Friday 10^th July – Grand Harbour, Malta (Shopping)

35:53.221N 14:31.217E

This morning we were up early again.  It has not been possible to lie in since we got back, or to go to bed early, as there are church bells and fireworks going off constantly from around 8am until late.  There is a fiesta this coming weekend in this district and so things will get worse before they get better.  In addition we actually had a short shower at 5am this morning which sent us scurrying to close the hatches.

After breakfast we put the genoa up as there was a complete lull in the wind – the light breeze up to then had been coming from astern and so would have made sorting out the genoa more challenging. 

First Richard needed to sweep the foredeck clear of dust – it is amazing how much has built up whilst we have been away.

The sail went up without a problem and the new sun strip looks great; the material for it is dark blue to match the other canvas work so Pyxis is looking quite smart.  I could really feel the sun in my back as we worked and I went for a shower afterwards to cool down.

We were picked up at 1pm by the complimentary bus service for the large Pavi supermarket at Qormi which is available to yachts needing to do bulk shopping.  We ended up spending the whole afternoon walking up and down the aisles – fortunately it was nice and cold in the air conditioning.  We stocked up on all our ships stores (cleaning materials, dried, canned and packet foods and the kitchen roll type of stuff – and a few cases of wine and beer) as we had depleted our stocks over the last couple of months.  Sadly we had no problem reaching their minimum spend requirement for the free bus service.

Back at the boat we have spent most of the evening trying to find somewhere to put it all – perhaps I wasn’t as low on stores as I thought (R’s comment: especially the shampoo and shower gel).