We arrived in lovely, clean, civilised, organised Malta after a good overnight sail getting in just on dark. Roland Marina seems good – new and well located. We had to go to the Passenger Terminal to clear in the next morning it all seemed to go OK coming from Tunisia back to the EU.
My niece Georgia has been living here in Valletta for the past 4 years. We caught up with her after a day cleaning the boat of salt, salt and salt and had a very nice lunch at the Water Polo Club which is just at the top of our marina ramp. Across the way from us is a trimaran that we anchored by in 3 Menorcan bays – small world.
A few days after settling in we flew to London for my stepmother Shirley’s 90th birthday. Pete had a drama at emigration as the immigration people in Malta had not stamped his passport despite us asking them to. After a few lectures on paperwork we got through.
London was fun, great weather then rain then great weather again. We stayed at a very well set up Air BnB not far from Shirley’s in Wimbledon. We were all in and out of her house for the next five days catching up with extended family and a big party at the local church hall on the Saturday. It all went well. Pete and I tried to go to Windsor Castle but it was closed for an investiture so we just hung around the town and had a Beef and Guinness pie in a pub. On the last day we spent quite a few hours at Harrods drooling, having lunch and then oysters in the Food Hall wine bar. It is still in my opinion the best store in the world.
Back in Malta at 1.30 am and we couldn’t get back on the boat as the marina guys had adjusted the lines and the passarella couldn’t reach! Luckily the security guy was able to help and we were back on board by 3 am (with daylight saving allowed for). Big day!
Since then we have zoomed around on the scooters getting the lay of the land, visiting the haul out yard, finding the (very good) supermarket, checking out our accommodation for when are hauled etc. We really like Malta.