Landlubbers again!

Given our decision to spend another couple of years in the Med, and with all the berthing difficulties in Malta and the boat registration situation, we decided to test the market and list Mischief ….and to our greatest surprise, shock actually, which found us totally unprepared, we had a couple expressing interest in the first month of listing the boat.

Of course, we did not take this seriously, and were still wondering whether these people were for real when they decided to come and visit the boat in Ragusa in March this year.

We had just spent the coldest two months ever in what turned out to be a record cold year in the Med – and Malta winters and headed to Ragusa to prepare Mischief for her not really very welcome visitors…. I am sure they must have thought we were mad – or madly in love with the boat because Bjorn and I kept on exchanging looks and asking each other if this was really what we wanted!

To our dismay, the young Spanish couple totally fell in love with our beloved Mischief and upped their price, and we really could not say no!  And there starts our new saga.

Our Sicilian spring turned out to be quite different from usual.  Instead of joining our cruising friends all happy to leave this winter behind them and busily getting their boats ready for another summer cruising season, we started going through the boat and trying to work out what to leave and what – and how – to take the rest off!  We did manage a few forays to explore more of Sicily, which we have grown to really love, even ‘discovering’ the largest Roman villa we have seen so far with the most amazing mosaics!  To be honest though, many of the many very ‘happy’ (read ‘boozy) time with our friends felt almost like wakes, so shell shocked were we with the way things had turned out with Mischief.

Bjorn and Kerry (Geronimo) sailed Mischief back to Malta in mid April, while Helen (Geronimo) and I drove our car back via ferry and spent a wonderful week or so together in Malta.  Our transition to land was somewhat eased taking a number of yachting friends who called into Malta on their way around the island.

It was also time to take stock of what we wanted to do now that we would be land bound, and so Bjorn and I turned our attention to renting an apartment to have as a base in Malta for the next couple of years whilst we enjoyed our parents in Malta and in Sweden and concentrated on land travel for the next few years.  We were indeed fortunate to find a lovely airy apartment just on the seafront in a quiet part of St Paul’s Bay, with a grandstand view of the bay and St Paul’s Island (where the apostle Paul got shipwrecked on his way to Rome). 

To celebrate our joint birthdays in May, we travelled to Venice and had a glorious couple of days going around the city that had so eluded us on our cruising trip up to Croatia.  We then went on to our friend Mara in Ravenna and enjoyed a leisurely week exploring the magnificent Po delta and some of the surrounding towns, villages and cities including the incredible Florence.

Our summer is indeed proving to be a busy one with my nephew’s wedding in mid June, and two of my sisters visiting for a couple of weeks.  Our daughter Annika comes out for a visit in July and then we are off to Sweden for 5 weeks to visit Bjorn’s family and do more land travel, this time hopefully going to St. Petersburg and Moscow, before returning to Malta once more to more friends visiting.

That’s it for now from us…. We’re hoping that sv.mischief changes from ‘sailing vessel mischief’ to ‘salty veterans (of) mischief…’ which means that our email address stays the same… who knows we may yet be back again on the water and heading west once more!!!