Memories of Sicily fading into the background. With one sad and one happy eye, I notice how the smell of Etna’s volcanic fumes slowly drifts into the background. Five miles into our night sail to Malta, the attention has turned ahead where the moon is shining our way. Unlike the Ionian crossing, there’s plenty of action: Boats to look out for, strange and mysterious non-navigable zones with alien-like structures in the middle to be avoided, interesting shapes and forms appearing out of nowhere… Not to mention this 10-ish meter super fast powerboat which just pulled out right behind us as I was about to pour my ginger-ginseng-matte tea to keep me awake. Why did they come within two meters of us, stayed behind our stern for several minutes, checking us out with a massive bright spot light from port and starboard – no VHF communication – then disappeared about as fast as they had appeared? We shall never know.

Time to wake up Pablo. His shift. My time to get a couple of hours sleep in the cockpit – the best place to sleep while on passage, we find. Rigged in my gear, ready to help if needed. The forecasted ten knots of easterly, which were meant to carry us on a beam reach the 60 nm SW are still nowhere to be felt. Instead, we are steaming against a gentle southerly right ahead of us. Lucky our engine’s doing a fab job and reliable 6 kts and my very private little full moon ceremony just past sees it continuing that way for a long long time. Good night Happy Dancer, the big dark sea around and the vast starry sky above us.