After the Medicane we said our last and sad goodbyes to the wonderful crew of It’s a Doddle and headed back north to Argostoli in Kefalonia. It’s nice and sheltered and the bay is full of huge turtles. It’s a big town and great for provisioning. Highlights of that port were:

• Meeting new friends, the Aussie crew of Arakai, they have two wonderful children and we all had a great time in the abandoned marina there
• We adopted a wonderful cat
• There was lots to do and see, we had a great time, I think it was our third visit by that time
• Great supermarkets

We then picked a great forecast and set sail for Malta. Unfortunately as is normal with Mediterranean forecasts, it was totally and utterly wrong. Instead of winds off the starboard beam at c15 knots there was absolutely no wind for two days. We even stopped half way and swam off the boat.

Calm waters half way between Greece and Malta

The second two days we had far too much wind and waves ending in a big thunderstorm coming into Valletta with a 2 metre swell and a competing cruise ship for the entrance. Lovely!

During the storm we had an awful downwind jibe blowing up a cleat that held the mainsail preventer and pulling out a deck eye that held the running backstay. We were lucky and all is fixed now.

We anchored at 4am off Msida marina and had a very rolly night. We tried again to suck up the anchorage swell the next night but with an approaching thunderstorm we gave in and found the very last berth in the marina. Where upon our newly adopted cat said sod this and ran off, never to be seen again. She wasn’t a ships can evidently.

We were berthed at the top of the marina, above the centre of the shot

Squashed in, the last berth in Msida marina

It was the famous Middle Sea yacht race start and finish during our time there, so all the available berths were taken up by carbon fibre racing boats and fit trendy young sailors making me feel very old and tatty.

We had a great time in Malta. Highlights were:

• The science museum for kids
• Visiting the Playmobil factory
• Watching Hotel Transylvania 3 in English at a real cinema
• Buying Cadbury’s chocolate and baked beans

Happy children, happy parents.

During the crossing our generator failed and then in Malta I broke it more trying to fix it, story to be continued in the winter update later.

On 27 October we set sail for Marina di Ragusa in Sicily and our home for the winter. Just in time for the big children’s Halloween event. It was like coming home.