Comino (Part 1)

For the weekend, Barry and Catherine had hatched a plan. Barry’s best friend and his wife were visiting from Ireland for the weekend and he wanted to take them sailing. They would all sail on Barry’s yacht, Dinah; we would join the party on Blue Velvet; and Barry and Debbie, friends of Barry and Catherine, who we had met only very briefly, would also be there on their yacht Blue Moon.

The rendezvous would be a bay on the western side of Comino which we hoped would provide good shelter from the forecast winds. Our pilot book said little about the cove but on its chartlet highlighted that there are ‘caves and arches’; it looked to be an interesting anchorage.

Photo taken when we came into Dockyard Creek but it gives a rough idea of how narrow it gets   

Comino is a small island between Malta and Gozo about 12 miles up the coast from Valletta. Aiming to be up there for lunchtime we left our mooring in Dockyard Creek at 1000hrs and almost instantly got into a traffic jam. As we approached the narrowest point of the channel we were faced with a large tripper boat coming the other way. We tucked ourselves into the side of the channel to let this pass and completely missed Barry and Catherine waving at us from Dinah in the Grand Harbour Marina.

Checking in with the Harbourmaster to get permission to transit through and leave the harbour we were advised that ‘the range was active’. Now military ranges with live firing are definitely things to avoid but what did we need to avoid? There were no ranges marked on our new paper chart of Malta! Nicky scurried below and found a range marked on our electronic chart and so we elected to head much further away from the coastline than we had originally planned to avoid getting accidentally shot!   Much later, the NAVTEXT spewed out a notice about extra firing sessions and the coordinates on that matched those on our charts, even if many of the other vessels seemed to just be sailing through the range!

The ‘caves and arches’ bay on Comino. Blue Moon just to the left of our bow   

Sadly, after hoisting all the sails and initially making progress, the wind decided to die away completely. Sailing turned into motoring, which was a shame, but at least we gave the batteries a good charge.

Approaching the ‘caves and arches’ bay on Comino we could instantly see that it looked beautiful and that we’d been beaten there by several other yachts, including Blue Moon.

We briefly said hello and then nosed BV into an enclosed bay to our left to take a quick look at the turquoise shallows and the cave there.

Moving back out into the anchorage we juggled a couple of anchoring spots finding one to be poor holding with shallow sand over rock, avoided the area that Marcus and Debbie warned had a large rock with little water over it and eventually settling in a deeper area a little further out.

Dinah arrived and it was quickly apparent that something was not quite right. It turned out that one of their guests was suffering from mal de mer. Whilst they went ashore for a walk (no one is seasick sitting under a tree!), we donned wetsuits and went for an explore of the ‘caves and arches’. This was both excellent and a little unsettling. Excellent because the water was clear and the caves went a long way into the cliffs (one about 80 metres). Unsettling because a string of fast tripper boats kept turning up and driving into the same caves that we were swimming into. Not trusting them to miss us, we stuck close into the cliffs and kept a good lookout. [Ed: a yellow swimming cap was an inspired purchase a couple of winters ago!] However, we did swim though some jolly good caves and arches .

When we all assembled on Blue Moon for drinks a little later, it was clear that we had caused a few moments of concern when we had been seen going into a cave, closely followed by a powerful speedboat, but not seen coming out. All was well when we were spotted right around the other side of the bay dodging some other tripper boats.

Sadly, the mal de mer casualty did not improve and so Barry and Catherine did the wise thing of heading home. As a bit of a double whammy, the swell that was working its way into the bay did not subside, as it had been expected to, during the early evening.

Morning, anchored in Blue Lagoon. Tower of Comino (c1618) in the background   

We left it until 7pm but then decided that the swell would be there all night and so elected to move around to the aptly named Blue Lagoon. Dropping anchor at dusk we shared the tranquillity with a large motor yacht and a Polish sailing yacht and had an excellent, undisturbed night’s sleep.

Come the morning the motor yacht and Polish yacht had moved on, replaced by a couple of smaller motorboats. Despite the reputation for the bay being busy, all seemed well and through the clear waters of the Blue Lagoon we could see that our anchor was firmly dug in.

Mgarr, the main port on the island of Gozo   

Looking out of the Blue Lagoon, to the northwest, we could see Mgarr, the main port on the island of Gozo; we expect to be visiting Mgarr in a week or so.

The Tower of Comino which overlooks the anchorage was the result of a long series of petitions to the Knights of St John to protect the island which was vulnerable to pirate attack. The first petition was in 1416 but the Tower of Comino was finally built in1618. Despite the protection of the tower, the island has always remain sparsely populated and even today the island has just one hotel and a few inhabitants.

Comino, Malta