Friends Inbound

The weather has been a little strange over the last week in that it was quite hazy and overcast. Every now and then there has been a very brief heavy rain shower, sometimes lasting just 30 seconds, associated with thunderstorms. That the clear blue skies had been replaced by haze was not much of a problem but the rain drops were laden with brown sand. Add in some wind to blow extra sand off the top of La Macina renovations and it wasn’t long before BV was looking rather scruffy.

Not a bad view whilst doing cleaning and polishing chores   

We had washed her down with fresh water before we went sailing for the weekend but now that we were back in our berth we could put off a good clean no longer. Not least of which, we had some very good friends of ours, Ollie and Sheena, arriving at around 5pm to stay with us for a few days.

Amid all our cleaning and polishing a very shiny looking ‘gentleman’s yacht’ arrived. Looking up through our portholes it looked like the bow was almost overhanging BV as she positioned to reverse into her mooring on the opposite side of the creek.

BV looking shiny and clean   

Even the stainless steel was polished and so by mid-afternoon BV was all ready to receive guests and looking very shiny and clean. We kept an eye out expecting a rain shower to undo the hard work at any moment but the rain never fell and then the sky turned blue. Clearly the weather gods were looking down kindly upon us and, to top it all, Ollie and Sheena arrived a little sooner than we (and they) had expected and we were drinking fizz in the cockpit by 1700 [Ed: I think they actually needed a more serious drink after their taxi ride from the airport c/o a would-be Formula 1 driver; no wonder they had arrived earlier than expected!]. It all looked set to be a very fun few days.

Valletta, Malta