every day I grew more involved in the project. Today I partook in the maiden sail of Sang Royale. It was so nice to be included with the other 'workers' who have helped to create her. So here's a little video of her first sail. The young fella on the helm called James was enjoying his first sail ever. Imagine, your first sail is on a half million Euro yacht. Mine was on a $100 aluminum dinghy.

A few more pictures

2010-03-14T00:20:00.001-08:00

Brother Richard and Jill come to visit
Tony's next 'sweet ride'
The Maltese Falcon

Long time - no blog

2010-03-13T23:22:00.000-08:00

Checking the 'fit' of the sails.
Tony with his 'friends'.
Elvis is alive and well, and fishing in Malta.

It seems like a very long time since I've written anything on the blog. And it might have something to do with not feeling like we are being very 'adventurous' at present. Even though we are not having the type of winter we would have back home it still is winter, compared to the eternal summer we had been in for 18 months prior to arriving in Malta, and the sweltering September on our arrival.
Unbelievably we've been here for 6 months. And it looks as though we'll be here for the summer now.
I've been working for the past month remaking sails for a beautifully renovated schooner moored out in Msida creek. Its been hard work, and particularly hard to get up at 6.00am, walk to a bus stop, get on a bus and arrive at work at 7.30am, and actually get to work. I know, all of you working stiffs are thinking 'Oh, you poor girl, how do you cope with such hardship???????'. Hey its been awhile since I 'worked', and for someone else, a very long time. But I'm enjoying it, its good to bring some money in doing something I know instinctively how to do. I might not be a sailmaker, but I've been a sewer all of my life, and can pretty much sew anything - so now its sails.
Tony has been searching for work with the charter companies and private yachts in Malta, and has a couple of interesting leads which may come to fruition as the cruising season kicks in.
Last week it was great to visit with my brother Richard and his wife Jill who had come over for a short holiday, they were not able to be here for the reunion in September, so this was a real treat.
We have not done much sight seeing, days off work have been pretty lazy, and we're definitely in a 'looking forward to a change in weather mode'. The winds here can be pretty awful, and we don't seem to get much reprieve in between . We do have a nice group of friends around us in the marina and some on land, aswell as our membership in the Royal Malta Yacht Club, so we are not lacking for social life. Would have alot more of it if we weren't busy with work.
These days I wake up a little earlier every morning and get onto the computer to see if I have a message from my daughter Mary, who is very pregnant and about to give birth any day now to her first child - my second grandchild, who I hope to see some time in the summer when I'll make a trip home.
My son Johnny is in Thailand getting his travelling fix. My daughter Georgia is about to embark on her own business venture with a Hairdressing salon in San Francisco, where she lives with her husband Darin and son Wyatt, and my youngest daughter Josie has about a month to go before end of term at U-Vic, and then she'll come and spend a holiday with Tony and I in Malta, and maybe we'll sail over to the Greek islands. Josie wants to go there because she knows from Mama Mia that all of the people are happy and singing and dancing in the streets. That sounds great, I want to see that too.

Congratulations Tony

2010-02-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

Tony deserves congratulations - after a great deal of studying and practicing he showed the Royal Yachting Association examiner that he is an RYA Yachtmaster - Offshore. Our day with Steve, the examiner started at about 11.00 and finished at about 20.00. We had great weather - could have done with a bit more wind for the sailing component of the exam, but we had enough to do the job. We were very lucky to get such a nice weather window as we've been getting mostly too much wind.
The exam was a combination of engine knowledge, boat handling under sail and power, navigating with and without electronics, anchoring and some chart work.
Unfortunately I did not pass, and am very disappointed. I just seemed unable to do the job under examination, and I have to agree with his verdict. Yesterday I was not a yachtmaster.
I am however very happy for Tony. With this ticket he can now pursue a career in the world of sailing, which he has loved to do most of his adult life. And with our joint experience we should still be able to work as a team, he the Captain and I the crew. Or he may find work on his own, which may take him to places that I could follow on with Moondancer X. We'll see how that works out. At least the exam is behind us and we can get on with our lives.

About that Mason's Robbie Burns Night

2010-01-24T11:27:00.001-08:00

Unlike the famous Edith Piaf who had No Regrets, I have many, and to add to the list is that I did not take my camera to the Robbie Burns celebration at the Scottish Masonic Hall in Paola last night. This is a fairly small chapter of the Masons who share their venue with the Irish and the english Chapter. There are actually about 7 separate chapters of Masons in Malta all with about 30 members. One does wonder why they don't pool their membership into fewer venues, but they seem to like it the way it is. We actually had a really nice evening.
We were invited by Sean who is a partner in a little neighbourhood bar called Ta Linda. Linda is the other partner. Ta means 'of' in Maltese. So the bar is of Linda. We have got to know a group of people who frequent this bar, and we found out last night that most of them are also Masons in the Scottish/Irish/English chapter, which makes perfect sense as that is where these people are all from.
We were made to feel very welcome, enjoyed a very good meal which started with scotch broth, 2nd course was haggis with turnip and potato (we were both prepared not to like haggis, but were delightfully surprised to find that we did). The main course was prime rib with really nice veggies and then a trifle like cake.
BUT what really made the whole evening very special for me was being shown into the museum where we looked through ledgers and minutes books dating back to 1921 and forward. These ledgers were kept with perfect penmanship and were written up in beautifully bound books.
Then, because I am not a non-member male I was allowed into the temple. Carol, the past Grand Master's wife invited me to see the temple. No men who are not members of the Masons are allowed into the temple, but women are. I was of course sworn to secrecy as to what I saw and will honour that. I was very please to be in this historic building and felt priveleged to be looking through their past so close up.
BUT that wasn't all - the reason I am so mad at myself for not taking the camer is that after dinner we were entertained by a Scottish Bagpipe Band, who were not actually Scottish. They were in fact mostly Maltese and the music they played was absolutely gob-smackingly incredible. Usually I would shy away from bag pipes and was prepared to sit through it gritting my teeth. But this band, the Wallace Pipe Band were quite different. They were made up of bag pipes and drums and created music which sometimes sounded like traditional Scottish music and sometimes like a mixture of Scottish and Far Eastern music. Sometimes like Indy Celtic. I took some video on my cell phone, but cannot save that into my computer, so you'll have to take my word for it until I get the Video which was being recorded during the evening.
Malta is so full of surprises.

January 23rd, and auspicious day for those of us born this day

2010-01-23T01:40:00.000-08:00

I haven't really got much to say at all, except that today is my birthday, and I thought I should post something. Its a gorgeous morning, have lazed around in bed reading while Tony made coffee, have tinkered around on the computer and am thinking about going out into the sunshine. Tonight we are going to a Mason's function to celebrate Robbie Burns night which I'm looking forward to. Except for the diminished dress-up wardrobe. And as we are not sure how long we'll be here I'm not inclined to do much about that.
Yesterday I had my unruly hair cut off. I'm now sporting a fairly short, curly haircut which seems to be more attractive, and if its not, it'll grow pretty quick.

I feel like I should say something profound about being this age - I can't. All I can say is that I wish I were younger.

Hope I never have to get in a liferaft

2010-01-19T23:58:00.000-08:00

As we plod through the RYA Yachtmaster syllabus we are also ticking off the other requisites for a commercial endorsement to the RYA Offshore Certificate. For this endorsement we have had a medical stating that we are capable of being the skipper/mate/deckhand of a vessel up to 200 tons (200 tons, jeezz). We have been attending a St. John's Ambulance First Aid course at the main hospital here. The course material and the diligence with which the instructor works through it (all for 33 Euros per head) makes the course that I did before leaving Canada for $80 look very weak. Yesterday Tony and I went to Melieha Bay to do an RYA sanctioned Sea Survival Course. Basically other than watching a few videos which covered the use of various radio and automatic safety responders we experienced trying, and succeeding to get in a liferaft which is in the water. This was very difficult to do, many of us struggled very much to get in. If I've learned anything from that experience its - STAY ON YOUR BOAT - almost no matter what.
Out of 8 people in the course, Tony and 2 other buff men from the Malta Harbour Police did manage to get in wearing an inflated life jacket. The rest of us could not do it with the lifejacket on. From this attached video you'll see how hard it was for me to get in. I really wanted to pull the girl card and give up and flop back into the water - but that's not usually my style, plus as you can hear I was gettings lots of verbal encouragement. Tomorrow we finish the First Aid course and will continue with the rest of our plod. When we first committed to this we were a bit peeved that people with as much sailing experience as ourselves had not earned the credibility we were seeking. However now that we've actually got a handle on how much we have forgotten about manual navigation, plus some that we (or I should say I) don't think ever learned in the Power Squadron course, we are glad that we are doing this. RYA or not, we should know this.

Windy Malta

2010-01-16T23:15:00.000-08:00

Just had to share this video with you all. Mostly our mooring is protected from the majority of the winds we get in Msida, even the North Easters which happen more often in the winter than summer. But, though we are pretty sure we're safe it certainly has not been comfortable on the boat for the past couple of days. Sleeping (or more accurately, not sleeping) with 40 knot wind howling around us outside, and because we are at the end of our dock we really do move around alot.

The mediterranean mooring method of bow or stern into the pontoon works well to protect the boats that are on the inside,(they just get jostled from side to side a bit, being well fendered against each other), but the boats at the end get to move around alot,sometimes we are swung out at about 45 degrees to the pontoon. As the mouth to the harbour is open to the North East, the swells also make their way into the marina, but as I say, we do not feel that we are not safe, but yesterday we had to get off the boat for a few hours, even though we were going to study all day - we were actually feeling a bit seasick. So here's a video of what we saw when we walked around the Sliema waterfront.

Studying is coming along quite well, we are getting a handle on interpolation, extrapalation, and really look forward to putting our new-found (or re-found) knowledge into practice. And I learned yesterday from an old Irish salt what Variation and Deviation really mean, Variation means tickling your lover with a chicken feather, Deviation means using the whole chicken. All this really useful information we are learning.

2010-01-13T22:07:00.000-08:00

Almost a month later - its amazing how time has flown by. And we still have not really done much sight seeing in Malta. Our Christmas was really nice - some of it spent with my Maltese family, some with our Msida Liveaboard friends, and Christmas Day alone just as we wanted it. Opening presents which we pretended to be surprised at (though mostly we bought things for each other that we jointly need). I cooked a traditional Christmas dinner of Turkey, stuffing etc. etc., we ate whatever we wanted all day, chocolates and cookies, etc. etc. etc. A group of our Msida Liveaboard friends (who from now on will be referred to as MLF's) crashed our cosy little nest at about 8.00pm, just when I was trying to get through to my children on skype, which was neat. Johnny and Josie got to see some of them, and hear our raucous carol singing. Attached is a bit of video showing us trying to sing along with Abba. Our friends Phil and Wendy took us in their car to Gozo to a village whose name I can't remember, where they created 'Bethlehem', a live creche/crib around which they built a village as we could imagine Bethlehem would be. The carpenters and bakers and the holy family were all played by Maltese people who were very convincing as the Maltese look alot like the jewish people of that day would. It was very well done. Its nice to include some of the historic reality of Christmas in with the material festivities. New Year's eve we spent at the Royal Malta Yacht Club. It was a very good party, about 200 people, all really up for the event. The Club served gallons of champagne and hor'doevres all night. The music was great, we danced until we dropped, and fortunately did not drink ourselves into comas, just merry all night. As it should be. The next day we had to start all over again being Tony's birthday, so champagne for breakfast and as the weather was gorgeous the MLF's had a big group for a New Year's Day BBQ. Tony had a good time at 'his' birthday party, and by early evening when it started to cool down we were happy to retire to our own home again, putting another festive season to bed.
And that's exactly what we have done - we've made a commitment to take our Royal Yachting Association Yachtmaster Offshore exam the first week of February, and now that we actually have the syllabus and are working through it we know what we have let ourselves in for. We study every day, almost all day, and now that some days the weather is quite nasty we don't mind being inside working away. We do hope that it won't be too nasty when the examiner arrives and we have to prove our sailing skills/boat handling. Like many sailors, we use electronic navigation and have done almost ever since we started sailing. For myself, ever since I have sailed my own boat I have used GPS for all navigation. What a shame we did not keep using what we learned when we first started, because it is very hard going now to re-learn it. We have also started a first aid course (4 sessions over the next 2 weeks) and next Monday we do a 1 day Sea Survival course, these things we need as a Commercial Endorsement to our RYA qualification The reason we want these qualifications is that we intend to find work sailing/managing/skippering other people's boats. We have been looking at many jobs (and there is lots of work in this industry), and have registered with a few agencies who place people like us, and we have been told that we need this certification for insurance reasons. So we are confident that when we get our 'ticket' we'll find what we need to keep us going financially for the next few years, wherever that will be.

More Republic Day Parade

2009-12-15T05:04:00.000-08:00

Republic Day Celebrations in Valletta

2009-12-15T04:10:00.000-08:00

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 by the foot soldiers, followed by a lovely old Rolls Royce Bentley carrying the President and his wife, who really looked the part wearing a lovely Ascot style hat. By the time we got to the Square it was pretty difficult to get a good look at the proceedings, but we could certainly hear the Company Sargeant Major directing his men to 'show off'their skills to the President and the people. The band played, the soldiers marched and the people, including us thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. I must say that I wasn't at all prepared for the sound when they removed their bayonets and fired a round of blanks into the air. The report reverberated all around the square, bouncing off the buildings; it made me almost jump out of my skin. And then of course everyone laughs nervously, and then they did it again, just a deafening, but not quite so shocking as we knew it was coming. It doesn't come through the mike on the camera quite as loud as it was, but you get the idea. We never did get to the market, it wasn't where I 'knew' it was. We walked back to the marina and joined in with a dock party which was very nice. A picture is attached of the group of liveaboards. Unfortunately Tony had gone to get more beer during the photo take, so he's not in it.

Church in Cospicua

2009-12-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

Fireworks at the Cospicua Procession

2009-12-14T10:19:00.000-08:00

Feast Day in Cospicua

2009-12-14T09:43:00.000-08:00

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 the church and down into the town square to be displayed to all of the parishoners. She stayed out in the square for a few hours amongst the hundreds of people while they feasted and sang and generally had a good time. She basically oversaw the proceedings. Tony and I watched as the statue was taken from the church and then we went to Maria's. Maria is the eldest daughter of 9 children. This family I knew very well while growing up. Whenever we were in Malta we spent time with them as we were all similar ages and enjoyed doing the same things - swimming, diving off rocks and having simple fun. We spent the evening with them all, reminiscing and finding out what we'd all been doing for the past 40 odd years, then we went back out into the crowds to enjoy the celebrations. It was alot like being at the most awesome rock concert or sporting event, and it was a religious event where the people have a really good time. The statue was carried back up the road from the town square - uphill to the church steps and then they carried her up the steps to the encouraging applause of the people. When they brought her into the church - which was packed - the applause was deafening. They brought her alongside her regular resting place, and then quite unbelievably lifted her up straight armed so that everyone could see her better. The crowd went crazy when they put this super human effort into lifting her after carrying her so far. When she was lifted into place it was the end of the proceedings and we returned to Maria's house, had a little more to eat and drink and then we all went to our respective homes. It was such a pleasure to meet them all and for Tony to see another part of my family.

Valletta Christmas lights

2009-12-05T10:23:00.000-08:00

2009-12-05T09:53:00.000-08:00

Manoel theater

2009-12-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

A night with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra - and Phil and Wendy

2009-12-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

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 bit like an excitable American on holiday in London, but not wanting to appear gauch, we take all of this amazing stuff in stride. I think our friends were equally in awe of this beautiful theatre. From the car to the theatre we walked down Republic Street which has recently been lit for Christmas with hundreds of angels suspended from the buildings - Oh God, I'm starting to act like a bloody American again, taking pictures galore while everyone else is just being so cool. Then the theatre and the performance was everything we hoped it would be, it was a lovely evening. We were mostly respectful of our surroundings, obeyed the rules about not taking pictures during the performance though we really wanted to, and only took the piss a little bit every time the resident conductor, Michael Laus left his podium to wipe the sweat from his brow - we of course said that he was going off to take a tipple. And when the First Violinist/Leader, (a woman) and Michael were presented with bouquets at the end of the performance, we all said, Hey how come she gets a bouquet? and I said its because she's Michael's mistress and Tony said it was because she is a slut. So after we brought the whole thing down to our level we all left happily to eat at a lovely little restaurant close to the boat which was packed with Maltese all enjoying simple good food.

Dead Fish Diver

2009-12-04T02:07:00.000-08:00

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 get some pretty big jobs here.

Time to start experiencing Malta

2009-12-04T00:58:00.000-08:00

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 cruise the med then. But they prefer to make Malta their home base, and I’m sure some of them plan to retire to the land one day, when they no longer want to live aboard. The British have been retiring to Malta for many years. When I am talking with these people about Malta I feel envious that they know Malta much better than I do. We will do our best to remedy that while here.

Tonight we are going to the Manoel Theatre to watch the Royal Malta Philharmonic Orchestra. This theatre dates back to the 1732, was built by Grand Master Manoel de Vilhena ‘for the honest recreation of the people’. It was restored in 1969 and is believed to be the second oldest theatre in use in Europe. We went on a short tour of the theatre when we first arrived here. It really is gorgeous, not very big, 3 tiers of boxes (we’ve booked a box for 4 people at 80 Euros). Every box has an original painting on the front wall of the box. The artist who was commissioned to paint these was from Italy, so every country scene that he has painted are places that he remembered in Italy. That strikes me a funny. I suppose he was homesick and it must have taken a few years to finish all of that work.

Two days ago we went to Marsaxlokk which is a really lovely fishing village. It houses hundreds of beautiful colourful fishing boats in the main harbour, and then just around the corner is the free port – maybe I should say the FREE PORT, because its huge. Now we know where all of those ships were going that we saw on the way here. There is actually a constant, never ending line of ships coming into this port. Around the port is a fuel storage installation. As I write this I realize that is why Malta was so protected by the British and so sort after by the Germans during WWII, it’s the refueling station halfway across the Med. So some of those ships are bringing fuel and some a re refueling. From my brother Peter’s villa in High Ridge which overlooks the southern part of Malta we could see an infinitessimal string of lights heading out to sea – these ships, and when we were flying back into Malta at night I could see this same string of lights from the plane. Marsaxlokk is famous for its Sunday fish market – which we haven’t been to yet, but will. They have a daily market also which is purely touristic stuff, much of it made in Taiwan or somewhere other than Malta. We did actually succumb to buying a tile with the famous good luck EYE painted on it. Most of the fishing boats have these eyes painted on either side of the bow. This makes perfect sense to me that the boats should be able to see where they are going. This eye now looks back at me from above the galley sink - got to have a nautical souvenir of Malta.
We also found a fabulous old fort which only opens to the public on Saturdays, wo we couldn't go inside and actually know nothing about it, except that is looks like it dates back to the Grand Masters, like Fort Manoel and was re-used during WWII, the new heavy gun slits replacing the ancient ones give that away.

Yesterday was a lovely ‘hot’ day with cloudless sky, the type of day to do a load of laundry and hang it up to dry. As we are at the end of our dock we have become part of the scenery that the harbour tour boats remark on as they go by. There are lots of them. So now the Canadian boat has been added to their patter – ‘As you will see from the Canadian flag on this boat, Msida Marina is international, attracting boats from all over the world, and here you will see one of those poor sailors hanging out their washing because they can’t afford to pay the launderette prices’. The last bit wasn’t true, but the first bit was.

Today it is pouring rain and will be for a couple of days. The weather reporting here is very accurate, when they say it will rain it rains a lot, and if they say it won’t rain it doesn’t. We like that – no weather surprises.

Yea! we have a spot on N dock

2009-12-01T06:19:00.000-08:00

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.

On the quay in Msida Marina - at last

2009-11-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

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.

Engine problem solved!

2009-11-27T12:42:00.000-08:00

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 lo and behold it's full of crapola! Then we clean it out and wouldn't you know it everything is just peachy!

Click on the pictures

2009-11-26T23:16:00.001-08:00

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.

Cockpit Pictures

2009-11-26T22:48:00.000-08:00

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.

Going in the water

2009-11-25T11:51:00.000-08:00

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 miles after filling up in Gozo on our arrival here and there was no problem. It seems to have something to do with being immobile for almost 3 months.
We are dreading the possibility that the fuel pump has packed up.
So what's good about today is we're in the water, we're tied up to a very prestigious mooring very safely, we've cleaned most of the boat though she really needs a good hosing down and we have the name and phone number of a Maltese mechanic who comes highly recommended.
So we hope you like these videos. We have a few more but they take so long to download.

Another video of our launch

2009-11-25T11:40:00.000-08:00

Malta launching day

2009-11-25T09:47:00.000-08:00

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!

more pic's, almost ready to go back in the water

2009-11-23T09:19:00.000-08:00

November 23rd, Where did the time go?????

2009-11-23T08:48:00.000-08:00

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.

Royal Artillery Insignia

2009-11-06T02:26:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-06T02:21:00.000-08:00

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.

Fishing with Anne and Mick

2009-11-06T01:35:00.000-08:00

Here's one video - I think

2009-11-06T01:23:00.000-08:00

A couple of videos

2009-11-06T01:01:00.000-08:00

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.

Back in Malta - On the Hard

2009-10-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

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 strange to me to be cold in Malta. Or even to be cold at all. We did experience being cold when back in Canada and England but that was the first time in a year of traveling in permanent Summer. But I have no past experience of Malta in any other season except blistering hot Summer. So this is quite interesting. And very welcome otherwise we would not be able to work on the boat.

So far we’ve pulled the propellor off, pulled the prop shaft out, having had to pull the coupling off the back of the reduction gear box, re-packed the stuffing box aka packing gland,(which we now have to re-do) fixed the bent port track which was pulled out of line while on the wall in Sliema. Today we scraped and sanded the trim on the starboard side and used linseed oil mixed with turps 50/50 as recommended by our New Zealand friend Kiwi, who we met in Pantelleria, as our new finish. Not shiny like Cetol or Varnish, but looks good and we hope will be easier to maintain as the last finish did only last one year. We also have the bottom paint to do and are debating whether to also paint the hull, which really hasn’t faired too well either.

It now looks likely that we will be getting a spot in Msida Marina which is what we had hoped for and then we can start looking for work. Not sure what that’s going to look like yet but we trust that something will come up.

Pics during visit with Ken and Chris

2009-10-21T09:52:00.001-07:00

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

6 days in Jolly Old - awesome place

2009-10-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

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 that out from Tony's parents the day before we left Canada.

Unfortunately for Chris her elderly mother passed away on the last day that we visiting, and we felt very sad for her. Its hard to lose our mothers, no matter how old they are.

We had a lovely day in Windsor, were totally blown away by the size of the castle,(the Queen was not in residence) - had a close up look at the narrow boats which are travelling around on the river systems in England at very reasonable moorage costs. 4 pounds per day to tie up in designated areas where water is available, or no charge at all if you just tie up to some trees.

We sat in a pub which dated back to the 1500's opposite the Castle entrance where we met a gentleman from Vancouver - actually he was originally from Nairobi but is now from Vancouver. Nice to meet our neighbours so far from home.

LEFT NADINE AND LORNE'S LOVELY NEW HOME

2009-10-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

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 download photographs but will do so later.

Winding up our visit home to Canada - October 6th 2009

2009-10-06T14:14:00.000-07:00

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 being taught about the kindness of people. And the indiosyncracies of people. That's what its all about isn't it - people.

While visiting Mary in Courtenay Johnny asked her if, now that she's settled in her new home, she would take Grey Cat, our family cat, now 18 years old. Grey Cat lived on Moondancer with us for 2 years, but we did not take him offshore with us and I am so grateful to my kids for seeing him in the same way that I did. Having looked lovingly and sometimes angrily at that furry little face for 18 years I have grown to respect his tenacity and wisdom, but mostly he is very much a part of our family. So the kids, Mary, Josie and Johnny have done their best to look after him, and he has travelled back and forth from Vancouver Island to Vancouver and now back again to the island where he will live with Mary and their new little kitten, Mole, until I return and can take him back again, or time will take him.

After Tony and I delivered Grey Cat we drove down to Victoria, where we stayed overnight with our friends Tim and Denise on their sailboat in Victoria Harbour. That's where we met them when we spent our first winter on Moondancer on the causeway in Victoria. We had a lovely dinner together on Lazy Bones, then our other neighbours Peter and Wendy and Ray came over. Peter is a gentleman in his late 70's who has almost completely rebuilt a 38' Union sloop right up to the teak decks. He is also a professional e-by buyer and finds things like $4000 water makers for $300. Of course we aren't envious at all. Peter and Wendy are planning to take their boat offshore. As will Ray, who is waiting for his wife to return after an extended trip to England where she is looking after a family member.

From there we moved along to Sidney where we met Captain Pedro and Michel at our yacht club, the Sidney, North Saanich Yacht Club. A few other friends who are also members joined us and we had a great impromptu dinner party.

Peter and Michel put us up for that night and sent us on our way after a very gourmet breakfast.

Got to go, just to reiterate 'ITS ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE'

Ferry across the strait to Courtenay

2009-09-27T08:23:00.001-07:00

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 clearest river I've ever seen. There were actually people snorkelling in it yesterday and seals swimming underwater picking up the salmon which are currently running Courtenay reminds me of places like Nelson, Carmel and Friday Harbour, much more sophisticated than I expected. So Yesterday was a lovely day, spending lots of time with my son, having a gorgeous long drive which I haven't done for almost a year. 100kms is very fast compared to 5 knots. And meeting my daughter's partner for the first time. We can see why she loves him and are very happy for them both. Mary is pregnant for the first time, and is expecting a baby in the Spring.
I popped into Parksville to check on my house - it looked lovely, is obviously being well looked after by the tenants, with hanging baskets by the front door, and generally looking well kept. I felt a little bit envious actually, that they are enjoying the house I haven't even lived in yet - well maybe one day- who knows when.
When Johnny gets up we'll go and help Mary and Elias move into their new home, visit for a bit and then get back on the road.

We have spent a bit of time visiting with friends in White Rock. Its so good to see all of our friends again, and of course Tony's family. We've had various offers to go sailing next week, if the weather's good we may do that. Go for a sail in familiar waters with familiar people, and get some crab. We've missed our dungeness crab, which are pretty abundant in our local waters.

Being COLD is such a strange new experience. Yes I do remember it, but as I sit here writing this my hands are seizing up, my toes are frozen and I can't wait to get warm. Life is just a long string of dicotomies isn't it. I've been sweating for almost a year - never being able to dry out - particularly since Mexico, and actually ever since then, but mostly Malta. So I should just freeze up enough after another week here and a week in England to welcome the warmth in Malta. But they do have winter too - I wonder what its like.

Moondancer's on the hard and we are in Canada

2009-09-24T11:40:00.000-07:00

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 wall at Sliema - which was bloody awful, and the time Moondancer is now spending on the hard is getting us the sympathy vote. We figure that when we get back in a few weeks,and then finish the work on the bottomsides of the boat in the next couple of weeks, we should be able to find room in Msida marina.
Anyone wondering why we don't just anchor somewhere, Malta is a bit different from some of the places we've been in that there are really no totally protected anchorages and the winds which can get pretty nasty change direction alot. The winters in Malta can be very bad, many Maltese take their boats out of the water for their protection which is a bit telling.
So that's why we're in Canada. We really wanted to see family and friends soon and now looks alot better than during the winter season.

2009-09-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

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 that many of them give alot. The churches are spectacular. Particularly the parish church in Balzan which is my family's village.

What comes next?????????????????????

2009-09-11T23:40:00.000-07:00

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 in quite awhile.

We have spent quite alot of time with family and as they are going to be here for another week or so, we will make them the focus of our time here. We have also met up with Carmen, an old friend from my childhood and tomorrow will meet up with Connie, another friend from my village, Balzan.
We have also been actively networking in and around Msida marina and Manoel island marina. We have met people who have given us names of other people who may be able to help with moorage situation. It is quite grim right now, and really quite unexpected.

To explain - There are 2 marinas in the Valletta area with moorage available at about $100 per night plus water and electricity and internet. We spent 2 nights there because we really needed to be in a marina for a rest, but we cannot afford to be there. There are 3 other marinas which are run by the Malta Maritime Authority and their rates are much more in keeping with our budget. They, however are being privatised at the end of the year (something to do with Malta's entry into the EU - they say) and cannot enter into any winter moorage agreements until then. The winter period runs from October to April and the moorage rates are considerably less if paid in advance. Alas even if all of these things were not happening there is still no room. There are too many boats wanting these spaces, and not enough marina spaces.
Why not anchor, because the seas and the weather here is very volatile, and one would have to keep moving from one side of the island to the other to be safe. And many of the anchorages are rock bottom, so if you had to move in a hurry, and the conditions do change in a hurry, you may have to leave your ground tackle behind.
So - what are we doing next??? A rough idea is that we will haul the boat out and put it on the hard at Manoel Island Boatyard, come home for a couple of weeks for a much needed visit with family and friends, then come back and do some work on the boat while out of the water. We can live on the boat while doing that, or we can beg a room from friends for the duration. Then when that is done it will take us into the winter period. Many Maltese take their boats out of the water for the winter and store them on the hard, which frees up berths in the marina. So then we may be able to get in. It is our hope that when we are settled we will be able to find some sort of work to do for the winter,and that will give us time to figure out which direction to go next Spring. Cruise the med OR go through the Suez Canal and explore a much more foreign part of the world.

Right now we like Malta - it has some feeling of home - and we need a well earned rest. So does Moondancer, she looks pretty rough and we want to make her pretty again.

A bit of information I want to pass on about insurance. We have been insured with BC Yacht Insurance for a couple of years now. Before we went offshore our premium was in keeping with the premium we had paid before with Beacon Underwriters. When we went offshore this premium tripled but we went for a total loss policy by increasing our deductible to $20,000, which basically means we would pay for most things ourselves except the complete loss of the boat. The policy came due for renewal at the end of August and when we asked for a quote for Mediterranean waters only we were given the same quote with the same deductible. I did not believe that should be as we were not crossing oceans. So I looked around for insurance. We found it with Pantaneus, we are covered for all of the Med, the Atlantic coast up as far as Norway including Gibraltar Straits and the English Channel and our premium is almost one third what we were quoted, our deductible is 750 euros and our third party liability is $4,5million. I write this because I feel it is important to pass this information on. Pantaneus are worldwide as are Lloyds and they have an excellent reputation for paying up on claims. I gave BC Yacht insurance plenty of opportunity to get a better quote, I don't believe they tried. Word of mouth works all ways.

On the Wall - Sliema - Malta

2009-09-06T23:34:00.000-07:00

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 like it here.

The moorage situation in Malta is quite grim, and the government run marinas like Msida, Tax Biex and Manoel Island are all to be privatised at the end of this year, so the great moorage rates - ie. one year at 1400Euros will be a thing of the past.

This past week we have visited with my family - my brother Peter and his wife Sue have a fabulous villa in the St. Andrews area where my other brothers, Ronnie and his wife Sherida and Michael and his wife Ann, plus Peter's two adult children are staying.

We also visited with my Uncle Sav and his wife Mary who still live in Balzan which is the village where my Grandmother used to live. Even though I was there briefly 5 years ago I had forgotten directions and Tony was wondering if my aging memory was completely failing me. But once I found my Grandmother's house I knew my way around.

When I last pulled into Valletta's harbour 5 years ago I passed 'Gun Post' which had become part of the tourist attractions to do with the Second World War, and was in fact one of the posts at which my father manned a heavy ackack (have no idea how to spell that) gun when he was posted here during the war.

This time around I was very disappointed that I could not see it, and it was not until Tony and I walked around the harbour that I found it, and it has been converted to a cafe/restaurant with an incredible view, its called the Spitfire restaurant now.

Apparently Malta's tourist board has decided to play down the War tourism card a little as they now want Italians and Germans to feel equally comfortable when they visit Malta. And we have noticed that quite alot of them are here and they seem quite happy to be so.

If we stay in Malta for any length of time we'll probably have to learn to take siestas like the locals do otherwise we are missing out on the evenings when everyone is out and about - its the only time that the sun is not boiling our brains. Its also when there seems to be fireworks almost every night during the summer. The Maltese love fireworks and they also love their Patron Saints. Every village or town has a Patron Saint and on the anniversary of that Saint (either their date of birth, death or when they were cannonised) the village celebrates with a feast day and fireworks. As Malta is about 30miles by 19 miles and is quite densely populated that means that there are fireworks almost every night somewhere, and they are never really that far away. Sometimes I wonder if the Maltese got desensitised to loud bangs during the Siege of Malta, which lasted 3 years and the island was bombed every day - sometimes several times per day. They seem to put alot of effort into making their fireworks bang/boom so loud that the vibration actually seems to shake one's actual skeleton. Its quite a rush really.

Valletta Malta

2009-09-03T03:36:00.000-07:00

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!

Arrived in Malta, August 31st

2009-08-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

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.

A sad day for me blogwise

2009-08-17T07:28:00.002-07:00

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 most amazing rock, picture attached.

We intend to push off to Malta from here tomorrow morning.

It has been a very hard uphill slog from Gibraltar to here. For the last few days we have been anchoring wherever we can get out of the wind in the late afternoons and leaving our anchorages at about 3.00am so that we can put in some hours before we cannot take the beating anymore.

Its recommended that the further north one can get before heading east across the Med the better. Well we've had enough of trying to get north and we want to get to Malta by the end of August.

So we'll be out of touch until we clear in in Gozo, the first Maltese island we come to perhaps by the 24th August. So anyone who can help me with the blog entry cut/paste problem just e-mail and let me know please.

A sad day for me blogwise

2009-08-17T07:28:00.001-07:00

A sad day for me blogwise

2009-08-17T07:28:00.000-07:00

From the other side of the 'pond'

2009-08-06T07:29:00.001-07:00

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 road'. We kept laughing all the time as we just couldn't believe our eyes.

(I'll complete this post later, have to go and say goodbye to our French/Canadian friends on Exiles. They sailed from Bermuda approximately the same time as us and we maintined ham radio contact with them most of the way across the Atlantic. Exiles is a very stout 28' sailboat which goes alot faster than we do.)

From the other side of the 'pond'

2009-08-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

Arriving in Horta, the Azores

2009-07-20T03:56:00.001-07:00

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 facilities and shelter from the outside wind and waves at about $20 per day. One of the things Horta is famous for is the artwork all around the marina. It is a tradition to find a spot in the concrete surrounding the slips and paint a picture which depicts your boat, or your boat name, or whatever you want to paint. During our walkabout yesterday we located a spot, but will have to wait until it is drier before painting. Last night it started to rain, and looks like it might keep this up for a bit longer.

So, what to say about the 1800 miles or so we just covered to get to this lovely place. Its amazing how quickly we put out of our minds that which we don’t want to remember. I liken that to childbirth – if women could not put the pain of that experience out of their memory they would only ever have 1 child and the human race would basically disappear, perhaps to be replaced by a species with the attention span of a goldfish.
We sure did read a lot of books, all of which were picked up at various book swaps along the way, some of which were total crap, but I read them anyway – even avidly getting into drivel which comes under the heading of ‘chick lit’ – books for women, just a couple of steps up from Harlequin novels. Actually if I had Harlequin novels I would have read those avidly too. Reading passes time, which there is a lot of and it takes your mind off and eyes away from what we don’t want to see.

I was a little surprised at how local the weather systems were, and as such don’t show up on weather faxes. We did get quite dependent on Herb, the weather router to guide us through these systems, and mostly that was a good thing, though the second gale we were in was totally unexpected. Our friends on Exile who used a different weather router were also caught by surprise.

We are very conservative sailors, totally aware of the strain on our equipment; i.e. the wear on our genoa caused by constant thwapping when attempting to run downwind without being able to pole the sail out to keep it still. Our reefing discussions are pretty standard. I ‘feel’ that the weather is piping up, or about to pipe up and suggest we reef the mainsail – which basically means that Tony goes up to the mast to make the necessary changes and I stay at the wheel and the main sheet. The earlier we reef the easier it is on Tony and the equipment. So, I say I think that its time to reef, Tony often disagrees and by the time he agrees the job has usually got a bit harder to do, and by that time we are often putting in 2 reefs, not 1. Then its probably a good thing we wait a bit. There are not many things we disagree on fortunately.

We are both tuned into Moondancer’s ability, and now that we have experienced worse conditions we feel even more confident in her ability to keep trundling along. She may not be very fast - though when we are abeam with all sails up she sails beautifully without any steering aids, just by herself, and with about 15kn of wind we can reach 6 – 7 knots, that’s fast enough for us. The further away from home we go, where there are a lot of Bill Garden designed boats, the more unusual Moondancer is. Its quite nice to be the only whimsical looking boat in a marina. We are seeing a lot of very nice steel and aluminum looking boats here in Horta. These seem to be quite common in Europe.

Its quite a thrill to be in this marina surrounded by hundreds of boats with mostly European flags, and everyone who is here has sailed thousands of miles to be here. We feel quite honoured to be part of this community of sailors, many of whom have been ocean sailing most of their lives and have a world of information to impart. The problem sometimes is that those cruisers also have all of the time in the world to impart the information. Time is something we have a short supply. As we have been held up by weather so often on this journey, we now only have about 5 weeks left to get to Malta by the beginning of September. And that is where we want to be to meet with my brothers.
So, though we loved Horta on sight, we hope that we will not have to spend more time here than a few days before moving on. Our next leg to the Mediterranean will likely be about 10 – 13 days, and then from Gibraltar to Malta another 2 weeks or so.
I’ll try to post again before we leave Horta