#Gozo – Day 5 – Fireworks, Festa’s and Fish!

I went to bed to the sound of cannon fire last night. Festivals, Saints Days, Sundays – the Gozitans are crazy about fireworks, and cannons, and it seems barely a day goes past without some sort of celebrating somewhere!

Gozo is much known for its “Karnival” (carnival). Festas are also a very important tradition on the island with celebrations including fireworks and bands every weekend in the summer season. During the weekend of the various festas in the villages, many Maltese people come over from Malta to experience Gozo’s unique carnival. In the past, Festas were a time for young Gozitan men and women to meet up and many of those meetings resulted in formal courtship and subsequent marriage. Each village is decorated with beautiful banners across the road, huge feasts are held and judging by the fireworks there is partying on into the night.

Today we go to Hondoq Bay, a great favourite of ours and right across from the Blue Lagoon on Comino (the tiny island between Gozo and Malta).

I get into the sea quickly and before any UST’s (see this post for definition) can make a grab for my ankles. There are fish from the minute my head ducks under the surface of the water. I see a crab the size of my hand – not its body, which is relatively small, but the breadth of its legs, dark and scraping for food on the surface of a rock then as if it senses my presence it shimmies back under the overhang of a larger rock.

I feel the whisper of a touch on the back of my ankles but this time I don’t panic and twist round in the water terrified it’s some big monster about to have me for lunch, this time I’m wise, I’ve been caught out before, and looked like an idiot, and I know it’s only the tassels of my beach shoes tickling me.

Mine was more red than mauve but you get the idea!

Then I see it, a glimpse and nothing more and I look harder and see it hanging in the water and my heart beats faster, a jelly fish. A quick search round I peer through the water and check for numbers because this is what they do, one draws the attention while the others circle around and before I know it I’m cut off from the beach by a host of red jelly bodies suspended in the water like hot air balloons in the sky – and no, I’m not being dramatic! Shut up! This time though I see no others and must have spotted the scout out checking the area but I head for shore anyway – you can never be too careful and as I dry in the sun I listen to my audio book – more on that later.

A helpful board…so you can check out what you were stung by. I believe mine was a Mauve Stinger…very common!

Now I am sorry if this is feeling like the longest week away in the history of any type of travel writing ever but as some of you may be aware this has been an extraordinarily busy summer for me which has gone incredibly quickly. I have been remiss on many things and my blog is one of them. So I have the rest of the Gozo trip (thank goodness you were only away for a week I hear you cry!) plus reviews of the rest of my holiday reading and several other reviews after that which I shall attempt to get caught up on in the next couple of weeks…watch this space 🙂

As I see I failed to give you any information on my reading yesterday, rattling on about snorkeling instead, (must do better on this blogging malarkey!) I shall bring you up to date – I have finished the fabulous Hollywood Shakedown and it is reviewed here…. Can I also add that the ebook is available for only 99p/99c at the moment – that is a fabulous price for umpteen pages of literary deliciousness which you should all snap up straight away…I know of nowhere else where you can get so much enjoyment for so very little – just saying!

I then moved onto a Victorian murder mystery, Diamonds & Dust by Carol Hedges which I have been wanting to get to forever – it is a gem! True Victorian stuff we all recognise as you will see from my review here!

I have a couple more fabulous stories waiting for me to get to them this week so back to the reading…

To be continued…