Moondancerx's BIG adventure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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