Malta: St Paul's Bay to Mgarr Town Gozo (Monday 11/06/2018)

North of Malta and south of Gozo lies the small island of Comino and its own satellite, Cominetto. Between them is a spit of white sand, a rocky corridor of low cliffs and a shallow inlet of clear water. This is The Blue Lagoon.

Brooke - meet flamingo.

But all is not well in paradise; the terribly awful 1980 Brooke Shields' vehicle of the same name was filmed here. But nowhere in the story will you find her paddling her inflatable flamingo between flotillas of giant day trip boats, battling swarms of sunburnt tourists or suffering the cross-legged indignity of a half kilometre queue for a porta-loo. If there was a 1980's burger van selling deep-fried Spangles, it stayed firmly behind the camera.

The channels between the four islands are barely a mile wide and so, after breakfast, it was a short hop from St Paul’s Bay, around the north-eastern headland and into the inlet. Finding little room to park the boat and even less prospect of somewhere to sit on dry land, we made a swift exit, motored across the bay and secured ourselves to a mooring buoy just outside the St Paul’s town quay.

Brooke Shields.

South Shields.

Leaving Tom aboard with the children, Jenny, Clare and I took the dinghy inshore in the perpetual search for fresh bread. The temperature was rising and Clare opted to guard the outboard, while Jenny and I walked into the town. It wasn’t long before we found a bakery, conveniently sandwiched between McDonalds and Costa on one side with Pizza Hut and HSBC on the other. Was this creeping globalisation or just export strength parochialism; I couldn't decide which.

While I thought about the answer, I bought a paper Panama hat made in China from a Bulgarian lady in a shop called Parisienne.

Mindful that Clare needed turning under the midday grill, I left Jenny and went back to relieve her. When she was gone, I untied the dinghy, cast off and was pushed along by the prevailing northerly, from the slip way at one end of the breakwater to the light pole at the other. I  closed my eyes and gently ricocheted around the harbour like an inflatable pin-ball.

The sun moved across the sky and eventually it became too hot to continue. I retreated to the shade to drink coffee and reflect on the absence of ‘me time’ since 2012. The foragers eventually returned with bread and together we meandered back to the boat where Sophie, Alex and Tom appeared to have fallen asleep in the middle of a particularly competitive game of Twister. They seemed more surprised to discover that we had gone than by our return.

After lunch aboard, we sailed north, around the headland and across the channel to Malta’s northern neighbour, Gozo. We moored in Mgarr marina on the south side of the island and walked into town to explore. The harbour sits at the bottom of a steep hill, strewn with volcanic boulders which glare menacingly onto the harbourside buildings below. Some don't look like they have quite finished their journey to the sea. 

Deciding that the climb to the church topped summit was an unnecessary health risk in the late afternoon heat, we settled for an amble around the dockside taverna before drinks at the Gleneagles Bar.

A quick glance at the map of Malta demonstrates the schizophrenic naming committee. Simultaneously, Malta feels both Arab and Colonial. Somewhere in between lies an archipelago in a desperate tug of love; not wholly one nor the other and oddly independent of either. In a blind tasting, one half of the street names hail from Kipling and the other from The Arabian Nights; charming but all a bit strange.

Ummmm…

The Gleneagles is no exception; the haunt of local fishermen but also a no-nonsense, high-ceilinged English pub, heavy on the dark gloss paint and stucco-plaster. The walls hang heavy with sun dried crabs and fisherman’s baskets. Tucked away in a corner was a picture of a Great White Shark, hanging from a rather large hook on the quay beside a bemused local who couldn't resist the temptation to put his head in its mouth. This was slightly disconcerting and I wasn't the first to shelve any plans for further open water swimming. Instead, we watched the remains of the day with a long drink on the terrace facing the harbour.

We fed the children something approaching beans on toast in a subterranean vault of the grandly named but raffish Imperial Yacht Club. Ta Ton was a stylish eatery with a promising future until the children torpedoed its Trip Adviser rating with a salvo of flying food, broken crockery and indiscriminate screeching. 

That ship sailed some time ago.

Retreating with apologetic shrugs and a generous tip, we collected towels and headed for our weekly scrub in the sumptuous harbour facilities. While the UK equivalent involves wrestling a broken fire hydrant dispensing freezing lake water, here a chiselled jaw took the cash, a doe-eyed assistant provided the access code and the door swung open onto a respectable spa facility. Malta has a water shortage but this may have slipped my mind as I power washed my barnacles into a soapy oblivion.

Clean and fed, we were prepared to paint the town red but only got as far as the garishly purple under-lit bar floating in the middle of the marina. There we grazed, caught in the grip of comfy seats and an inexhaustible supply of mixed nuts. The Gozo-Malta ferry came and went, disgorging fewer and fewer occupants as the hours passed, leaving us to wonder whether this was a money-making venture or state subsidised lifeline.

For the first time we were troubled by mosquitoes and as the hill top off-cut of Arundel Cathedral basked in its sodium arc glow, we fell into our bunks, sleeping soundly until the question was answered loudly by the clank of commuters boarding the busy ferry in the early hours. Somehow this insinuated itself into my dream about Brooke Shields. Sadly, we were both stuck in an eternal queue for a porta-loo. Happily, I was ahead of her in the line...

… with a bag of deep fried Spangles.