HELLO FROM BALLERINA - AT ANCHOR OUTSIDE MGARR HARBOUR OF GOZO.

Where Gozo is? Quite a few of you will know, of course. But we would be a little surprised if everybody on our mailing list immidiately would know that the republic of Malta consists of more than the island of Malta itself. Gozo is the second largest island - which really does not say very much. Then there is Comino where about 27 -twentyseven - people live all year, and finally Flifla - inhabited only by birds.

Does it sound nice to anchor in Blue Lagoon of Malta? Well, it is rather nice - maybe even a bit romantic… We sailed from Pantelleria about ten days ago, and except for the first night when we checqued in and therefore found it convenient to stay in Gozo marina, we have been lying at anchor five days i Blue Lagoon, and the last three days just outside Mgarr harbour. And we really have been LAZYYY… The weather has simply been far to warm for most activities. During the years we have been sailing have we never experienced anything like the last couple of weeks. Very little wind - if any at all, perfect weather with the sun shining constantly from a blue sky, and a fantastic temperature in the water, which in itself is clean, clear and blue. We have spent hours in the water - on one occasion we swam the whole Blue Lagoon and further just to explore - a swim about two nautical miles. We start every day with a little swim before breakfast, and often we end it in the same way - with a swim after dark. The plan is to keep it this way until the weather gets a little cooler.

I think we ended last letter telling about our trip to Galicia - more than half a year ago, I must admit.

Sorry about that. We set off from Caleta in the beginning of february, just to go to Almerimar to have solarpanels installed. We ar really quite satisfied about that - no we can ceep the fridge going all the time. We did well without it also, but of course it is nice to be able to buy fresh food and keep it for a couple of days, especially when we stay at anchor.

We really met at lot of nice people in Almerimar, and the prices in the harbour were reasonable, but we would not dream of staying the winter there. So when the work on the boat was finished, we continued

eastwards - our plan was to be on the Ionian islands in ay, when they are green and fertile.

Mediterranean in march and april is quite a challenge - we had a lot of really nice sailing, but also had to spend a lot of time at safe anchorages or harbours to wait until the force 7 - 10 ended. Fortunately the harbour fees are not so high at that time of the year - in Mahon we payed 5 euros incl. water and el.

(But of course the gale broke the water hose and the el. cable )

We have wisited places known from our last attempt to get into the eastern part of the Med. , but also a lot of unknown places. Where we HAD to go, was Cagliari on Sardinia, where we met so many nice people the last time, and fortunately we - by accident - met one of our old sardinian friends on the mole.

He spontanously invited us for dinner the same night - and my god, what a dinner !! Oysters with champagne, grilled fish, spaghetti Napolitana, grilled pork (a speciality from Sardinia), salads, more wine

etc, etc. We really enjoyed the night together with these people, being allowed to come to a private home, meeting their friends and trying to keep a conversation going on a mixture of spanish, italian, english and german - we call it an “ensalada mista” - but it worked quite well.

The next morning we set sails for Tunisia together with new friends on board “Bilbo” - Bizerte was the destination. We were a little worried for the crossing, because we had been told the night before at the dinner by a policeofficer that there were a lot of american warships controlling the passage between Sardinia and Tunisia because of the situation in Irak, but we did not see anything at all.

All together at beautiful crossing - the first day with two reefs in the main and the genoa rolled in a bit, but the night was calm, and we aproached Bizerte at about eight o`clock in the morning.

At this time, we had skipped the plan of going rapidly eastwards. Bjørns mother was going to have a big heart operation in the beginning of May, so we had to stay in the nearness of an airport to be able to go back to Norway to assist when she got out og hospital. So now we were not in a hurry, and could really enjoy the north coast of Tunisia - Carthago being the most important site to visit.

The passing of Cap Bon was interesting, as all the Cap`s are, with a really strong wind on the nose, our planned anchorage showed up to be impossible to enter, and the dark coming quickly. We reefed down, and in the late night (or early morning?) we came to our former “Winter Camp” - Kelibia, where old friends were waiting.

And of course, since we “ended” our journey in Pantelleria two years ago, we had to go back there. Old friends were wating for us, and when we came to the new harbour of Pantelleria, we very soon made a lot of new friends from Sweden and Norway. The last weeks on Pantelleria before we left the boat on the hard there and travelled back to Norway, turned out to be a long, long nice come-together with friends, with a lot of nice talk, eating together (also on the 17. Of May, the Norwegian national day). And as always, when we are on that island, we have at least ONE gale. This time also. And the harbour was full of boats - sailing yachts and fishing boats - and one night, the fishermen on “ENEA” and “Oscar” invited us all for dinner A beautiful evening with excellent food - scampi, salad, fresh bred, grilled fish ……..

and a lot of singing - everything from “Sole Mio”to “She loves You”. This is WHY WE ARE SAILING.

Then we went back to Norway for two months, and came back in the end of july. Ballerina then got a new propellar, a new gearwire, a lot of fresh water for cleaning and we were ready to continue -

and as you now know, we have finally reached Malta.

The stay in Norway turned out to be very nice also. Bjørns mother has recovered very quickly from the operation, and she is already feeling a lot better than she did before. And since she needed much less help than we had expected, we also had some time to visit other family and a few friends.

Our plans for the future are vague as usual - we want to see more of Sicily before the end of the season, and our son Tore is going to visit us somewhere the last two weeks of sept. So we are starting to think that maybe the Ionian islands are still there next May ?

We wish you all a coninuing nice summer and autumn, and hope to receive many more e-mails…

Best regards from Nina and Bjørn “Ballerina”