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!

For the millionth time this holiday, I found myself questioning the logic of an anchors gravity…

The day started normally enough, but once we arrived in the place to anchor, everything began to go downhill, or underwater, if that makes more sense…

We recently changed our anchor, because our first was faulty and kept landing on its side, anyway, this one was flat, so it still landed on its side.

How does that work?

Well, we ended up sending Pete and Kian in to the water to fix it, and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves.

It was then we received news that our propeller had fallen off.

Yep.

Fallen off.

Lost somewhere in the ocean.

That resulted in half an hour of heated discussion, and then a further search in the tender.

And what stopped the tender search?

We’d been searching for 15 minutes, and as we were just moving to another area, my next words were; “Hate to tell you this now, but the engines stopped working…”

So basically we had to call some people, one response was “get a mechanic,” but thankfully, the Syracuse marina said we could come back and they’d find us a new propeller and a mechanic.

One problem was, it was a several hour trip with both propellers.

But we managed…

Not like we had a choice.

I figured out it was Thursday (remembering the date during a holiday is hard), and furthermore, they told us there were no propellers currently available in Sicily (I suppose they don’t usually have propellers falling off)

So now we are back in Syracuse until Monday…

As I left off, we were in sight of Syracuse, for the second time. The first was two years ago.

I actually recognised some of the attractions

(I’m more surprised that I remembered seeing them then that I actually saw them)

We were ahead of original schedule to meet up with some friends from when we lived in Sydney, Pete and Pip, and we spent most of the day wandering and shopping with them, which took up most of our time in Syracuse… Or did it? (Just building tension for next post)

Anyway, the next morning we decided to leave back down the coast towards Malta.

That’s as much as I’m doing today, because it became rather eventful…

We left early from Pozzallo, going to another marina (with wifi) with a very long name…

That’s as much as I got…

While our parents walked to the old town, me and Kian were tasked with getting the engine on the tender, our version of teamwork was me actually lifting it and Kian providing oral encouragement.

But we succeeded and I drove us out the bay and to meet them at the old town, passing yet another house on a island that I wanted to move to:

And to think the authorities would need a boat to tax you…

Last night (would you believe it, I’ve caught up) we decided to anchor.

It took several tries, but we managed, although we didn’t go ashore due to tender malfunctions, we’ve fixed it now though.

We spent the rest of the day and this morning swimming, before setting of towards one of Sicily’s biggest cities, one of which we are currently in sight of: Syracuse

Yep

A day later we went to another place that I cannot name (probably because I forgot it), despite it having the best marina so far this holiday.

Benefits included wifi, the berth being right next to the office and a supermarket, and showers that didn’t run out of hot water within my 15 minutes of necessary time (what? Water rations does something to you)

Although, the rest of the town was unimpressive (you know, just another castle), I was content.

Two days later, skipping an unremarkable fishing place, we ended up in a port called Pozzallo. As with several other Italian ports, it didn’t really make use of the waterfront, but when we went out we discovered a nicer town.

We opted to stay for another day, so we rented a Lancia and drove inland.

Our first and best find was a town called Scicli (she-klee) which was some sort of UNESCO world heritage whatever that means, but all I know it for was the 1kg of assorted meats for lunch and many churches.

An abandoned one too!

The place was full of Baroque style buildings and cave houses (those weren’t Baroque style), and we wandered around a while before realising that we were meant to visit three towns not one and rushing on…

We didn’t end up getting there either

After a daring quest to venture through the streets of Sam Leone in search of a bar with tennis channels, that ended with us giving up and only listening to the commentary (by the way Ash Barty won and moved up to second in the world) we had a simple dinner and a long night, which includes many drunk Italians partying until 3 in the morning.

Funnily enough, the next day we were out all day, right on a bus in the morning over to a scattering of Greek buildings called the valley of the temples, where we easily explored through the sudden heat, for several hours.

That’s an inventor guy who died trying to fly in to the sun

I know the ancient Greeks were supposedly very smart, but I think this is slightly contradictory of that…

As it was, our day was not nearly over, and we were offered a funny ride on a three wheeled vehicle up to the main town, where we wandered the alleyways and witnessed Nadal defeating Theim (I was actually going for Nadal for the first time).

Yet again the party Italians stayed up till 3 and the next day we set off for a bay, named after an honestly unimpressive tower, the Torre de san Nicola.

It took us several tries to get the stupid anchor to hold, but we managed and I towed Kian for a while on his inflatable raft.

Favignana

A small town somewhere in Sicily, which you’ve probably gathered by now, highly attracted to tuna.

There was even a tuna museum

Fortunately, we took a modest walk up to my future house (once it’s been renovated), well, they walked, I ran, and, due to the efficiency of Italian law, literally just wandered around all the broken tiles and electrics with a Swiss couple.

All I know is that it’d never be allowed in Australia…

The next day or so we reached mainland Sicily, an industrial town called Marsela, the fact that it was renowned for wine and that we ran over a rope does little to motivate me to write about it, but we didn’t do much there so it doesn’t really matter.

Early two days later, we reached another town called Sciacca (pronounced: Shaka)

It was at this point that they made me get a haircut, but it was actually quite good, despite my doubts about Italian hairdressers…

Otherwise we didn’t do much but wander around and eat.

Not technically in Sicily yet, but still in a nearby island, where we stopped in some areas.

The first place didn’t have many cats, which was a shame, and the marina didn’t let us in until 6. So we did what anyone does when on a boat with nothing to do-

We went along the coast a bit and climbed a castle.

The next morning we typically explored the town, and had an all seafood lunch. I discovered that unlike Australia, if Italians don’t specifically mention vegetables, there won’t be any. Meat actually has no vegetables more commonly than includes them.

I’m thinking of moving soon.

Ever been on a boat, in the middle of an ocean, with nothing in sight in any direction, not even other boats?

Well, before recently I don’t recall having so either.

Having perfect weather, we left Sardinia and set course for Sicily, the boot of Italy, some 30 hours drive with no stops.

It was unexpectedly very interesting. Soon after we lost sight of land, we got pulled over by a military boat.

Yeah, well, they asked us a bunch of questions and stuff and then left, it was rather amusing.

Soon after we saw some fish jumping a few hundred metres from the boat, or at least we thought they were fish…

Only minutes later it dawned on us that they were not fish, but sharks…

Yeah…no

But it was the next best thing- just at the bow (front) of the boat, was a whole pod of dolphins leaping from the water and following us like only dolphins do.

They stayed with us for nearly half an hour, then probably decided that the boat was to slow and left.

But it was definitely worth it for the time they were there:

We were meant to take shifts, but abandoned the idea and I just slept all night, there were a lot of empty coffee cups the next morning in the sink though.

Despite the thrills, the Sicilian mainland had far more appeal than it otherwise would.

Thankfully escaping from high winds just before the speeds began to soar (no pun intended), we moored in to the marina of Porto Villamisius to immediately set off on yet another walk, or rather walks. Firstly, we only went to a nearby castle, with winds nearly high enough to blow you over, we were rather amused to see a sailing boat passing quickly in to the marina.

If you’re thinking ‘why was it going fast?’

It’s sails were, in fact, down at the time and it was virtually being blown in.

We did another walk, after briefly returning to the boat, to the other side of the peninsula, called Cape Carbonara, featuring a completely still lake with flamingoes and no carbonara.