Comino

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Today we've booked a cruise to the small and virtually uninhabited island of Comino which is between Malta and Gozo. We've heard a lot about its legendary Blue Lagoon, and its caves that are only accessible by speedboat. Our craft is called the Fernandes, and it's described on the website as a "Schooner Rigged Turkish Gullet". I don't know what this really means, but it sounds very luxurious and romantic. We're both very excited.

Shortly after the time that we're supposed to be picked up, an open topped double decker tourist bus lurches around the corner into the hotel. It looks like it's about to tip over. We hope it's not our bus, but this hope is quickly dashed. We get in and it speeds north through a maze of back streets. This seems a bit strange, because the port's to the south. We stop at several more hotels collecting passengers as we go, and about an hour and a half after we were supposed to be picked up we pass the front of our hotel again. I don't think navigation and logistics are our driver's strong suits. We arrive at the port. There's plenty of room to park right in front of our boat, but our driver appears to have decided that this would be a bit too easy and drops us off about half a kilometre away. He then tells us that we need to run, because we're now an hour and a half late and all the other passengers are waiting for us. I'm now starting to doubt that intelligence of any sort is our driver's strong suit.

We stagger up the gangplank and look for somewhere to sit down. Most of the boat is open deck and all of it's already occupied by other passengers, either sitting or lying on blue mats. We look for some spare mats, but they‘re all taken, and even if we had managed to find one, there'd be no room anywhere to put it down. We manage to claim a small area of deck that we can at least stand on.

I stand in a long queue to get us some desperately needed drinks. One of the crew members serves the first three people and then casually wanders off. We wait patiently in vain for him to return. Eventually another crew member notices the brewing unrest and service starts again. I order two lemonades which turn up in flimsy thimble-sized plastic cups, and cost the equivalent of about $4 each. We gulp them down standing on our tiny piece of deck. I'm starting to think that a cruise on a gullet might not be very romantic or luxurious after all, and if looks and general demeanour are anything to go by I'm pretty sure Issy agrees.

The sea's a bit choppy, and a few people around us are emptying the contents of their stomachs into white paper bags. We stop at a fairly nondescript location near the north end of Malta, and the captain tells us we can go swimming. A teenage girl jumps in. A few minutes later she scrambles back onto the deck. She's crying with pain, and says she's been stung by something in the water. The crew look disinterested. One of them casually tells her she's not going to die. We sail on into Gozo harbour, where we narrowly avoid being run over by a large car ferry. I'm now fairly sure that the day is not going well, and Issy is looking less and less happy by the second.

We anchor off Comino and queue for a buffet lunch of steak and vegetables. We're told that a drink's included for free. It's orange cordial in yet another flimsy thimble-sized plastic cup. I try to work out how we're going to eat our steak and hang onto our drinks at the same time, while standing on our tiny piece of deck. Dessert is ice cream, but this is not included in the price. I buy two very small ones for the equivalent of about $5 each, which makes the lemonade in flimsy thimble-sized plastic cups seem quite cheap by comparison.

The captain tells us that if we want visit the caves, we need to buy speedboat tickets, and these are also not included in the price. We came half way around the world to see them, so we decide that we should make sure that we don't miss out. The crew tells us that there's only one speedboat, but there will be time for it to make three trips. We try to get on the first trip, but there are lots of people in front of us and it fills up before we get to the front of the queue. We wander around on the island while we wait for it to come back. It's very crowded here. Most people are sitting near the shore jammed together like sardines under blue beach umbrellas. It looks like the umbrellas all overlap and the whole area underneath them looks very dark. I'm not quite sure why anyone would want to sit on the beach in the dark. We see the speedboat coming back. We sprint back towards the dock, but we get stuck in a crowd and again it fills up before we can get on. We decide not to risk missing the third and last trip so we wait where we are. A few minutes later the crew tells us that the third trip's been cancelled. We've missed seeing the caves. I think Issy might be about to kill someone, and she may not be too fussy about who it is. I decide to keep a low profile.

We miraculously manage to claim half a square metre of the Fernandes' deck that no one's lying on. We lie down. Issy casts withering looks at anyone who approaches us, and I fear that she'll maim the next unfortunate who tries to venture onto our territory. Everyone lying near us has a blue mat except us. It's a bit uncomfortable on the hard wood, but Issy falls asleep anyway. I suspect this is a good thing. I don't think she can kill anyone while she's in dreamland, but in her current humour it's hard to be absolutely sure.

We arrive back in Malta. The captain tells everyone that if they've had a good day they should leave a tip in the hat next to the gangplank. I manage to stop Issy from throwing the hat overboard, but only just.

We're running an hour and a half late. This is not good because we're supposed to be going to cousin Nancy and Frans' place for dinner, and we get back to the hotel an hour after Frans was supposed to pick us. We ring Nancy. She sounds very relieved to hear from us. She tells us she'd assumed that the Fernandes had sunk.

I tell Issy that I was slightly disappointed with some aspects of our day thus far. She describes it in slightly more expressive terms. I comfort her with the fact that we've only booked one more boat tour for our whole adventure. She presses me for details. I'm worried already. I think I'll be in very serious trouble if it doesn't go well.

Nancy's cooked us a lovely meal of soup, followed by chicken and potatoes. This is a bit surprising as we remember her as being a very fussy mono-culture eater when she came to Melbourne a few years back. I ask her if she eats horse meat. She says she doesn't. I noticed that no one else ate horse meat the other night when I was inveigled into ordering it, and I'm now starting to wonder whether it's a genuine Maltese dish after all. I suspect that maybe it's really just cheap leftovers they give to naive foreigners to make them think they're being served a local delicacy. I wonder what other Maltese ruses I might have fallen for.

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Comments

[tony]

Don't be so upset, the caves were just ok. Oh apart from the ship wreck 35 meters below sea to which due to to the Crystal clear waters you can still see the coffee cup sitting by the captains arm chair. Only gagging.

[COG]

OMG....this make our Thailand boat trip seem ok!