This is the icing from the cake my aunt-in-law (is there such a relationship?) made for me when I visited my relatives in NSW to say farewell before I left Australia. I keep promising to get onto my journey to Malta via New Zealand and Cuba but when I sit down to start there are more things to say about leaving Australia.
My sailing boat came into my life 15 years ago. It was my birthday present to myself when I turned 50. It is a classic 22ft open cockpit yacht built in 1948 so not much younger than me. I fell in love with its beautiful lines although in many ways it is an impractical boat to sail on Moreton Bay. It has a fixed keel so it is sometimes difficult to get it out at low tide through the shifting channel in the mangrove and mud Tingalpa creek where I kept it moored. And without a cabin, it is adventurous to stay out overnight.
I sailed single-handed, learnt about the tides and worked out how to stay out overnight sleeping under the boom tent. I saw in the millennium anchored in the Broadwater at the Gold Coast to watch the fireworks. On the way back, I called into Horseshoe Bay at Peel Island and was standing in the water close to the beach as a pod of dolphins were herding fish into the shallows for their breakfast.
The sailing became more challenging as I became older and less agile, but it was breaking my wrist that pushed me to bring my boat out of the water and put it on a cradle at the front of my house. It took on a new life as a local landmark and I set up the timber mast as a flagpole for my Eureka flag. I had pangs of guilt from time to time as I watched it deteriorating. My boat pined to be back on the bay.
Last year, when I was living for half the year in Marsaxlokk, someone started making enquiries of my Australian neighbours about what was to happen with my boat. So when I returned to make arrangements for coming to live in Malta, I just had to make a few phone calls and my boat had a new home. Her new owner is manager of East Coast marina and he is now working on restoring the boat and sailing her once again on Moreton Bay. It is a huge job he has taken on because we only just caught her in time before she had deteriorated too much. But he knows what he is doing and has the skills and resources to make it happen so when I visit Australia again later this year she should be back in her element, sailing on the bay. That makes me feel good.
Here in Malta, today is the feast of St Paul shipwrecked. I went walking with Ramblers Malta from Mellieha Parish church down through the fertile valley to the bay and then back along the cliffs. We passed the hotel where Malta Environment and Planning Agency have just approved extensions that will spread out over the surrounding fields in a protected zone. The decision has pushed the Ramblers into more active protest and they are planning to challenge in the courts. The invidious creep of over-development in the North of the island is reaching a critical point from which there will be no return. I will be taking part in the protest rally to be held in Valletta on 6th March.
