Today it was roasting hot when we woke up. We aren’t sure of the temperature, but it had to be at the very minimum in the mid 90’s Fahrenheit with very high humidity. It wouldn’t surprise us if it was in the hundreds, both in degrees and humidity. It was time to get fuel. The first thing we did was move the boat to the quay in front of Fort Angelo, which is at the tip of the finger that Vittoriosa is on. This is a picture of Kosmos before we moved her. We had to throw it in so you can see just how beautiful Vittoriosa is.

Fort Angelo is a tourist attraction, but is currently closed for renovation. The fuel truck pulled up a little while later. We wound up taking on 3070 liters at 98 cents a liter, duty free. This included a 10% credit card fee. The fuel truck has a fast pump, so it didn’t take all that long. They even gave us a sample of the fuel so we were assured of its purity. That is a nice touch we have never seen before.

After fueling, we went to lunch on waterfront. It was so hot that literally our clothes were totally sopping wet from sweat. Back on Kosmos, the generator was being persnickety again and shut itself off. Being so hot, we were again unmotivated to move, so we took a long nap. Later in the afternoon, Eric went to the marina office to sit in air conditioning while he did internet research about what could be wrong with the generator.

Towards the end of the business day we checked out of the country. In order to get duty free fuel, we have to leave the European Union within 24 hours of fueling up. Tomorrow is a national holiday and thus not a business day, so we have to do the check out formalities today and leave first thing in the morning.

In evening, the heat broke. Don’t get us wrong, it was still hotter than hell, but at least it was bearable to be outside. We took a 5 minute water taxi ride to Valletta (much faster than the 20 minute scooter ride) and went to dinner at a restaurant highly recommended by Lonely Planet. We got there at 1845, but it didn’t open until 1930. Hmmm, how should we kill 45 minutes? We decided the most efficient use of time would be to eat dessert first, so we headed back to the café with the decadent hot chocolate creations.

Totally full, we returned to the restaurant promptly at 1930. It looked to us like another one of those doors to nowhere that we see all the time in Europe. It was tucked discreetly in the corner of a building, but clearly didn’t go into the building. We went inside and down a staircase. The landing turned out to be inside a tunnel, under the street! Sorry, but in California you never, ever, ever see buildings underneath a street. While we have seen it often in Europe, the concept still blows our mind. Anyway, upon entering, you could turn left into the bar, which is a decent size room with another connecting tunnel on the opposite side. Or you can go straight ahead, deeper into the table lined tunnel, which looked to us to be the only seating area. Or you could go down yet another flight of stairs, but they were blocked off to the public. We were in an honest to God medieval secret passageway! Wow!

So, we followed the hostess through the tunnel to what looked like the end. But it wasn’t. It actually split into three more tunnels. The right tunnel is a small museum, currently closed. It must be a big room like the bar. The middle tunnel is the kitchen. We followed the hostess left and emerged in secret little courtyard garden. Wow! We were on a little ledge just off to the side and below the road. From the road, you would never know this little garden existed. So cool!

The food was great. We ordered a salad with pear, blue cheese, lettuce, bell pepper, tomato & cucumber in a honey and mint dressing. The dressing is different from anything we have ever had before, and it was great. We also had rabbit ravioli. We are told rabbit is a staple in Malta, and we have been disappointed that we haven’t seen it on any of the menus. From what we could tell, rabbit seems to be a red meat. The meat in the ravioli seemed to be slow cooked and tender. There was a hint of curry in the seasoning, but couldn’t place the rest of the seasonings. It was really tasty. We also got smoked salmon served with avocado and salad. And finally, we ordered chicken thighs in Thai curry sauce with mango chutney. It had just enough of a kick, but not overwhelmingly spicy. After dinner we were ready to explode. We had expected the portions to be small, which is why we ordered so much, and the portions turned out to be pretty big. But we managed to make room for it all somehow.

We caught another water taxi back to Kosmos. The waterfront was more alive than we have ever seen it. The restaurants were all packed, all of them playing music and giving off an air of festivity in celebration of tomorrow’s holiday. Of course, the loudest music of all was coming from a karaoke bar, and the drunken singers would have been booed off America Idol. There were also intermittent fireworks. All the noise reverberated through the bay and bounced off the buildings, amplifying the sound. The good thing about being right in the heart of town is that we are in the center of the action. The bad thing is that the action goes on much later than we normally stay up. Usually when it is loud outside, we shut the windows and can sleep through the music and noise. If it is a hot night, we’ll run the air for a little bit so it is cool enough inside to shut the windows. But with the generator acting up, we didn’t want to run the air and it was too unbearably hot to shut the windows. We managed to sleep, despite the fact it sounded like a disco was in the bedroom with us.