Day 7 - the 12th

It was time to leave Malta - bye Malta!
A lot of us were on the deck to witness leaving.

Being pushed and pulled into position by tugs and having the military with the 7mil machine guns at the ready - really does make you aware they are NOT playing.  After the USS Cole it makes me feel better.  They had guards posted any time we were docked as well - walking the deck.  Makes you think twice about being safe while you're in a foreign country.  I did feel safe, by the way... just makes you think twice about being a true target and makes you behave on your best behaviour while out and about.  Not that you shouldn't be always as a guest in someone else's country.

 There is a pilot boat tucked up under the back... picking up the pilot who gets you out of port.  I did find out that they cost an estimated $250,000 for every time a pilot is needed to bring a big ship into port.  The cruise ships are three times bigger than our ship - which is surprising.  BUT they are paid well for what they do!

 Back to open ocean.
I was on the deck above the wheel house - attempting to watch the sunset in the gale force winds... I huddled down below the wall for a bit, but it was way too cold and blustery for me!!

Pictures for Liz.

Here is the light switch in the bathroom - you'll note it's a three way.  down was for red lights at night, up was full lights and middle was off. 

The shower in the head that I used while on board.  Yep - one very small shower, but it wasn't told to us to do "Navy showers" so it wasn't horrible.  The water was pleantiful and hot, what more could you want?

 The sink in the main head - not sure where the potty picture went but just picture black toilet seat tucked into a corner similar to the sink.  The door had locks on both sides for when you left it wasn't left swinging in the waves.

 Never knew it was a CHT system... so "chit?" hahahaha!  Sorry!  Couldn't resist!

 I have NO idea where my picture went of the hall way in the red lights... maybe it didn't take...

Day 6 - 11th of February

Today was a work day for me for most of the day but I did get to escape for dinner.  I found a battle buddy - aka someone to go off the boat with as we go in pairs at a minimum.

We were just in time to watch the cannon's shooting off at 4pm - fun times!

  

After the cannons finished we headed out to see some sights - we were told there was a good walking area near the Hard Rock Cafe in St Julians.  They lied.  Well, there were lots of "gentlemen's clubs" and a few restaurants but nothing of note that we would want to eat at - most of them were bar foods.  And we saw the Holiday Inn there as well - it was cute for sure!  The beach there was very spongy with some sort of palm debris that washed up.

 Warnings at the beach.

On the way to where we knew there were other areas where there was better food we ran across a fish pedicure place.  Too fun!  I begged John (battle buddy for the night) into going with me for just 10 minutes.   He had tried to talk his wife into going in Greece but she wouldn't go - so he decided to go and see what it was all about.  It was quite interesting!  Fun times!!

And everywhere you go American fast food has taken over - between McDonalds and the like there was a Pizza Hut.  Funny, eh?

This time we ate at a restaurant right next to the one we went to the first night - this one was Gululu.  It was quite tasty with rabbit spaghetti.  I also had an appetiser with fried cheese and sundried tomatoes.  It was quite tasty on their crusty breads!

The rabbit spaghetti was pretty tasty as well.  We also had coffee and desserts - mmmm.  Gotta love it.

We took a cab back to the top of the wall, or so we thought - the taxi driver had NO idea where he was taking us and we ended up somewhere weird where we had to hike HILLS again - did I tell you exactly how tired I was of hills and swollen knees and HILLS?  yeah, my knees were twice the size of what they should be and I was starting to limp at times... I'm OUT OF SHAPE!!  BUT I did it... I made it back up the hill - panting and miserable, but made it.  Then we were going to go through the town a bit, but decided to just walk down to the boat as we had already had dessert...so we wandered down to the boat and got back on... and called it a night...

Isn't this a great shot of the boat all lit up!

Day 5 - 10th of Feb

Monday - really should have been a work day... but wasn't for me.  I had worked the weekend.  I decided since I didn't have a lot of play in the game as it was going I would leave for the day and explore Malta with some others from the ship.

It was a great time.  We went to the island of Gozo where they actually raise the rabbits that I ate last night!!  By the way one of the ones I was with last night LtCol D was kidding me that he couldn't eat his friends as he had rabbits growing up. Obviously not from a farm!  ha!  I should be a little more caring towards those feelings, but the other gentleman in the group with us went to dinner with me on the last night and HE had rabbit so I don't feel so bad :)

 Me enjoying SUNSHINE!!  LOVE me some sunshine!!!

When we got to the dock we hired a cab for the whole day - it was awesome.  We had this lady fur the duration of the day - she waited for us at each stop and pointed us in the right direction to see the best stuff.  All for 80 Euro - which split three ways was very reasonable.

first stop was Ggantija Megalithic Temples - they were quite interesting - lots of history and quite small for all the stuff they got out of there... I have to say I love their LOVE of chubby women :)

 I don't know why I didn't take a picture of the actual ruins... I did on this inside, but not the outside.  Weird.  AND for some crazy reason the photo's on my camera are showing as corrupt... so if I want you to see them I have email them to myself then add them, so honestly holes in rocks are just not thrilling enough to move them over here.  Suffice to say there is quite a bit of scaffolding and quite a few VERY large rocks that they were moving around way back when before Stonehenge.  So there you go - short, sweet - go check the site for more details and photos.  Sorry folks!

Next stop was Calypso's cave.  I think it's all hearsay, but the cave itself is in limestone rock, so you can just guess what happens over hundreds of years.  Yes, it's collapsing.  It is almost falling off the face of the cliff and it's not longer able to be visited on the inside... you can see the entrance, you can peer down the hole, you can see the old brass handrails going down in, but nope you can't go there ...and you can see the HUGE crack in the surface of the rock ... and it's only getting wider as the years progress.... so that cave will soon be a thing of the past.  Wonder if they will take the cave further along and make that the "calypso" cave?  Probably not as this one is well advertised.

The view from the top of one of the more popular beaches (Ramla Beach) was GREAT!

Next up the Citadel.  It was quite impressive.

 We walked to the top of the walls and had a view of the ocean on all sides.  The one more towards Malta was more towards the pass, but it was all within view.  Very tiny island.

Top of the wall overlooking the countryside.

Up next: The Ruin of the Azure Arch (again, it's all lime stone, so it's all crumbling)

 What you see in the distance - the smaller cliff island is "Fungus Rock" it was said to be an island that was the only place a certain fungus could be found that was used for medicine back in the day.

 The blue hole was also here but I never did see it... because I was looking in the wrong direction.

There was also an 'inland sea' where the ocean can be reached from it.  It was an interesting spot, but with the amount of collapse that could be seen with the Azure Arch I would question going through a cave to get to the ocean from there - yikes - collapse?  It's always possible!!  Scary... but it's where some of the scuba divers get on their boats before heading out and where some divers dive and then go out to open ocean.  Doesn't sound like anything I want to do!!


This is what the rock looks like

 lots of crushed and captured sand dollars.

 Lots of tide pools but there was nothing in them as they were too high and would get too hot during the day I'm sure!

Next up: Ta Pinu Cathedral   They were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Pope.

Up next the fishing Village for dinner.  

BUT on the way down - we went to see the salt beds

They manually clean all of these in the spring and pump water in to ... then they will let them dry most of the summer and manually collect the salt from them.  

It was COLD in the shade, but it was very pretty - just LOOK at the clarity of that water!!!

I didn't take a picture of the pizza because it was nothing to write home about.  I got the one with Gozo cheese.  Honestly it was a harder cheese, but not crumbly... but it filled the spot.  This was the shrimp cocktail.  I'm spoiled I like them deveined, so this was very gritty and more of a shrimp salad as it had lettuce etc under it.  Very weird but not horrible.

 FUN fish knockers in the city.