our overnight anchorage

With a pending flight looming in a couple of weeks time our focus has been on the weather to see if there would be a window of opportunity to actually sail back across the Malta Channel to Marina di Ragusa, Sicily. Looking at the forecast for the week ahead it wasn't looking too good with only Wednesday or Thursday showing a decent amount of wind. A bit sooner than we would have liked but it looked really promising however we ideally needed to be further north than our current position in order to get a better sailing angle. We therefore decided to head back up the eastern side of Malta, all of 18 miles to stop overnight at St Paul's Bay ready for an early start the following morning.

St Paul's Bay is a popular tourist destination with a mass of apartment blocks and hotels that sweep along the coast towards the inner mouth of the bay. The anchorage we chose was just off St Paul's island just beyond the fish farms where we had the pleasure of sighting a small pod of dolphins.


A statue of St Paul on St Paul's island, named after the saint who was shipwrecked here many centuries ago. Saint Paul is believed to have introduced Christianity to the Maltese and appears to be pointing out the way to Sicily for us.

Total distance this season: 189.87 nautical miles