Tag Archives | Nordhavn

Welcome to Ken’s Blog! (top)

Greetings all!

Sans Souci is in Malta!

Here’s an index to this issue of Ken’s Blog:

• Journey Map
• St Julians Bay
• Valletta
• Back to St Julians Bay
• Back to Gozo
• The Trip To Siracusa
• Never trust a weather report – the run to Taormina
• Boat Geek Report
• And, in closing

Journey Map (top)

As you can see in this map, Malta is south of Italy, and centrally located in the Eastern Med. It’s location has been a mixed blessing. On one hand it’s a place with great natural beauty and warm weather, but limited natural resources. Malta’s problem has been that its central location makes it an attractive location for a naval base. Over the years Malta has been fought over, and captured, many times by a variety of countries.

It was even a battleground during World War II. During a two year period over 3,000 bombing raids were flown against Malta, earning this tiny country the dubious distinction of being one of the most heavily bombed locations during WWII. The Grand Harbor, where we moored Sans Souci received more bombs that all of London!

Map showing Malta’s location

St Julian’s Bay, on the island of Malta (top)

In my last blog entry we were concentrating on Gozo and Comino, the northern-most of the three islands that form Malta. We enjoyed the remoteness and “small town” feel, but wanted to journey south to the capital: Valletta, on the island of Malta itself.

As we were working our way south, along the east coast of Malta, we saw a small bay, just north of Valletta called “St Julian’s Bay” that looked good. In Valletta, the main city and capital, we would be going into a marina (the Grand Harbor Marina) and wanted another night or two of relaxation before hitting the big city.

St Julian’s Bay on the island of Malta. We didn’t realize it at the time but St Julian’s is the “party center” with rowdy bars, nightlife, and a multitude of restaurants. (NOTE: You can click on any of the pictures in my blog for a closer view)

Anchoring at St Julian’s didn’t match up with Roberta’s and my “style” at all. It was like being anchored in front of a major city. We were surrounded by condos and restaurants, in a fairly small, and somewhat rolly, bay. Later, we decided that St Julian’s was probably a fun town, with lots of great restaurants, but at that moment it wasn’t what we were seeking, so we prepared dinner and stayed on the boat. Steven and Carol on Seabird, the Nordhavn 62 that we are traveling with, dropped their tender and went into town, where they had a terrific dinner.

This picture of Sans Souci was taken at dusk from Seabird. It’s one of my favorite pictures of our boat, but I’m also somewhat amused by it. The picture shows how misleading photos can be at times. Had the camera been pointed the opposite direction you’d see all the condos, restaurants and bars – plus the disco lights which were just kicking in for the evening.

We had planned two nights at St Julian’s Bay, but after one night Roberta and I decided we would go on to Valletta, which was really just around the corner. Med-mooring (parking the boat stern-to the dock with nothing but other boats beside us) for the first time in a strange marina is always stressful for us. Roberta had shoulder surgery last year and is still fearful of putting too much load on her shoulder, so is not much help with handling lines and fenders (and we have some heavy lines and big fenders!). Although Roberta is good with driving and maneuvering Sans Souci – though not when coming into a Med-mooring situation in some tight areas – I am effectively single-handing the boat and need help with our lines and fenders. (We’re totally fine with side-tying anywhere, though.) Therefore, whenever we have something to do with which we’re uncomfortable the foremost thought on our minds is, “Well. Let’s just do it and get it behind us.” Thus, we made the decision to cut short our time at St Julian’s and head to the Grand Harbor Marina in Valletta the next day. Seabird, on the other hand, wanted one more relaxing day and night at anchor and headed back to Comino Island to a wonderful anchorage that they had discovered near the Blue Lagoon.

Valletta (top)

Here we are entering “The Grand Harbor” in front of Valletta for the first time. We knew it was a busy harbor with freighters, and every other type of boat, going in and out. We still have vivid memories of our wild approach to Hong Kong where we spent hours dodging other boats; however, it turned out to be a perfectly calm day with plenty of room to maneuver.

Upon entering the marina I radioed for assistance and asked if it would be possible to put a couple of guys on the boat to assist with working lines. The marina said, “No problem” and within five minutes we had two of the marina staff onboard, brought out to the boat by a tender. This made mooring the boat trivial, and in minutes we were tied up at the dock. We were happy campers!

Sans Souci tied up at the Grand Harbor Marina in Valletta, Malta.

As I stepped off the back of the boat the harbormaster was there to greet us. He mentioned that over the years many Nordhavns had been in the marina, but that ours was the first he had seen with a walkway on both sides of the boat. Nordhavn offers boats with an external walkway on one side, or both sides (called “symmetric” or “asymmetric.”) By eliminating one walkway running the length of the boat, the main salon and galley can be larger. However, as with everything on a boat, there are always trade-offs. It is convenient to have the walkway on both sides, especially with performing docking maneuvers, but it is also great to have more space in the salon and galley that would otherwise be taken up by the second walkway outside. In Europe the process of Med-mooring is often simpler by having the ability to quickly and easily move from the bow of the boat to the stern along either side. The dual walkway can also be an advantage when side-tied to a dock because you can thus exit the boat from either side, or dock on either side, whereas asymmetrical boats (single walkway boats) prefer being oriented to the one side with the external walkway. It’s one of those things where there is no one right answer; it’s a personal preference. The N68 has plenty of room in the salon, so we had no trouble giving up some internal space for the ‘option ability’ of docking and maneuvering.

   

The Grand Harbor viewed from high on the hill of Valletta, as well as the sunrise and sunset views from aboard Sans Souci. To reach Valletta we would take a water taxi, then ascend a cliff in a very tall elevator with windows looking out over the harbor as we rose.

Seabird in the process of Med-mooring. At the completion of the process there will be four lines attached to the boat: two at the bow, and two at the stern. The bow lines extend to the center of the marina basin, and the stern lines to the dock. To reach shore you need a gang plank of some sort (called a passarelle) that allows you to walk from the stern of the boat to the dock.

Valletta is the capital city of Malta and is across the channel from the marina. There is regular shuttle boat service there, but we preferred using these gondola-like water taxis. They were a little expensive (10 euros each way) but very convenient. They would pick us up directly from the boat and drop us a few minutes later very close to the base of the giant elevator which rose very high to the old city of Valletta. Our taxi driver mentioned that his water taxi business had been in his family for 155 years – and was still a family business.

Several times we took a water taxi into the city. Perhaps we just had a particularly colorful taxi driver, but we were always amused by our discussions with him. Over the days we were in Valetta we would meet his brother – also a water taxi driver — hear stories about his wife, trips to the doctor and even opinions on world politics. His English was far from perfect, and at times we would wonder if we had heard correctly, and at other times hope we hadn’t.

 

Streets of Valletta. There was much to see, and we saw about 10% of it. Being in the crowded city was hot, sweaty and miserable. We did a day of sightseeing, and attended a movie showing the history of Malta, but otherwise avoided downtown Valletta as we wanted to explore other areas as well.

 

St. John’s Cathedral is a gem of Baroque art and architecture. It was built in the 1500s as the church for the Knights of St John. The floor is paved with 400 inlaid marble tombstones (picture in lower left,) under which several generations of the great nobility of Europe, members of the Order of St. John, are buried.

 

From Wikipedia:

On 15 April 1942, King George VI awarded Malta the George Cross, the highest civilian award for gallantry in the Commonwealth, normally awarded to individuals: “to honour her brave people, I award the George Cross to the Island Fortress of Malta to bear witness to a heroism and devotion that will long be famous in history.” President Franklin Roosevelt, describing that wartime period, called Malta “one tiny bright flame in the darkness.”

On the tiny island of Malta, in the first six months of 1942, there was only one 24-hour period without air raids. Luftwaffe records indicate that between 20 March and 28 April 1942, Malta was subjected to 11,819 sorties and 6,557 tons of bombs. 1,493 civilians were killed and 3,674 wounded out of a population of 270,000.

The siege caused significant hardships for everyone on Malta. Bombs killed many and left even more homeless. Businesses and civil infrastructure were destroyed. The disruption of shipping caused food, fuel, and other commodities to be in very short supply. During the greatest times of starvation, it is said that foods were rationed to “three boiled sweets, half a sardine and a spoonful of jam a day”. Poor nutrition and sanitation led to the spread of disease. But they survived and have prospered. After observing the Maltese, Roberta and I agree that they are indeed a resilient, strong and very moral people – and industrious, to boot.

Steven (on Seabird) and I have a semi-ritual of heading to McDonalds for breakfast at least once when we are in a large city. This was the first McDonalds we had seen since Croatia so we had to check it out. To our surprise it really was…”McDonalds.” Just like at home! We’ve found more variation in the food at McDonalds than expected, as they adapt the food to match local tastes, and many McDonalds don’t serve breakfast at all (perhaps because the local country doesn’t eat the breakfast food as we habitually do in the United States – be that good or be it bad).

Once was enough, but one of the reasons I like to visit is just to look at the prices. In Malta an Egg McMuffin costs 3.25 euros ($4.40 US dollars) vs $2.79 in Seattle, or 58% more. Labor prices? Exchange rate? Higher food costs? I don’t know, and don’t know that it matters, but…I’m always curious about these things. I also tend to look in the window at real estate places, curious to see what home prices are like. Thus far, Europe may be overpaying for Egg McMuffins, but they make up for it on home prices (vs Seattle, where prices are, let’s say…high.)

     

Our marina, the Grand Harbor, is actually located in a town called Vittoriosa, and while exploring it the first evening we saw an advertisement for “Rolling Geeks,” a tourist business based at the marina. They rent you A beefed-up golf cart with a GPS-synched and automated tour guide. The GPS is programmed with a 17-mile route around three surrounding cities, including Vittoriosa. It seemed like something fun to do; a chance to explore outside the main tourist zone of Valletta, and without having to walk in the heat of the day to see things.

What I didn’t realize is that the business was just opening and we were only their second customer!

I also didn’t realize that we’d actually be on real roads driving in real car traffic – where they drive on the left instead of the right as we’re used to in the U.S. The GPS-talking-tour guide was supposed to intelligently guide us around, but the synchronization was off in some places, then halfway through our tour, we went over a small bump (not speeding, don’t worry!) and our GPS-talking tour guide went blank! Without it, we didn’t know where we were and what we were supposed to be seeing. We made our way back to the marina via my cellphone and Google Map! It’s a cool idea and we liked that we could move at our own pace (theoretically the tour guide would trigger its speech-tour based on our location.) But it obviously didn’t work out quite as it should. The lady who ran the business (who was REALLY nice and helpful) was monitoring us from back at her office, and was observing remotely as we went miles off course, and even went into a loop at one point, being guided around a two mile circle. When we finally returned the cart, she looked at us like we didn’t know how to read a map, or maybe didn’t understand GPS or computers! I tried to convince her that we had somehow cruised a boat from Seattle to Malta, and that maps and computers are our strengths. But she looked doubtful. All of that said, I like the idea, and people running a business, and wish them all the luck in the world – once they work out the bugs! Even though we deviated from time to time and missed one city out of the three, it was a really fun day! We even went back two days later to rent the cart again, this time to drive several miles to a well-stocked supermarket for provisions.

These pictures show one of the stops on our tour: Smart City. Malta is a tiny set of three islands out in the middle of the Mediterranean, with limited natural resources. As we travel the world, part of the fascination for me is to look at how different countries play the cards they are dealt, and how their economies respond. Smart City is a joint venture between Dubai and Malta to create a high-tech “city,” in an attempt to bring high-tech businesses to Malta. The project is early in development but big money is being spent to create an environment with residential, educational and commercial real estate, paired with massive bandwidth, restaurants, and amenities like beach walks and man-made lagoons. It’s a very long-term effort to try to bring high paying jobs to Malta. To some extent we’ve seen this in Seattle where Paul Allen (of Microsoft fame) has basically transformed the south Lake Union area of Seattle over the years by targeting high-tech companies like Amazon, and creating the kind of living/working environment that appeals to young well-educational professionals.

Another example of this same goal of proactively bringing jobs to Malta was a film studio that we drove past. Malta is trying to lure mainstream film production to Malta (emphasis on “trying”) with a combination of financial incentives and Malta’s excellent weather.

And, Malta also receives a boost to the economy from the many British who retire there or who buy second homes. They also encourage friendly tax policies and tourism.

There are probably many more examples. But, based on the little that I’ve seen, and the people with whom I’ve spoken, the Maltese seem to be entrepreneurial, religious, hardworking, family-oriented and exceptionally friendly!

After four days in the Grand Harbor Marina we decided it was time to move on.

Sans Souci carries 3,000 gallons of fuel, although I probably only started the trip with about 2,800. The Montenegro fuel dock had made it clear that personal disembowelment was a distinct possibility if I let one drop of fuel touch their pristine water! Thus I left some room at the top of each tank and we departed Montenegro with approximately 2,800 gallons. In Malta, I was now at 1,700 gallons remaining. With well over half of my fuel remaining I could almost certainly squeak by for the balance of the trip. However, my philosophy is to take fuel whenever I need more than 500 gallons and see an easily accessible fuel dock.

The Grand Harbor Marina doesn’t really have a fuel dock. To take fuel, you look for empty space amongst their super-yacht moorings, side-tie to the wall and make an appointment with a fuel truck.

 

Sans Souci, snuggled between two super-yachts taking fuel from a truck. There was plenty of room to go between the boats, but there was also 20 knots of wind, and I knew that if I scratched one of the big boats it would be an expensive mistake. The fuel was reasonably priced for being Europe: $7 per gallon.

Back to St Julians Bay (top)

I am not someone who believes in backtracking, but sometimes you have no choice. From Malta, our next destination would be back to Siracusa (Syracuse). From there, we would leave Sicily, traveling north through the Messina Strait, and start working our way through the Aeolian Islands, the west coast of Italy, Sardinia and Corsica.

We had an uncomfortable ride when coming south to Malta, and wanted a smooth ride for the trip back north. We all wanted at least one more night at anchor before heading north and thought a return to St. Julian’s Bay might be a good idea. We were expecting some wind, but St. Julian’s bay is open only to the northeast and the wind would be coming from the northwest. Roberta and I felt that we hadn’t given St. Julian’s Bay a fair shake and wanted to spend a night there and eat at one of the great restaurants for dinner. Specifically, we had heard the nearby Hilton Hotel had a high-end Thai restaurant, the Blue Elephant, that we wanted to visit.

Just after dropping the hook we realized that we should have stayed another night at the Grand Harbor Marina. Whereas on our first trip to St. Julian’s we’d had a relatively smooth night, this time, we could see a swell coming into the bay. We had predicted the wind direction correctly, so…there shouldn’t have been “much” of a swell, but…there was, and it was a strong one. Not only would we NOT be going out for Thai food, sleep was looking unlikely as well.

When anchoring conditions are less than perfect I usually head for the pilot house. Roberta never understands why, if all is safe – as it really was. I really have no good explanation. I just feel more comfortable when I’m where I can keep track of our swing circle and see what the wind is. If I’m not going to be sleeping anyway – I reason — why not be where I can at least monitor the situation?

In the middle of the night, as we were being rolled from side to side in a beam swell, I started thinking about my blog and what adjectives I’d use to describe it. Would I say it was a “moderate swell,” a “heavy swell,” or … an “extreme swell.” Ultimately, none of these words mean much of anything. They are too ambiguous. I decided to search the internet for an app that would quantify the amount of roll, and found one: “myGyrosope” for the iPad. I am not endorsing that particular app, it was just the one I found in the middle of the night. I wanted to be able to say something like, “We were rolling 5 degrees in each direction.” These are the things we retired software guys think about at 4 a.m. Was there ever any doubt?

Anyway…I ran the software and produced the graph below. The answer: We were rolling +/- 7 degrees. I’ll be darned. It felt a lot more than that!

We spent that miserable night anchored at St. Julian’s bay, rolling all night. This picture shows an attempt I made to “quantify” the amount of roll.

Return to Gozo (top)

With the weather not cooperating, all ideas of anchoring anywhere were off the table. We decided to make the short run back to Gozo, to position for the passage north, and just return to the Mgarr marina. It’s funny that a marina we had never planned to go into suddenly dominated our time in Malta, and that we went there on three separate occasions. Oh well…that’s boating for you. Ultimately, all cruising plans are “best written on sand — at low tide.”

 

Roberta and I wanted to give the dogs a walk and also wanted to get a picture of the Gozo Mgarr Marina from high up. During our walk, we discovered an old walled fort, dating back to the 1700s, which, after hundreds of years of decaying was being redeveloped as high-end condos.

Click this link to see a panoramic image of the view over the islands from the fort:

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=ff95350d-80af-45db-abfc-489b1ead0054

 

Although we were forced into port by the weather, we weren’t suffering. This is the four of us having dinner by the sea in Xlendi, a small seaside town on Gozo. Xlendi is a beautiful little place with a waterfront lined with restaurants. It was only about three miles from the marina, but a 20 minute drive by land. I considered using the tender to get to dinner, but as this picture shows, it would have been a bad idea, as the entrance to the bay looks rough because of the wind. Allegedly boats our size can enter the bay to anchor, but I don’t think I’d try it.

Both Seabird and Sans Souci were moored just across from where a large ferry arrives and departs every 45 minutes. Normally, the wake from the ferry is only a mild annoyance, but every once in a while the ferry does a spinning maneuver to move from one dock to the next, employing its giant thrusters. When it does this it passes so close to Seabird that Steven sitting on the back deck felt he could almost touch the ferry. The thrusters put out so much force you feel you are in a fast-moving river.

Roberta and I and the pups took the ferry one day, to visit the main island of Malta, rent a car and drive around. Here’s our view from the ferry as we departed.

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=a122e813-615f-4cf4-9971-ee7c59c11bc1

Driving around Malta was more of an adventure than expected. The Maltese drive on the left side of the road, like the British. That was a little difficult, but the worst was having the stick shift on the “wrong” side – for us Americans, that is.

While were driving around Malta I took this panoramic image of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the medieval walled city of Mdina. It is built on the site where governor Publius was reported to have met Saint Paul following his shipwreck off the Maltese coast.

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=54e67c27-dc28-4c9f-825c-9811657b9da2

And .. a story well worth reading about St. Paul’s shipwreck… http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2010/february/searching-for-pauls-shipwreck-on-malta/

Siracusa (top)

Our strategy of waiting in Malta until we had a nice clean weather window worked flawlessly. We were up at 4:30 a.m. for a departure at daybreak. The ride north was smooth, with us arriving back at Siracusa, Sicily by the afternoon.

Whereas on our first trip to Siracusa we wanted to explore the city and discover the sites and restaurants, this time we were just looking for a place to rest on our travels north. I was also hoping to get a mechanic on board to work on my watermakers, and I was also going to be effectively replacing my satellite internet system (more on these topics in my “boat geek” report).

Sans Souci and Seabird at anchor in Siracusa, Sicily. We sat at anchor for two days. On BOTH days we had mechanics on board, one for our watermakers and two for our V-Sat internet system. Those were busy days!

Never trust a weather report – the journey to Taormina  (top)

I’ll finish off this edition of the blog (except for those who want to read the boat-techy report below) with a video showing what happened on our passage north from Siracusa to the cliff-hugging town of Toarmina, which would be our last stop in Sicily. It was supposed to have been a totally calm day. We would have 60 nautical miles of the best cruising we could want, with a nice calm anchorage waiting at the other end.

But, it didn’t work out that way….

Instead, we had a solid six hours of nothing but lumpy, choppy seas with 20 knots of wind in our face. The waves weren’t that high (at the worst eight to ten feet), and it was never dangerous, but because the waves were so close together it was just a miserable ride.

Here’s a video which is perhaps too long, but will give you a small sense of what we encountered. Unfortunately, though, video never really captures how it really feels. The waves in this video appear much smaller than they looked at the time. Our two boats did perfectly fine, but it was definitely a day when I was happy that I own a Nordhavn. Really, the worst of it was wondering, “If it is this rough here, what will our anchorage look like on arrival?” And, “If the weather forecasters blew it this bad on forecasting the weather today, what happens when we are headed out on much longer passages?”

And, actually, it wasn’t the wave height that was an issue. We’ve been out in much bigger seas. It was the distance between wave crests that made it uncomfortable, and of course, the fact that it was so unexpected.

Here’s the video. I hope you enjoy it. And, I hope you’ll look forward to my next blog entry when I’ll explain the surprise that awaited us in Taormina!

Boat Geek Report (top)

While in Siracusa I was able to find a technician to come on board and look at our watermaker. He had a great idea….

My watermaker has an LED showing the salinity of the water being produced. This LED is effectively an indication of the effectiveness of the membranes. If they are producing water in the 100-300 range, the membranes are virtually new. In the 400-600 range, either something is happening with the temperature or clarity of the water, or more likely the membranes are starting to die.

Once the watermakers start producing water over 700, unless there is something else going on, it’s time for new membranes.

One of my two watermakers (known as WM#2) had died completely. The technician felt the problem was the high pressure pump, but my theory was that the membranes were so clogged they were jamming up the whole system. The second watermaker (aka WM#1) was working, but producing water in the 700 to 800 range, and was randomly spiking to the 1200 range.
Paolo, the technician, felt that we should put the membranes from WM#2 onto WM#1. This would tell us once and for all of the problem was the membranes or the high pressure pump. And, actually, we went a step past that. We did some re-plumbing such that the watermaker (WM#1) could be run on a single membrane. We then ran WM#1 on one membrane at a time, trying each of the four membranes (my watermakers each had two.)

What we discovered was that three of my four membranes were completely dead, with one struggling, producing water in the high 300s and low 400s.

Paolo has ordered four new membranes, which will arrive on Monday. Our current battle is with logistics. It isn’t clear where we and Paolo will be able to hook up, so that he can install the new membranes. And, our other HUGE unknown is, “Why do I need four new membranes?” These were new just two years ago. I’m not sure I’ll ever solve that particular mystery.

   

For years I’ve been fighting with my KVH internet satellite.

I have a nasty tendency to want to be amongst the first with any cool new technology. That means I often have release 1.0 equipment, and that is certainly true with my VSAT unit. My VSAT unit (from KVH) was one of the first ones made. Over the past seven years my satellite internet has had non-stop problems. It has been awesome when it worked, but it has been prone to random failure. I’ve been on a first name basis with KVH’s Vsat support team and they have gotten to know me much better than any of us would like.

During a call last week I told them that if they could find a way to swap my unit in one day, while in Siracusa, it would make both our lives a lot better. They said they’d give it a try, and worked their system to get me the lowest possible price. I was in Malta when I made that call, but planning to be in Siracusa, Sicily a few days later. We were only scheduled to be in Siracusa for a day or two, but KVH said they could make it happen, and they did.

On our second day in Siracusa, two technicians started out from Messina, a two-hour drive away, and showed up at the boat by 8 a.m. I picked them up from shore in the tender, Steven (from Seabird) carried the new V7 dome on his tender, and the techs worked without stopping, except for lunch, until 10:30 p.m.

They did a great job! Sans Souci’s VSAT is now the latest technology and is locking onto the satellite in minutes. A very special thanks to KVH who worked hard to make this happen, and especially to the two guys who were on my boat (Giovanni and his son.) The project did come at a cost, but I wish I had done it years before.

P.S. If anyone needs electronics work done in Sicily, contact: Giovanni, at Elettromar (Elettromar di Lo Forte Rosalia, Tel./Fax. 0941 874000 (Portorosa) , Mobile +39 3385852034 , Mobile +39 3351045636 , e-mail elettromar.me@gmail.com , http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elettromar-Messina/323823081154) VERY highly recommended.

And, in closing… (top)

And, that’s it for this issue of KensBlog… Thank you for following along on our big voyage!

If you missed my prior blog entries from this season, you may view them here:

• http://www.kensblog.com/2014/05/31/KensBlog-2014-01–Preparing-For-The-Season
• http://www.kensblog.com/2014/06/14/KensBlog-2014-02–Welcome-to-Italy
• http://www.kensblog.com/2014/06/24/KensBlog-2014-03–Rough-Seas-And-A-Visit-to-a-Historic-Town
• http://www.kensblog.com/2014/07/07/KensBlog-2014-04–Southern-Sicily-and-Malta

If you aren’t receiving my blog entries via email, click this link to register:

http://www.kensblog.com/register

I should also mention that this is one of two blogs that I do. My other blog is on Facebook, although you do not need to register with Facebook to view the blog. Just click on this link:

http://www.facebook.com/kensblogdotcom

My other blog is very different than this blog. I post to it almost every day, and post whatever I happen to be thinking about, without editing or filtering. I also tend to respond instantly to any questions. Check it out!

Thank you!

Ken and Roberta Williams
ken(at)kensblog.com
MV Sans Souci
Nordhavn 68
PS – In case you haven’t figured it out, clicking on any of the pictures above will give you a higher-resolution (bigger) version of the picture.

Welcome to Ken’s Blog! (top)

• Journey Map
• Marina Di Ragusa
• The Lumpy Road To Malta
• We’re Surrounded!
• Anchoring at Ramla
• Exploring Gozo
• Anchored at Gnejna
• Boat Geek Report
• Rescue at Sea!
• And, in closing

Journey Map (top)

Greetings all!

I am happy to report that two major milestones have been accomplished.

• First, we have just passed one THOUSAND miles of the twenty-five hundred miles we’ll run this summer
• And, more importantly, we have now reached the southern-most point of our journey. We have arrived in Malta.

This map shows our route so far. The red dots are portions covered in prior blog entries, and the blue dots are the portion of our journey covered in this blog entry.

Malta is one of the smallest, and most densely populated countries on earth.

Our next destination after Sicily would be the country of Malta; three tiny islands, south of Sicily, that form one of the smallest and most densely populated countries in the world.

Malta will be our last stop on our transit south. Once there, and with the exception of an overnight run to Sardinia or when the weather interferes, I hope to be sitting in beautiful anchorages, preferably admiring the view from Sans Souci’s rooftop hot tub.

But… I am skipping ahead. As of my last blog entry, we were in Siracusa, on the east coast of Sicily.

Marina Di Ragusa (top)

Another Nordhavn owner, whose path we crossed in Montenegro, mentioned that they had “wintered” their boat on the south end of Sicily at a marina called Marina Di Ragusa. They found it to be an inexpensive and great location to pass the winter. As I mentioned in a prior blog entry, we have already put deposits on moorage at the Imperia marina, near the French/Italian border. However, we have become nervous about Imperia after hearing they were in Bankrupcy and have been looking at other options.

My first reaction was that it would be impractical to winter at Ragusa. It is too far away from where we’ve planned to finish the season. Our plan has been to complete the season a thousand miles north of Sicily. That said, I’ve never let common sense come between me and satisfying my curiousity. So, we (Seabird and myself) wrote to Ragusa to find out what it would cost to moor our boats over the winter.

Back came the response. For Sans Souci it would cost only 2,760 euros (about $4,000 USD) to pass the winter at Marina Di Ragusa. By comparison, I’d be paying 21,000 euros (around $28,000) at Imperia. That’s a HUGE difference.

And, there are compelling reasons to winter at Ragusa….

• If we winter in southern Sicily we’d be close to Tunisia. There are two reasons for visting Tunisia: 1) Duty free fuel And, 2) We would reset our 18 month clock for having the boats in the EU.
• Marina Di Ragusa has a 160 ton lift. That’s large enough to lift my boat, and I’ll want fresh bottom paint to start the next season.
• Marina Di Ragusa has the option for haul-out (storing the boat on land) for not much more cost than storing the boat in the water. Storing the boat on land is great when you are on the other end of the world. It is much less stressful than worrying about how the boat is holding up every time there is a winter storm.
• Southern Sicily has reasonably good weather during the winter. We wouldn’t need to worry about the boat freezing.

The marina was only a short six hour run from Siracusa Sicily, and not too far out of our way for our run to Malta. So, we decided to drop in and check it out.

Sans Souci tied up at the dock at Marina Di Ragusa in Southern Sicily.

An extra benefit of the marina is that it is adjacent to a mile-long sand beach, loaded with restaurants.

Here you can see Sans Souci poking up over the marina wall at Ragusa. As usual, we are the tallest boat in the marina.

We were VERY impressed with the marina, and found some extra benefits we hadn’t expected. For instance, the marina seems to cater to the ex-pat community and prides itself on wintering boats for foreigners. Many of the restaurants stay open during the winter, and many of the ex-pats stay on their boats. It’s apparently a great place to be during the winter, with many owners staying on the boats and frequent events/parties.

Does all this mean Sans Souci and/or Seabird will be wintering at Ragusa this winter? I’m not sure. We would need to backtrack 500 miles or more, and I’m not so sure I want to do that. The current momentum is towards Seabird going to Ragusa and Sans Souci going north to France. That said, we’re keeping it loose and waiting to see where we finish the season. I liked Ragusa, and I certainly like saving money; but, there’s no part of me that ever believes in backtracking.

This screenshot from my chart plotter is a bit embarrassing! Notice the place where the little red line showing our track seems to have an extra squiggle right at the entrance? We exited the marina in the center of the entry channel, but the boat suddenly ground to a halt. When the boat stopped, my first reaction was that our engines had quit. I was outside bringing in fenders and Roberta was driving from one of the outside drive stations. I ran inside the boat to see why the engines had quit, and they were running! I knew we couldn’t possibly be aground. Perhaps we had snapped a line in the props or something? But, that also didn’t make sense. It really did seem we must be aground (sitting on the bottom,) but we had received no warnings from anyone about shallow water. We were in the middle of the entry channel, and I’d seen pictures of far larger boats than mine in the marina. All of that said, being aground was the only thing that made sense. Could the center channel entering the marina really be that shallow? I took over driving from Roberta and quickly realized we were indeed aground. Had we been driving from inside the boat we would have been watching the depth, but we were driving from outside the boat. I backed the boat up, pushing up the throttles to get us off the sand we were sitting on, then exited choosing a path much closer to the breakwater. Embarrassing, but otherwise, no problem.

The Lumpy Road To Malta (top)

There was a storm in Malta which was delaying our departure. We would have 50 miles of open ocean to cross and whenever we have the choice, our preference is for flat seas. After a couple days of waiting we had an “ok” but far from perfect forecast. We would have three to six foot seas, with 15 knots of wind, coming from our right side (starboard beam) throughout the run.

We knew our run south would be uncomfortable. And, that’s exactly how it played out. Sans Souci’s stabilizers worked hard the entire trip. The waves weren’t that tall, perhaps in the six to eight foot range, but they were incredibly close together (four second intervals) and exactly on our beam. They weren’t breaking, but always looked like they wanted to. Every four seconds we’d ride up a wave, then down the other side. At times like that I always wonder what would happen if our stabilizers (the giant fins beneath the boat that fight to keep the boat level) were to fail. We’d be fine, but we’d need to alter our course and slow down. Plus .. keep a supply of barf bags close by.

Our plan had been to stop at customs momentarily and then find a place to anchor. Because we were only staying long enough to clear
into Malta we were assigned a nice end-cap side-tie at the marina (Seabird also.) As you can see, Sans Souci looks big in the marina!

We were assigned temporary moorage at the dock at Mgarr Marina, on the island of Gozo, for the purpose of clearing customs. To our surprise both Seabird and Sans Souci had excellent end-of-dock sideties. We were fatigued after the day at sea, so I asked the marina guy tying our boats, “If we wanted to stay the night here, could we?” He said, “Sure.” I radioed to Seabird who also saw the wisdom, and a decision was made.

This was our first view of Malta looking out from the marina at Mgarr on the island of Gozo.

Each country we visit seems to have a specialty. In Italy it was pasta. In Malta it seems to be “Rabbit.” Every menu I’ve seen seems to have a rabbit dish.

Clearing into the country was both easier and harder than expected. Technically, I wouldn’t have thought we needed to clear in. Malta is part of the EU, and I wouldn’t normally expect to need to clear in and out of different countries within the EU.

Gozo, the northern-most island of Malta is the boondocks. I had been told that Gozo is less formal and that clearing in would be simpler, and indeed it was. The customs agents were extremely friendly and very curious about our boats and where we had been. The entire process took only a few minutes.

As this was my first trip to Malta I had many questions, and thought I’d ask the customs guys the most basic of them, “So, what language do they speak here?” Back came the answer, “Everyone speaks English and Maltese.” To which I asked, “So, what is Maltese like?” Being so close to Italy I was assuming that Maltese was some variation on Italian. Nope. “Maltese is very close to Arabic, but written using a Western alphabet.” Over the next few days I’d find that he was right on both counts. Malta has TWO official languages; English and Maltese. Although Maltese is the dominant language, everyone speaks good English and the road signs are either in English or both languages.

Malta has only recently become its own country (1974.) Most recently it was a British territory, which explains the english, and why the drivers drive on the left side of the road. Prior to Britain Malta was the territory of many other countries, including the Phoenicians, Romans, Moorish, Normans, Aragonese, Habsburg Spain, Knights of St. John, and the French.

Within minutes of tying the boats up and clearing customs, Steven (from Seabird) and I sought out a taxi to take us to town. We had a critical mission to accomplish! We needed internet SIM cards. Whenever we change countries we need to start the process over to figure out internet. We had already done research and knew that we wanted SIM cards from Vodaphone, which would give us 3g data for our computers. We drove about 15 minutes into the center of the island, to a large shopping mall, complete with a McDonalds, and a Vodafone store. We quickly purchased 3g dongles with sim cards, at 25 euros for 10 gigabytes of data, and returned to the boats.

After a nice evening in Mgarr, with dinner next to the marina, we were eager to see more of the island than just a marina, and decided to head to an anchorage Roberta had identified, but that I wasn’t sure was going to work.

This is our first look at the steep cliffs which form the Western shore of Gozo Island.

We’re Surrounded! (top)

Prior to our trip, Roberta had used the internet to identify potential anchorages. #1 on her list of places we needed to go was a small bay called Dwejra. It is only about 1,000 feet in width and surrounded by high rocks with the exception of a narrow entrance. To me it looked impossibly small. How could two Nordhavns possibly fit and have adequate room to swing at anchor?

After speaking with other Nordhavn owners I agreed that it was possible, and off we went.

As we approached the bay, I turned off the stabilizers. I always turn off the auto-pilot, stabilizers, and even take the throttles out of sync when approaching any type of maneuvering situation. I don’t want the boat doing anything creative. There was a bit of swell at the entrance, and Seabird was following close behind us. With the stabilizers off Sans Souci started rolling quite a bit. Seabird was immediately on the radio, “Is everything ok????” they wanted to know. I confirmed all was well, and pushed ahead.

Once into the bay I saw that there was plenty of room, and that it was incredibly beautiful. The bay was a perfect 25 feet deep, and given its small size, good protection, and the other boats around, I dropped only 100′ of chain. There were several other boats already in the bay, but we found room for both Sans Souci and Seabird with no problem.

Sans Souci, at anchor inside Dwejra bay.

This picture shows the cliffs surrounding where we were anchored.

   

Pictures of Seabird at Dwejra: At sunset, with Steven and Carol Argosy on the backdeck, and with Keely (one of our puppies) excitedly tendering over to visit Steven and Carol.

And, a panaramic picture of our anchorage can be clicking on this link:
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=ded42bdd-052e-4fb4-ba30-684aa5eb07d0

Adjacent to the “bowl” we had anchored in is this arch, called the “Azure Window.” We read on the internet that the giant arch is not safe to walk over, due to instability, but that didn’t seem to stop any of the tourists we saw walking above it.

As if the arch and Dwejra weren’t enough to make this one of the world’s great places to anchor, there was even more to see. From the Azure Window it is possible to tender back into many caves, one of which leads to an inland sea. Roberta and I tendered over with the puppies, but thought the passage looked too tight to do with so much swell. We decided to wait until the dead-calm of some early morning to give it a try. Steven and Carol (and their guest Tina) went for it one morning, and said that it was so tight that they barely fit, with craggy rocks on both sides of the narrow passage. We decided to pass, but if we go back to Dwejra, I hope to give it a try.

Anchoring at Ramla (top)

As great as it was at Dwejra, we wanted to see as much of Malta as possible, during our brief stay, and decided to move on. We had started circling Gozo clockwise, starting at the south end, and decided to keep going, to a beach we’d heard about on the north shore of Gozo. It was recommended to us by a waitress in response to my asking where the prettiest sand beach was.

Actually, the waitress recommended two beaches: Masalforn and Ramla. Normally we do a huge amount of planning when moving the boats, including identifying “bail outs” so that if we get somewhere, and don’t like it, we already have alternative destinations lined up. However, Malta is so small, and the distances so small, that we can get almost anywhere in a few hours. From Dwejra it was only about an hour’s run to Masalforn. On arrival it was a tiny bay, already filled with boats. The bay was lined with condos and restaurants, and looked fun, but .. it was just too tight. Thus, we ran another whole mile (I said the distances were tiny!) to the bay of Ramla.

We had arrived at Ramla on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and were not the only ones with the idea. There were probably 100 boats at anchor with kids swimming, jet skiing and having fun in every direction. There was more activity than we wanted, but it was a BEAUTIFUL location, and the bottom was a wonderful 16 foot depth. The shallower the water, the less chain we have to put out to have good holding in strong winds.

A panaramic view of Masalform Bay can be viewed by clicking on this link:
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=6915d0a8-7768-45c5-9d5f-404baaa8b015

Ramla. When we arrived we were surrounded by boats and people. Hours later, when the wind kicked up, we had the place to ourselves.

We spent a nice day at Ramla, but in the afternoon the wind started rising. A windless day at the beach became a windstorm within minutes. Quickly, all the boats disappeared, and we were left alone. The forecast had been clean, but suddenly we were seeing 20-25 knots of wind. It was too much for the smaller boats, but not a problem for us. We had a nice night, and were ready to move on the next day.

Exploring Gozo (top)

We were having a great time anchoring around Gozo, but knew that we really should see all the standard “tourist stuff” before leaving. We called the Mgarr marina to ask if we could have our same parking places, and they welcomed us back.

To see the island, we hired a taxi cab for the day. He asked if we wanted the three hour or the four hour tour. We asked for the four hour, but told him to expect that we’d sidetrack him with many errands. I wanted to go back to Vodafone to purchase more SIM cards. Both Steven and I have routers (from Peplink) that will accept multiple sim cards, combining the bandwidth together. We wanted all the internet we could get! Roberta wanted some fresh vegetables, and we also wanted the driver to run us to a grocery store. In between the errands we also wanted to see anything the island had to offer.

One thing we quickly learned about Gozo, and perhaps all of Malta is that it is a very conservative catholic country. 98% of Malta’s residents are catholics, and there are over 300 churches for its 300,000 residents, making it a ratio of one church per thousand residents. I’m new to Malta, so I can’t say much of anything definitively, but my sense was that the church is central to the Maltese’s lives, and that there is a strong sense of community. At least on Gozo, it is a small town atmosphere. The customs guys had warned me, on arrival, to expect to hear cannon fire. They said not to worry, that it is just a local celebration. We were hearing cannon fire and seeing amazing fireworks shows every night! I asked our cab driver what the celebration was, and he said that each week a different village would hold a feast. Eveyrone in the village would turn out, and it would be a huge celebration. This webpage http://www.carnaval.com/malta/festivals/ shows the schedule, but the events are a much bigger deal than is evident from reading the description. The villages take the festivals seriously and compete on food, fireworks and more. It is quite a sight!

Various photos from inside the St John Church on Gozo. It is a modern church built with a significant amount of volunteer labor by the local people. It has the second largest rotunda in the world.

A hillside we passed while driving, with a cross on top.

The Citadel We toured an old fort, built in 1500 BC. From Wikipedia: “In July 1551 an Ottoman force under Dragut attacked the Citadel, which succumbed with little resistance. The entire population of Gozo, which numbered to about 5000 to 6000 people, had taken refuge within its walls, and they were all taken as slaves except for about 300 people who managed to climb down the walls and escape.”

I saw this ancient anchor in one of the many museums we visited. The technology has come a long way over the years!

Ggantija is a Neolithic, megalithic temple complex on the Mediterranean island of Gozo. The Ggantija temples are the earliest of a series of megalithic temples in Malta. The Ggantija temples are older than the pyramids of Egypt. Their makers erected the two Ggantija temples during the Neolithic Age (c. 3600-2500 BC), which makes these temples more than 5500 years old and the world’s second oldest manmade religious structures, after Göbekli Tepe.

During World War II Malta’s strategic location caused it to become one of the most bombed locations ever. Malta holds the record for the heaviest, sustained bombing attack: some 154 days and nights and 6,700 tons of bombs. (I’ll talk more about that in my next blog, after we have visited Valletta (capital of Malta.)

Malta is a popular retirement destination for the British due to its warm climate, tax system (eg. no property tax), english language, safety, and responsive/reasonably priced medical system. It is also very popular as a tourist destination, with over three times as many visitors as residents.

Anchoring at Gnejna (top)

Our next stop in Malta would be the large island of Malta itself, which we knew would mean putting the boats into a marina and doing more “land touring” for a week. We were excited about seeing Valletta, the large city on Malta, but wanted a little more time at anchor first.

Seabird jumped ahead of us by one day wanting to drop anchor at the famous “Blue Lagoon.” I had used binoculars to look at the blue lagoon earlier and knew that it was likely to be disappointing. Unlike the picture below, the vision I saw resembled a crowded public swimming pool on a hot summer sunday afternoon. There were dozens of tour boats wedged into a small bay with hundreds of swimmers elbow to elbow. Seabird quickly realized that anchoring at the Blue Lagoon was impossible, but then discovered a place to drop anchor about 1/4 mile away that they said was the prettiest bay they had ever anchored in. We were jealous.

The Blue Lagoon on Comino Island in Malta. This picture must have been taken during the off-season, because in summer the reality is much more cluttered with swimmers and boats.

We needed one more night at anchor before a week in civilization and dropped anchor in the a quiet bay on the west coast of Malta; Gnejna.

And, something for the boat geeks… (top)

Overall, there isn’t much to talk about on the technical side. This has been a VERY trouble-free trip so far. The boat has taken us over 1,000 nm and I’ve barely entered the engine room.

That said, I have a water maker problem that has been a major headache. Following is a video I sent back to my mechanics in Seattle showing the problems I was having.

After viewing the video the decision was made that I needed a new salinity probe as well as a new solenoid for the valve that decides if water should be routed overboard or into the fresh water tank on Sans Souci.

Unfortunately, after this video was made the watermaker died completely. I hired a local technician in Malta who spent hours with the watermaker and finally decided that the high pressure pump was the culprit. Getting a new pump is difficult, and getting it installed is probably more difficult. I have a rebuild kit onboard for the pump, but I don’t feel qualified to take apart a pump and rebuild it. I’ve been assured it is easy .. so, maybe. This is one of two watermakers, and my other one is also acting up, so learning to rebuild pumps may be in my future. We’ll see.

One way or the other, these watermakers have served me very well. I have never put dock water into Sans Souci’s fresh water tanks and we’ve kept the watermakers busy for over 30,000 miles of world travel. This is likely to be the year they retire from service.

My only other technical issue is that Sans Souci has a KVH Vsat satellite internet unit. When it works, it works very well. However, a couple of times during this trip it has lost internet and then taken days to reacquire the satellite. After discussions with KVH we have decided that my “firmware” is out of date and I have a local technician from Malta coming to the boat to assist me in installing new firmware. This is a project that is within my core competency, so I could easily upgrade the firmware. However, the upgrade requires a computer with a serial connector, and I don’t have one onboard. There are USB to Serial adapters that can be found in some computer stores, and I “might” be able to find one, and had there not been a local KVH dealer here in Malta, I’d be spending the day out hunting for an adapter.

And, something not related to us… (top)

James Ellingford, a Nordhavn 62 owner, posted an entry on his blog (http://www.pendanablog.com) talking about the amazing rescue of a sailboat by a Nordhavn 47 during a 1,300 nautical mile passage from Vanuatu to Australia. Click the image above to read it (Or, Click this link).

On a sadder note, this boat, named Polar Bear was destroyed by a fire recently (click the picture to read the story.) Polar Bear had the slip next to mine at my home port in Seattle (where I still pay my slip rental, but haven’t been back in many years.) It’s a particularly heatbreaking story because these boats represent lifelong dreams. People work for 50 years to achieve retirement then work hard to select someone to build their dream boat, then work for years to get it built, and then .. one error by a welder and its all gone up in flames. The insurance company might give the money back, but how do you ever get the time back? I can’t imagine what the owner will do. Does he start another five year build cycle? (at age 79?)

And, in closing… (top)

And, that’s it for this issue of KensBlog… Thank you for following along on our big voyage!

If you missed my prior blog entries from this season, you may view them here:

• http://www.kensblog.com/2014/05/31/KensBlog-2014-01–Preparing-For-The-Season
• http://www.kensblog.com/2014/06/14/KensBlog-2014-02–Welcome-to-Italy
• http://www.kensblog.com/2014/06/24/KensBlog-2014-03–Rough-Seas-And-A-Visit-to-a-Historic-Town

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My other blog is very different than this blog. I post to it almost every day, and post whatever I happen to be thinking about, without editing or filtering. I also tend to respond instantly to any questions. Check it out!

Thank you!

Ken and Roberta Williams
ken(at)kensblog.com
MV Sans Souci
Nordhavn 68
PS – In case you haven’t figured it out, clicking on any of the pictures above will give you a higher-resolution (bigger) version of the picture.