In this post, I plan to recount all the events from Syracuse, Valletta, Gozo, and then Valletta again, so naturally I used the title to highlight the important bit.

In Syracuse we did nothing important, so I’ll just skip to our passage from Syracuse to Valletta, which was 20 hours even though we could have anchored at the bottom of Sicily.

Valletta was quite busy, for the entirety of Malta, we (read: I ) had to row the tender everywhere while we dropped the engine at the marina to fix it.

We spent a few days in the capital, wandering around, eating food, and visiting many chapel places.

We visited the fort of saint Elmo.

(Nothing to to with the tv character)

There was a lot of information to absorb as it played key roles in the Second World War and a siege creatively named the siege of st Elmo.

I’d never really heard much about Malta, especially in WW2 references, but it turns out it was a key asset to victory.

Later on, we went to see a 5D cinema movie that had free drinks.

Oh yes, it had a movie too, I suppose that was pretty good. When a scene showed a snake striking, something under the chairs sprayed and bumped out legs.

Another day, we rented another car and drove to the former capital city of Mdina, it was quite hot, more of an excuse to have tasty drinks and look at Maseratis.

The churches bishop even has one, like, seriously?

I had some very good beef ribs with an acceptable amount of vegetables which was my highlight and going on my food page that I’m going to release at the end.

Afterwards we drove to the other side of the island (it wasn’t very far, it’s quite small), and had a much needed swim in a place called the blue grotto (I know, another one), then wandered around some more, attempting to avoid the numerous horse and carts.

We gave up waiting for the engine the next day, however, and left for a town called Marsaxlokk (don’t try and pronounce it, I didn’t).

One night we stayed in a nearby bay where the water was clear and good for snorkeling. It was here that we had our first encounter of the very incarnation of Maltese genius; a Mr Whippys Ice cream boat.

I got coconut…

We went in to town the next day, anchoring after about ten attempts by sending the driver in to the slightly polluted water.

The next day was typical, several tries anchoring in your average pristine bay and then cruising further on to another town with a complex name called Gnejna…

For the next two nights we anchored at a place called fungus rock.

There was a Superyacht parked there, and following its idea, sent lines to the rocks to hold us in place. We played with the go-pro for a while and had dinner.

We had a very still night that night and the next day climbed up to the top of the mountain to look at the view.

Leading up the cliff was a steep slope of small rocks similar to a grey sand dune about 20 meters high, I gave my Dad and Kian a halfway head start, but, by the time I had nimbly crawled up they’d moved about 2 metres. It was quite amusing. Later on, we walked to the other side of the peninsula where we found a watchtower with a guy making chain mail in it. It was 30 kilograms, but I think I could still play tennis in it…

The next day was actually my Dads birthday, so we went and had some tasty lunch at a restaurant full of kittens.

The next day (I feel like this is getting repetitive), the 4th of July, we headed to Valletta again (I forgot to tell you, fungus rock is on the other main island of Malta- Gozo). We were going to stay at the other side of Malta but we discovered an oil leak and wanted to deal with it (seriously, will this boats problems never cease?). But back in Valletta my Dad left for Africa (Tunisia to be precise).

He came back a few days later leaving us for chores…

Personally, I don’t think he enjoyed Tunisia too much, despite being in a very well air conditioned hotel, but the remaining three of us had a very peaceful time, cleaning and watching Wimbledon (you can guess which one I did).

Yesterday, we left Valletta for Sicily again, although we don’t intend to stop back in Syracuse for obvious reasons.

We arrived and anchored at the bottom, swinging and jumping off the mast for a while. Today we have left for…

Yeah, I have no idea, but we’re under way and I’m caught up!