Cruising South of France

On the 10th we departed Monaco for St. Tropez and did the usual morning anchorage at Pampelonne beach and evening in front of the town for two days. On the 12th we moved in front of Juan les Pins and on the 13th we departed for Porto Cervo.

m/y Predator

South of France

South of France

South of France

South of France

m/y Force India

m/y Force India

Sailing the Italian riviera

So 30th July we departed Valletta for Monaco and arrived there on the 1st August early morning and were kept busy by provisions and last minute setups. We moored in the corner next to the cruise line jetty next to Niarchos m/y Atlantis II.

M/y Christina O

Porto Cervo entrance

We soon left again on the 2nd for Cannes and departed same evening, then we arrived Porto Cervo on the 3rd morning where we moored inside the marina stern to. 

Porto Cervo

Porto Cervo

m/y Nero

On the 4th we were on the move again and arrived Capri on the 5th where we anchored in front of Marina Piccola. 

m/y Nero

Sunset

We did not tarry long here either and left the same day for Bonifacio where we arrived on the 6th. At Bonifacio we anchored for the day to admire the stairs and the fortifications from times gone by. 

Sunset 

Later in the afternoon we shifted to the Roccapina beach for the evening in Corsica. We left by nightfall and arrived St. Tropez on the 7th in front of Pampelonne beach and shifted in front of St. Tropez itself by late afternoon. 

Sunset

Sunrise

Bonifacio

Bonifacio

Bonifacio

Bonifacio

Bonifacio

Indian Empress in front of Bonifacio

We left St Tropez on the morning of the 8th for Monaco and arrived there a few hours later. We arrived Monaco in good order despite the strong mistral wind blowing.

m/y Air

m/y Air

m/y Le Grande Bleu

m/y Maltese Falcon

St. Tropez

French riviera while mistral is blowing

BBQ in the country side

Anil had been invited to a BBQ in the Maltese country side and he asked me taggle along. On the menu was rabbit stew and other stuff to eat. We met up with Anil's friend and we drove off to the hills and soon enough we arrived to a country house that was rather rugged. The surroundings were quite rocky too, not difficult to understand how the stonewalls on the Island have come about when clearing land for farming. Food was good although the stew was not that great but I did not have anything to complain about.

Anchor swivel project

Today we had a bit of a project to replace the swivel on the port side anchor. As we were alongside but our bow was overlapping the end of the jetty by some 25m we could not simply lower it down and hoist it onto the pier. 

New swivel

We used two underwater balloons with 1t lifting capacity and 2 divers with gear, I was one of them and our rescue boat. The anchor was lowered into the water and we attached the underwater balloons and inflated them. After that we gave more slack on the chain and the rescue boat towed the anchor closer to the jetty. There we had a truck with a crane, lent from our agents Melita Marine. 

New swivel

We attached the end of the hook to the chain and the anchor was lifted onto dry land. There we separated the anchor from the chain by opening the schackle that had been used to replace the old swivel that had broken. After that we started installing the swivel which looked easier than it was done. The pin was harder to hit into place and ended up grinding off some material off the end. 

Locking pins

It took some hard black-smithing to hit the pin into place so that we could hit the locking pins in as well. The locking pins were not that tight so in the end we welded them into position to prevent anything dropping out. When all was done it was another job to do the anchor lifting in reverse. Eventually it all went well and the anchor was hoisted into the pocket without any hitches. Job completed.

Welded locking pins

Maltese festa

Rockets in skyline

In the evening I was seriously sunburned from the jetski trip but I went out as I was invited by Diaz and Jasmond to go and see the festa at the Msida church. I have never seen anywhere people being so obsessed by fireworks as during the days I had been to Malta I could see firework displays taking place at different locations over the Island. The festa is arranged for the local saint that the church is dedicated for. I was also told that the people doing the firework displays tinker with these all year long for this day. I think the video I shot shows it pretty well...

Msida church

Jetski to Gozo

As we had new jetski's onboard we needed to run them in a bit to reach the 10h service mark and me and George decided to take a sight seeing trip to Gozo while getting two flies in one blow. We set off and the seas were rather calm and we could keep up good speed. While getting to the NE corner of Malta Island the seas coming in through the sound between Malta and Gozo became quite high. The view of Comino Island and Gozo were breathtakingly beautiful with their rugged cliffs. We stopped on the way to Baia beach lounge as some crew was there spending a Saturday in sunshine.

Mgarr ix-Xim

Mgarr ix-Xim

We tied up the jetski's on mooring buoys and chatted for awhile. Then we were off again as we felt hungry and wanted to have some seafood on Gozo we swam out and hopped on the jetski's to carry on our trip. It was not long before we came to the long inlet of Mgarr ix-Xim and we slowly puttered in there as it was full of visiting sailboats and swimmers. 

Entrance to Mgarr ix-Xim

Entrance to Mgarr ix-Xim

Again we tied the jetski's at buoys and we clambered ashore. We did not need to walk far and we sat at the one and only fish restaurant at the beach and we ordered calamari and rockfish with salad. The food was delicious and we enjoyed it very much. We sat a while digesting the meal and contemplated the view. Then it was time to start head back before it became dark so we paid the bill and ambled along the beach to the jetski's. 

George giving it his best

Gozo and Comino

On the way back we stopped again at Baia and Bethany and Liz there took a spin but we had to interrupt their fun as the fuel gauges showed almost empty. We could not find anywhere anyone selling gasoline so we started towards Manoel Island on "economic" speed, i.e. not pedal to the metal and expecting the engine to die anytime soon. As we came closer and closer to Manoel Island the engines kept running without any problems and eventually we arrived safely back to the ship. It turned out the gauges were not very accurate and we had had an unnecessary scare.