35:30.750 N  012:37.589 E

29/07/10

12:00

I decided to check in properly as we had come from Tunisia.  It took a while to find the Frontier Police.  The Italian Police were all very charming and spoke nary a word of English.  It soon became obvious that they had no idea of what they were supposed to do.  They kept trying to look it up is various reference manuals.  They got out passport stamps which surprised me as EU passports are never stamped in an EU country, and in the process of setting them up covered themselves with ink. After 45 minutes they finally telephoned someone who did know what to do.  They then put away the stamps without using them, took photocopies of the passports and ship’s papers, made a little dossier folder and 15 minutes later I was on my way. It took forever but it was good humoured.

Lampedusa is an Italian holiday Island.  There is a main drag with dozens on\f bars and restaurants.  The Architecture is comply bland.  It all looks like it was built in the last 20 years or so.  There are probably a couple of thousand Italians swimming by day and roaming the street by night.  This morning we joined the mass exodus of dozens of little boats all going out for a swim and came around to the Eastern end of the Island.  We found a good place to anchor but realized it was by the end of the runway and it was possible our mast was too high, so we carried on a bit out of range of the runway and I have just had my first swim of this trip.

We will leave for Malta after dinner on the boat.

My old pal Paul sent me the following e-mail: