I made a friend

The highlight of our stay in Malta was our evening boat trip to Comino, a little island slightly northwest of the main island. We had spent much of the day in Valletta sweating, seeing some sights, sweating, eating, and sweating, so we were excited to hop on the boat that would take us to two well-known swimming spots. The first was Il-Bejta tal-Fenek, where we swam for 30 minutes, and the second was the famous and tourist-filled Blue Lagoon, where we were for about 90 minutes. This was by far the most interesting part of our stay in Malta so far, at least for me, because I made a little sea creature friend! It’s called a Mauve Jellyfish and feels like an electric branding iron when it comes in for a hug. It made a pretty interestingly shaped mark on my arm, which I can still see a week later, but fortunately we had made a real friend, Chris, who helped to scrape the barbs out and advise me on how to best treat the sting. I was able to forget about the pain on the way back however, as we saw close to a dozen dolphins playing alongside our boat, as well as a crazy skipping fish that rocketed across the water in front of us. Fun day!

below: my jellyfish sting and Chris helping scrape out the barbs

below: views of Il-Bejta tal-Fenek

below: taking turns jumping off of and sliding down from the boat’s upper deck… I avoided this to not add any damage to my recovering fractured pelvis