Valletta, Malta

October 01, 2012 – October 04, 2012

We arrived on October first. It was the Captain’s birthday that day, and the tradition on board the ship is to dump buckets of water on people when it is their birthday. So Halvor, the Captain, showed up to colours in full on rain gear! It was so funny!

We docked a couple of hours later. I was in class when we came alongside, so when I came up on deck later we were in Malta! That’s one thing that I love about being on the ship; you never know what you are going to see when you step outside. Back at home I knew exactly what it looked like outside the school, but here I can go up after class and find myself in a different country! Once we arrived we still had classes and day watch until 4pm, and then stayed on the ship scrubbing the sides of ship and provisioning, which is where we bring all the food that we will need aboard. It took quite a while so we didn’t get shore leave until supper time.

The Sorlandet in Malta

We went into the city of Valletta for supper before going back to the ship for the night. The next day we had a full day of shore leave. We have to be in groups of four at all times (for some ports it can be groups of 6 or more) so my group walked around the city for a while then took a bus to a small bay in a place called St. Julian’s where we went swimming. We hadn’t started off the day with much of a plan as to what to do, but it’s lots of fun to just hop on a bus in a foreign country and see where you go!

Valletta

St. Julian's

Maltese boat in St. Julian's

 Our second day in Valletta there was a port program. We took a ferry to the nearby island of Gozo (Malta is an island as well) and went to a beautiful bay with natural stone archway called the Azure window. It was beautiful and the view was incredible! All the students and teachers climbed along the rocks and to the top of the archway where we looked out over the sea. We then left on a bus and went to a beach to go swimming. The waves were big and we spent the time diving in them and body surfing. It was a great port program!

Gozo

Class Afloat 2012-2013 above the Azure Window

The next day, October 4^th, was our last day in Malta. We had shore leave for the morning and got to explore more of the island. When we went back to the ship for curfew we had 2 new members to the maritime crew. They are helping to get the rig set up so we can hopefully set some sails soon! We left Valletta, eating Maltesers (haha they may be delicious, but not at all from Malta!) as the coast of Malta faded into the distance.