Meakin on Two Easy - Meakin on Two Easy

Sunday, November 22^nd 2009

Malta, Siracusa, Greece and visitors

We settled into a routine of being on the mooring buoys in Sliema bay by doing our shopping early in the day, and resting from the heat of the afternoon sun. Some afternoons after siesta time we went across to a small beach in the dinghy and met up with Andy Gail and Lewkas, to splash about in the water on a small beach just across from our boats. All was peaceful and restful until I got a text from Tino and Ireana asking if I would do some canvas work for them. They wanted a Bimini to keep the heat off their 18 metre boat and also let a breeze flow through.

So for the next four days I worked ten hours a day to complete their order in time for them could sail to Greece. The heat of the mid-day sun reached 48c and even the metal work on the boat was too hot to touch. We had to spray the decks with cold water just to be able to walk around. My number one sewing machine chugged to a stop and refused to sew again, so Keith was despatched in the dinghy to return to 2EZ to get my number two machine......the beast. About an hour later, as he was coming aboard with the machine in one hand, walking along the passerelle he walked head first into the end of the boom and split his head open. Doing his best not to drop the machine into the water as blood poured out of his head. As this was a 1m€ boat we were on he leaned over the side of the guard rails so he wouldn’t bleed all over the perfect decks. The fish loved it, making a meal of the dripping blood.

The following day it was my turn, and as I walked up and down the foredeck adjusting and checking the Bimini, I tripped over a step in the deck that was impossible to see, white top-sides, white step, bright sun, and went head first into the edge of an open window. Fortunately I must be made of stronger stuff and didn’t bleed....but we did look like a pair of idiots with matching ‘dings’ on the forehead.

With our earnings we decided to treat ourselves to a BBQ and spent the next week enjoying BBQ’d meals at every opportunity. Andy Gail and Lewkas came over one night to enjoy a meal, they had been tormented with the aromas of our feasts so it was only fair to invite them to dinner. Plus Lewkas liked to come over to play games with helicopters and chatter on to us. After a few days rest from the work we had a trip to Gozo on the ferry, going to the top of Malta first by bus. Just across from the ferry terminal was the bay where the live version of Popeye was filmed, the film set has been left in place and is another place on the island to visit.

Then, just as we were making our sail plans to leave Malta we had an MSN message from our friends Sven and Marita from Sweden where it was a cold 9c. Sven asked if they could visit us and said they would ‘catch a fly, come see you’. We moved 2EZ onto the town quay in Sliema and prepared the boat for our visitors. It was very hot where we moored up as the concrete held the heat of the day also as the ferries came in and out of the harbour we bounced up and down in their wake. Some of the waves threw out lots of little sardines and we’d jump off the boat to scoop them back into the water before they died.

We went on the bus to meet Sven and Marita and soon settled into a routine of breakfasts, walking, resting, ‘yumping’ in the water, and dinner. The days passed quickly as we had trips out to the blue lagoon at the top of Malta, the blue grotto at the bottom, and Mdina, the old citadel on the top of a hill. There is a tree amongst many others at the side of the road to Mdina that was struck by lightning. The after effects have made the tree resemble Jesus on the cross and the locals have made it into a shrine. Keith took a picture as we passed on the bus, not perfect but enough to see what it looks like.

After a few days of enthusiastically going on walks with Sven and Marita, Keith refused to walk with them again. Sven and Marita are very health and exercise aware which is all well and good in Sweden where you can stride out however in Malta with 48c of heat in the mid-day sun, the locals thought we were a bit mad. When we walked around the bay to Valetta which was just half a kilometre by sight but six kilometres to walk, including a big hill, even Sven had to admit it was a bit much. Keith joined us for lunch in Valetta by catching a bus, we took the bus back! Sven said that Keith was ‘Tøs-oreng’ much to his amusement until I checked out the meaning on our Swedish/English google translator, basically it meant he was a pufter! On their last day of ‘yumping’ in the water, Sven kept his hat on and did moonies as he flipped over in the water, the public has been spared viewing those pictures.

We waved Sven and Marita off at the airport and returned to 2EZ to find the firework barge was only 100m away from us. The fireworks went off four times a day for the next three days. The finale lasted for two hours from 10pm to midnight, even the locals were groaning a bit at the noise pollution. The following days were spent dashing around to provision the boat and say our farewells as we made our sail plans to Siracusa in Sicily. We’d spent eight weeks in Malta at the worst time possible heat and noise wise, we were glad to sailing out to somewhere new.

By now it was late August. We arrived in Siracusa Grand Harbour and anchored there for four days. The small citadel town of Ortiga which is attached to the mainland by a small bridge was lovely, winding streets with bistros and ice-cream shops everywhere. Siracusa was the birth place of Archimedes and I could just imagine him running through the streets dripping wet shouting Eureka! We walked to the Greek theatre which was carved out of living rock, the biggest of its kind and very hot as it soaked up the heat from the sun.

We also made the mistake of looking through our binoculars to see a sign for Carrefour it looked only about half a kilometre from the bay so we thought we’d take a walk there. Obviously our binoculars must be stronger than we realised as we must have walked a 12 kilometre round trip including 2 kilometres up and down the wrong road. We waited an hour for a return bus that didn’t come only to find the timetable was dated 2008....what a day.

Our next sail was to Crotone on the ‘foot’ of Italy, where we stayed only two nights. It reminded me of Seaton Carew and only disproved my idea that all things Italian are sophisticated and stylish. The Crotonians are famous for throwing all the ancient Roman ruins into the harbour to make a breakwater. They also ran Pythagoras out of town for his ‘strange’ ideas, the harbour had four gas rigs in the entrance, so not a place to hope to see anything nice. We were going to go to the ‘heel’ of Italy but on checking the weather Grib files, a storm was coming down from the Adriatic, we decided to run ahead of it and had a great sail with a full moon to show us the way to Greece and dolphins to accompany us.

We were now doing night-day-night sails to cut down on the heat that was now burning us to a crisp. I even had my big corporate umbrella up to try to find some shade. We knew we were approaching Greece when the aroma of thyme and oregano wafted to us on the warm night breeze. We arrived at the entrance to Lefkas at 5am and dropped anchor. There’s a shifting sand bar that makes sighting the entrance a little confusing in the dawn light, plus there is a bridge that has to open to let us into the channel. Once it was lighter we moved into the bridge entrance for the 6am bridge, and couldn’t understand why it didn’t open, so we rafted up onto a fishing boat to go ashore to check it out. A sign said it was now opening every 2 hours due to technical problems.

We had a quick shower and made some breakfast only to hear the hooter that meant the bridge was about to open????? I checked the time with a Greek fisherman only to find we needed to move our clocks forward an hour as we’d crossed a time zone. It wasn’t 7am, but 8am and the bridge was opening. We anchored just off the town quay and went ashore to explore. Lefkas is a lovely old town that has been obliterated by earthquakes often however they just rebuild it to the same style so nothing has been lost to the charm of the place. A labyrinth of alleyways with one main street through the middle to let the breeze blow through and a fine town square with restaurants round three sides and an old church on the fourth side.

Due to the earthquakes buildings are no more than three storeys high. Now they are now built to withstand the tremors, the top floors having corrugated iron for walls on the outsides painted in lovely Mediterranean colours offset by shutters of a different colour at the windows. There are mountains everywhere all covered in green trees. In the olden days the men of Lefkas decreed that the tops of the mountains could only be owned by men with all the fertile land and olive trees they thought they had it made. The women were assigned the scrub land at the bottom. However the tables have turned and now the women are the proud owners of very successful and profitable hotels and holiday apartments whilst the men work hard to press their olives. No wonder they need worry beads.

So here we are in our wintering grounds. We took a trip down the channel to Vlicho, a beautiful bay surrounded by mountains. There, we met Paul and Mo from Ti-Gitu, Martin and Linda from Marlin and also Norman and Jill from Dawn Chaser, all our chums from Bristol and Lagos of 2006, we’re finally catching up with everyone. Keith has joined a racing team and goes sailing just about every weekend and I have joined a stretch and tone class followed by an aerobics class. We also cycle round the lagoon, about 6 kilometres as often as we can.....think we’re going to like it here.

Posted by pam

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