What do you get when you mix a South African, a Brit, an Auzzie, two Italians, and two Americans? You get a funny mix of accents, and you also get the jet-setting crew we’ve had aboard Tamarisk the past couple of days, including our parents and our three friends Lisa, Mara, and Alex. If we had found an Antarctican we could have rounded out the continents, but nobody’s ever met an Antarctican and we’re not even looking.

Together we explored all of Malta’s three islands, including Gozo to the north of the main island, and the tiny Camino island that sits in the middle. What we’ve seen is a unique fusion of cultures here, probably because Malta sits half way between the northern tip of Africa and the southern tip of Europe and has been strongly influenced by both continents. As you can see in the pics, we found some amazing hidden coves and swimming spots that would be impossible to find from the land, meaning you get to enjoy them without the hassle of the tourist crowd. If you come by boat you will love Malta.

We said goodbye to the two Italians and Aussie Alex and we’re now looking at the north end of Gozo for the last time as we sail north towards the western tip of Sicily. In traditional Windebank style, our parents have decided to abandon their flight home and instead stay aboard for the journey to Sicily and then to Sardinia next week.

An embarrassing thing about us Windebanks that we don’t often talk about is the subject of fishing because we’re hopeless at it, not because we don’t try, but because we’re just really bad at fishing for whatever reason. We’ve got all the excuses prepared for when the questions arise…: these waters are fished out, it’s not the right season, our sailing speed is too fast for the fish here, etc.. But the truth is that we’re just terrible when it comes to fishing. Piers and Richard have decided that all this nonsense changes today, so the lures have been rigged up properly, the boat is sailing at a perfect 4 knots, the hooks are now overboard, negative jokes and sarcasm have been forbidden today, and we’re already talking about the fish BBQ later tonight. Stay tuned for pics in our next update (and if there aren’t any, remember… these waters may be fished out).

Finally we’re back on the boat after two and half grueling weeks of waiting in Lefkas for boat repairs to be finished. We get really agitated sitting around like that when we can see the Summer slipping away, and still we have so much to do before we get out of the Med. But we’re back on the boat moving west, and that’s all we care about right now.

The passage from Greece to Malta took three days and was our longest crossing yet. Even though that’s a baby step in the grand scheme of things, accomplishments like these build our confidence and make us less fearful of the big ocean crossings like the Atlantic in November. It also gives us some real perspective on distances and how far we still have to go on this voyage. Our circumnavigation will “officially” start and end in the Caribbean because that’s the first place where we’ll cross our own tracks in 2014. It was a reality check for us the other day when we looked out our route map and realized, after 4 months of sailing, we are only 10% of the way to this imaginary STARTING line in the Caribbean… we didn’t do a similar calculation for the finish line because we don’t even wanna know. The Earth all of a sudden seems like a much bigger place than it used to.

After arriving in Malta we met up with our parents (Richard and Wendy) who have spent the past week driving around Italy and are now ready for some sailing. Their adventurousness over the years has been a huge inspiration for us and it’s a virtual certainty we wouldn’t be here if not for that. Also here for their Summer holiday are our two Italian friends Lisa and Mara, so when we go sailing tomorrow we’ll have perhaps the perfect crew. Tomorrow we’ll cruise out of the capital city Valetta and head up for night on Gozo, which is Malta’s smaller island to the North.