It was with great anticipation and excitement that we clamboured aboard the ferry back to Gozo after our stay in Malta had ended. We had found ourselves a fabulous AirBnB right on the harbour and our window overlooked the boatyard and marina. We were greeted by Ray the owner who is a local and extremely friendly, like all the locals here seem to be. We enjoyed a coffee overlooking the boats and watching the ferries coming in and out before we started to explore the island properly.
My afternoon walk took me along the stunning coastal path that overlooks the channel between Gozo, Comino and Malta. It was a lovely walk, the weather here in March was still quite windy but beautiful blue skies really give a taste of what the island is like. It looked very tempting at places to climb down the rocks for a swim but the water temperature would still be quite cold I think (well, that’s my excuse anyway – there were swimmers, but they were wearing wetsuits)
One thing I haven’t mentioned so far, and that we are still finding strange to adjust to is the early starts. It gets light before 6am so everyone is up and about. The harbour is used to exercise horses and we watched them having early morning swims and also in the evening they would stand in the salt water and walk about with their handlers. It was fascinating to watch and something that we imagine has probably happened for many years. Every day whilst we were there at least two horse boxes came with the horses to exercise them.
The next morning we headed off exploring the southern end of the island. This took us to the stunning Ramla Bay which is famous for it’s sandy beach. We stopped for a coffee at a kiosk (food truck) on the way and Skipper Nigel enjoyed a chicken wrap for breakfast, just a cappucino for me 😉 At around 25 square miles /67 square kilometres it doesn’t take long to get around the island, but even now that we have been here a couple of months it feels like there is a lot more to explore.
We had a great two days driving around and decided again to extend our stay. Ray was very helpful and we stayed on at our lovely little harbourside apartment whilst we enjoyed exploring more of Gozo.
In the town of Ghajnsielem (pronounced ainselm) which is right above the harbour at Mgarr (pronounced “M” jar ) we found a couple of lovely places for coffee and also the interesting statue in the photo – representing old vs new with a depicition of an older couple chatting on a bench, next to a young girl on her mobile phone with headphones on. It is very well made and from a distance the scene looks like it could almost be real.
We were feeling very, very happy here in Gozo and decided to take the next step and start looking to see if we could rent a place and come here to live. We found a lovely estate agent called Ritienne and we spent a fantastic day with her exploring the types of places available to live here. We looked at farmhouses, city houses and apartments, rural apartments and ones with sea views.
Now, some might say we are implusive but I couldn’t possibly comment – we fell in love with one of the first apartments we saw, overlooking the sea in the small town of Xlendi (remember we came here on our first day visiting the island). We looked at lots of places and amazingly we both fell for the same one, so, without further ado we decided to take a leap of faith and go for it! One thing about rental here in Gozo and Malta is that the market moves fast so before we knew it we were extending our stay and moving in ! (yes – literally within a few days). It was a Saturday morning when we packed our suitcases and said goodbye to Ray at the AirBnB – and wheeled up to say hello to our new apartment in Xlendi. It is fully furnished so no need to dash out and buy a bed or anything, all we had to do was sit down, look at the view and do a double take on how lucky we were to find it so quickly and to have this bolthole for our next adventures in life. The first evening of our time in Xlendi presented us with a fabulous sunset – a great sight to excite us for the times ahead.
A couple of days later and all too soon it was time for us to head back to sunny Spain and gather our belongings, sort out a house-sitter and pack our cases. It was a very exciting time (if a little stressful to be honest) and we were lucky that a few of our friends were around in Cartagena to celebrate and say adios (for now, or rather hasta luego). It happens every sailing season that bonds are formed during the “off” season, the winter months with lots of walking, coffee and cake and sundowners aboard each others boats. Every March, April time boats start moving off to enjoy more of the mediterranean or to head out across the Atlantic and there are goodbyes galore. It is quite likely that you’ll cross paths (or rather seas and ports) with other boats again as the mediterranean is quite a sailing circuit but it always seems that there are big goodbyes at this time of year as for sure, some of the familiar faces you won’t see again. In our case we have made lots of friends in Cartagena and when we come back to sail Gemini J over to Malta and Gozo most of them will be underway sailing elsewhere for the summer months. We will definitely see our friends again mind you, we are lucky that these friendships extend beyond boat life.
We walked up to the park that overlooks Cartagena on one of our last walks of the winter and saw the fabulous peacocks that we can hear from the marina. It is a strange thing in the marina that we not only hear seagulls all the time but also the very loud cawing of the peacocks. We didn’t know what was making the sounds for a while but once we learned they always make me smile (although I have to admit they are very loud!). When we were welcomed to our apartment in Xlendi we opened the patio doors to step out onto the terrace and lo and behold – the cawing of peacocks !! What are the chances of moving from Spain to Malta and finding more peacocks to wake you up 🙂
After our last few days shutting down Gemini J and getting her ready to await our return it was back home to pack and organise for everything to be looked after at our house before our adventure proper begins……the next time we’re back aboard the boat we hope to be setting sail for Gozo and that will be another story 😉
The Adventures of Gemini J 