Monday 16th April
The plan was to leave on Wednesday so we had a lot to do. Today
was tricky. School was hard work as both kids were tetchy as they always are
before a big change and despite us knowing that this is always the case we still
didn’t manage to keep things calm enough to prevent the shouting and arguments.
However at the end of the day we were a little closer to leaving. We know from
experience that during these periods of change we just need to weather the
storm, trying to minimise the damage to our little family’s emotions as best as
possible. In the afternoon Julia kindly
watched our kids so that Patrick and I could go together to a meeting about
sailing in the Ionia. The meeting was at the Stella Marina Bar and it was nice
to have a beer and enjoy what may well be our last child free time for a while.
Tuesday 17th April
This morning we said goodbye on the Marina di Ragusa radio
net. This has been a 9am constant in our lives Monday to Saturday for the last
5 months and it felt strange being the ones shouting out on the “hi and goodbye”
section, particularly as at this point we weren’t sure if we’d be leaving
Wednesday or Thursday. We decided on a no school day as we don’t usually do too
much on a Tuesday anyway as we head off to the market as a family. 
After stowing the last load of washing the next job was to
head up to the chandlery to buy our Maltese courtesy flag, then the next stop
was the market to stock up on fresh food. Whilst Esme played with Beau, Kai and
Zoe, AJ and I went up to Eurospar to get the other bits and pieces I needed as
well as the makings of a picnic to eat at the park. Afterwards I grabbed a lift
back with Bianca and all our shopping whilst the kids and Patrick
walked/scooted back. In fact AJ got back only a couple of minutes after me!
With all the shopping stowed but still a lot of stowing to finish we had
another look at the weather. There was a possibility of thunderstorms on
Wednesday and what looked like great wind for sailing on Thursday so we made
the decision to delay our departure a day. I also attended a meeting run by
Steve Neal on his website noforeignland.com which is an amazing resource for
finding reviews of marinas and anchorages as well as finding other boats. This
started off as a small project for his friends but is growing by the day and he
is now happy for us to publicise it for anybody to use. The delay also gave me
the opportunity to photocopy/print the relevant pages of the Nautical Almanac
so that I will be able to practice astro navigation on some of our longer
crossings if I get chance.
Wednesday 18th April
School went much better today after the day’s break with
both kids managing to do some maths they were finding challenging, and also
some history. We are using the History audio book “Story of the world” along
with the corresponding activity book. I was hoping that we would have got to
the Greek section by now, and AJ is desperate to start studying Ancient Greece
so we made a decision to finish the current chapter and then move on to the
Greeks….. luckily the printer was still out so I could photocopy the relevant
sheets from the book! In the afternoon I grabbed a lift to MD supermarket to
top up with bread and also take advantage of not having to lug shopping back in
a trolley and stock up on drinks and other heavy items. Then it was full steam
ahead trying to stow away the last bits. I’m not entirely sure if it is the
same on bigger boats but I find that with four of us on a small boat there are
always some items that don’t have a home and are transferred around the boat
from one space to another. The other thing that also surprises me is that if I
manage to put time and effort into stowing things carefully I can fit a lot
more in. At some point in the afternoon we made a decision to have pizza for
tea in order to cut down on cooking/washing up and more importantly as a last
chance to have some fun with our friends so at 6pm we wandered down, ordered
pizzas and sat and ate them looking out over the beach. Some kind people had
brought prosecco and we all had a lovely evening, some getting rather more
sanded up than others!
Thursday 19th April
Still more last minute jobs so we set the alarm for 6am and
pottered around filling water tanks and tidying the last little bits away. Kids
eventually woke up and then at 7:30 our friends gathered on the pontoon to wave
us off. It was a sad goodbye but not too teary as we are sure we will meet
these guys at some point this summer. I suspect it will be harder saying
goodbye if we do meet up as at that point I’m sure we won’t know if we’ll ever
see them again, although I’m hoping for a MdR 2017/18 reunion at some point.
We motored for the first couple of hours and the kids were a
little subdued after saying goodbyes. It was a little rolly and I struggled to
be below decks. Esme insisted on breaking open the ginger biscuits and ate a
completely unreasonable quantity even though she says she shared them with her
new “dog” Cocoa.
Esme was determined to spend more time on deck than usual which
I was pleased about and she enjoyed our new (scavenged from the pagoda) cockpit
cushions and snuggled under her “Nana Blanket”.
By 9:30 we had turned the engine off and were sailing, enjoying
a reasonable speed all day except for an hour or so over lunchtime where we
needed to motor sail in order to maintain enough speed to arrive before dark.
Eventually we entered the channel between Gozo and Comino,
dropped our sails and motored into the Blue Lagoon. It was beautiful but far
more crowded than we had anticipated, something I’m sure we are going to have
to get used to as the season moves on. During our usual circuit of the
anchorage to choose our spot we were hailed by a catamaran who turned out to be
another family who had wintered in Licata but briefly visited MdR and joined us
for a BBQ. They too had just arrived and announced there was plenty of room…. As
I said, we have much to learn about anchoring!
Once the anchor was down we had a celebratory beer (adults)
and orange juice (kids) with some lovely nibbles and enjoyed the view.
Then down below for dinner in front of a movie (it had been
too lumpy for us to allow kids electronics on the way). Kids took themselves to bed and then Patrick
and I followed shortly after, me sleeping with my phone next to my head
monitoring our position, not fully trusting the anchor alarm or my instincts to
wake up if something was wrong…. Again something I’m sure that will change as
the season moves on. All in all a good day and we are glad to be on our way!
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