Sailing Positive Waves

 After taking a few days to recuperate after the boisterous sail from Sicily, we got back into schoolwork and Christmas spirit. Malta pulled out all the stops for Christmas. Many of the streets had lights strung across them, Valletta was full of lights, a couple big Christmas trees, a Christmas village, ferris wheel, and a skating rink. We spent our days Christmas shopping, looking at the lights, drinking mulled wine, eating good food, and making cookies and gingerbread houses. It was full-on Christmas spirit! Adults in the cockpit, kids down below. All on their phones; Matilda pretending to be innocent and screen free. Intense boat work mixed in with the festivities. After Christmas, we had a light wind forecast for at least 5 days. We took advantage of the calm seas and sailed (motored) north to the tiny island of Comino for New Years. Comino is a nature preserve, basically undeveloped save for a few food trucks for the daily deluge of tourists that arrive via fast ferry. It was ...

We spent about six weeks in Sicily and maxed out our tourist cards. Family and sailing friends visited so we packed in a lot of socializing, restaurants, and historical sites. From Agropoli we sailed overnight to Taormina on the east coast of Sicily. It was a rather epic 24 hour sail, taking us past an active volcano (Stromboli), through the straits of Messina, and a clear dawn allowed us a spectacular view of Mt. Etna. Hans hooked a massive bluefin tuna but as he was reeling it in we saw another big fish swimming alongside. It stayed next to the boat the whole time we were getting the fish onboard. We guessed they were mates so we released the big fish, much to the disappointment of Matilda who had already planned her sushi feast. But, karma! An hour or so later we hooked an even bigger bluefin tuna with no other fish in sight. The sushi feast was memorable! Our friends on Esperance, sailing together at sunset toward Stromboli hitchhiker at sea biology lessons We dropped the hook off ...