Mediterranean storm Harry was a lulu. Tunisia and Sardinia supposedly got hit harder than Malta. Regardless, Malta got clobbered.

Yesterday, we traveled clear across the country, from Gozo in the west to Marsaskala, at the east end of Malta. Three local buses and a ferry. The trip took us damn near 4 hours … several hours more than if we had traveled by car and did not have to wait more than an hour for the ferry to leave. (I have now confirmed, by the way, that the land mass of all of Malta is about 50% larger than the total land mass of Grand Isle, County, Vermont.)

Before leaving Gozo, the desk clerk at our hotel (Tamzin, who is an utter delight!) showed us a video of waves breaking a door down in Marsaskala. Here is that video. Watch it!!!! https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1HBEbdzenf/

When we saw the video, we phoned our hotel to be sure it was still operating. We were told that the images on television are sometimes worse than real life, and they were indeed operating.

When we arrived, the sign on the street-level door said to use the door at the water level, so we walked down some stairs to the water level. The door not only did not open, it didn’t even wiggle. So we walked back to the street-level door and got in. But the elevator wasn’t working, so we lugged ourselves and our bags up a bunch of stairs to our room.

This morning, we learned that the doors in that video are our hotel! It’s a regular Maltese celebrity! The water-level door did not open because it had been braced with a 2X4 from the inside. The elevator didn’t work because the shaft and all of the electronics had flooded.

Then came the silver lining. When we woke up and looked out the window this morning, the sea wall along the harbor was thick with people fishing: old, young, male, female, well-equipped, and barely equipped. I dressed and told Rebecca I’d be back in a while, but not to expect me too quickly.

I needed about 10 seconds to learn what was going on: the dam to the local fish farm had burst in the storm. Thousands of “sea bream” had escaped and swum into Marsaskala Harbor. The water was thick with fish, and the residents of Marsaskala were taking full advantage of the windfall.

The pros were raking in the bounty too: a couple of luzzus were docked. Their nets contained literally tons of fish.

To me, everybody wins except the poor little fish. The fish farm, I was told, was fully insured. I just don’t tend to worry too much about insurance companies. And the good people of Marsaskala are swimming in an insane supply of fresh fish.

Enjoy the pics! And guess what we are having for supper tonight!

People everywhere taking advantage of the broken fish farm dam!

Even the pros got in on the action.