Finally Free!

It was good to finally be floating again, the engineer investigated the fuel leak and said he needed a different tool and left. We wrongly thought that he would return that day.

With the expectation that it would be fixed within a couple of days, we set to work getting ZigZag prepared. The water tank was cleaned and the watermaker recommissioned. We installed a new halyard for the Genoa and I went up the mast to check the rigging, there was a good view from the top. With everything looking as it should, we hoisted the Genoa. We were now ready to set sail….apart from the fuel leak.

We kept chasing the engineer and a few days later he returned to tighten up a few bolts and told us that it was fixed. However, Paul was sceptical, he checked the following morning and there was still a leak.

Eventually, we were told that they needed to disconnect the pump and take it away which they couldn’t do until the following week and then it would take at least a week to repair it.

As it was our 10th anniversary, we decided to go out for the day and visited one of the ‘Three Cities’. The fortified cities are Vittoriosa, Senglea and Cospicua, located directly across the Grand Harbour from Valletta. The area is known as the Cottonera and has served as a refuge, defensive bastion and home for the many different groups of people who have conquered Malta throughout its history.

Vittoriosa is the oldest of the Three Cities and has existed since prior to the Middle Ages. The other two cities, Senglea and Cospicua, were both founded by the Order of Saint John in the 16th and 17th centuries.

From Valetta we took a ferry across to Vittoriosa, known by the Maltese people as Birgu. Due to its excellent location just next to the sea, it served as the capital of Malta up until 1565, when, after surviving the Great Siege it was superseded by the newly built Valletta with its even more secure fortifications.

Inside of the ancient fortifications much of the stone architecture remains intact. The smart, well kept narrow streets were also much quieter than Valletta without so many visitors.

After a walk around, as a special anniversary treat, Paul took me to the Malta at War museum, not quite what I was expecting! It’s main highlight was a network of underground air raid tunnels used during WWII. We had to wear hard hats which was good because we did hit our heads several times on the low ceilings. It was actually quite interesting.

The tunnels were excavated by hand using solely manual tools and small amounts of gun powder.

The shelters were run by a ‘public spirited individual’ from the community who was given the impossible task of ensuring that there was no overcrowding, maintain a level of hygiene and uphold public order. As compensation, he would have a separate cubicle allocated for him and his family. Shelters were inspected regularly, but with communal living and sleeping areas, disease was prevalent, there was a lack of hygiene and overcrowding was rife.

Larger cubicles were set apart as a birthing room and a surgery.

As the war and Malta’s second great siege continued it was agreed that families could excavate a private cubicle at their own cost. The work was mainly carried out by women and children and it had to be 6x6x6 feet.

Afterwards, we found the main square and stopped for refreshments. We were told that we had sat down at the oldest building in the area, it was originally a palace and more recently served as one of Malta’s ubiquitous band clubs. It certainly had a very decorative frontage and hallway plus an attractive rear courtyard.

We took the commuter ferry back to Valletta, and watched the little gondola style taxi boats lining up to take people on a slightly more authentic journey.

Back at the boat we waited for engineers to come and collect the pump but another week passed. It became obvious that we would be on the dock for at least another couple of weeks, so I decided to tackle a job which I have been putting off since we bought our current dinghy four years ago. We needed dinghy chaps (a cover over the topside of the sun facing tubes to protect them from harmful UV rays and chafing). Called ‘chaps’ after the Spanish word “chaparreras” which were designed to protect the legs of cowboys who rode through chaparral, a thick, thorny brush. The PVC is deteriorating and has already gone very sticky on our dinghy and it’s not nice to sit on, so in order to preserve it for hopefully another season or two I had to set to work.

A week later I was quite impressed with the result. I added a red ‘go faster’ stripe to make it look more sporty and hopefully speed us up!

I can definitely see the likeness to some of these cars at a car show we visited in Valetta.

The square was full of cars, bikes and people.

Paul had his eye on this one.

During this time, the fuel pump was eventually removed and we were waiting for its return. A couple of weeks later, we had action. The pump had been disassembled, serviced and all of its seals replaced. It was refitted, which involved taking off the timing belt, so a good opportunity to also replace this. It was a difficult operation given the limited space available at the front of the engine where all of these parts are located. Fortunately, we had a young 20 something year old engineer who was able to bend his body in all directions to gain access.

We had now been on the dock for over a month, it really wasn’t too bad, everything was easily available, the sun shone and there was always a steady flow of sailing friends passing through from Monastir and Sicily, so plenty of social events.

But with the engine now as good as new, we slipped our lines and finally left the dock. We decided to stay close by for a few more days to test that everything was working and set off on a 10 nm journey to Birzebugga on the south side of the island. We motored all of the way and were very happy that the engine seemed to be running better than it had for years. We have visited previously and anchored in our usual spot with views of the container ship terminal.

While we were here we celebrated Paul’s birthday and went ashore for a nice meal. But first we visited Malta’s oldest prehistoric site of Ghar Dalam which is a 144 metre long cave and museum.

The cave contained the bones of animals that lived on Malta dating back to the ice age. It shows the layers as the cave was excavated where they found remains from the different periods.

Rows of the ancient animal bones, unearthed from Ghar Dalam cave, are exhibited in a Victorian style. Wooden cases display thousands of identical animal bones on boards. The old exhibition hall has been preserved in its original state and has now become a museum piece in itself.

We had been recommended a nice family run fish restaurant on the waterfront so went for a birthday meal. The food was very good and the service even better. At the end of our meal, they placed four bottles of their homemade liquors on the table and told us to try them all….so we did!

Just to make sure that the engine was really good, we gave it another run, 19nm up to Mellieha bay towards the north of the island. After an hour, the wind picked up so we hoisted the sails to check that they were also working. We had a good sail although we were going slightly off course, until the wind dropped off and we fired up the engine to motor the last few miles to the bay, where we dropped our anchor in a shallow sandy spot.

Mellieha town sits on top of a steep hill with a large promenant church looking out over the bay. We set off on a walk to the town but decided to avoid the direct approach straight up the hill and went the long way round. The route would take us along the coast, up through the countryside and eventually arriving at the church.

As we set off, we first came to what appeared to be a fairly modern dunking chair, and some ‘beach huts’ which were built under the road, they looked more like garages than beach huts, probably were originally fisherman huts.

With some very poor planning we had set off around midday so it was extremely hot with very little shade as we continued through rugged countryside, we were rapidly running out of water. Unfortunately, there were no shops, cafes or bars in sight, so we had to ration the last few drops.

We eventually came to an 18th century palace, and were pleased to see a sign for a cafe…but unfortunately it had all been closed long ago!

We still had quite a way to go, feeling rather dehydrated we walked on. Just down the hill in the distance we could see yellow umbrellas and as we reached them, we were relieved to see the sign ‘bar open’.

It was like a scene from ‘Ice cold in Alex’.

Feeling rehydrated, we left the bar and headed towards Mellieha town. Eventually we reached civilisation and the church.

After stopping for something to eat, we just had to walk down the hill to the bay where we could see Ziggy anchored in the distance.

We were now happy that everything was working well and ZigZag was ready to set sail and finally leave Malta. The following morning, we lifted our anchor and motored out of Mellieha bay.