"Boring" Sea Grass of Maltese Beauty.

We're going a-b r-r-o-o-a-a-d for our h-o-a-l-lidays!

Such was my mother back in the 1960s when Dad drove us to Italy in our family saloon. Typical of her to mimic the dialect of a snooty aristocrat who always believed that foreign holidays were reserved for the rich, she felt satisfied that we as a family had managed to "encroach" onto the privilege reserved for the wealthier echelons of society.

But any wealthy aristocrat having taken a look into our situation would have laughed, albeit lightly and with a dash of modesty. She would have seen a small car travelling on a French highway to meet with my maternal grandparents who have happened to live in an untouristic city of Turin, tucked in the northwest corner of the Italian peninsula. The trip involved two overnight stops. With Dad leaving the rest of us in the car, he would walk around the French town to look for a hotel for us to spend the night. After a short while, we see him run towards us with excitement. He had found a hotel that was happy to accommodate us at such short notice.

He drove us around the streets of the town. But we never ended up in comfortable beds. Instead, having forgotten the location of the hotel, we ended up spending another night sleeping rough in the parked car.

Sea Grass (stock photo)

The next day we arrived at our Italian destination where, as an adventurous teenager, I had to put up with the ultimate boredom of family confinement at an upstairs apartment where not a word of English was spoken, except when directed to us (my brother and me.) Fortunately, I was allowed out to visit the city centre on my own by taking a tram, itself a novelty to me, sitting inside "a coach on railway lines."

At least I can say that my father did his best. But international travel or family holidays was never his forte. Part of that was due to financial limitations. However, he was also a motoring fanatic. To him, to drive a car across France, across the Alps into Italy was his ultimate life's fulfilment.

And so, with the last two blogs written about Travel, this looks like a developing series of blogs on this topic. There was no original intention to create a series, but having started, I decided to carry on to see how far this would get without repeating or overlapping between blogs. There was no original planning.

And we both (my wife and I) love watching YouTube travel videos. YouTube presenter Rick Stevens on his exploration of Europe including Britain and also Egypt, has been watched extensively by us, along with presenters Gabriel Traveler and Jason Billam, all three are university graduates. Then there are the former BBC reporters, such as Craig Doyle, Kate Humble, and Simon Reeve. Only Gabriel and Jason had ventured out on their own with a high-quality video camera and a laptop. The others all had a camera crew with them. 

This goes to show how popular such documentaries are. With viewing numbers reaching into the millions between them, I have wondered what extra benefit my contribution would bring, especially if there are countless more YouTube travel presenters not mentioned here. But with me, there is an extra dimension. While all the other productions are secular, I acknowledge that all my trips taken throughout my life were a blessing from God, gotten from grace and undeserved mercy. God has blessed me richly in something I enjoy most, and throughout, he has kept me out of harm's way.

Watching Gabriel Traveler's video on Malta had brought wonderful memories of our own trip to the archipelago in 2012. His video included that of the small island of Comino, between the main island of Malta and its northern neighbouring island of Gozo. Comino features the beautiful Blue Lagoon, which is a very popular tourist spot and also the site where the film The Count of Monte Cristo was shot.

The boat trip to the Blue Lagoon included the hiring of snorkelling gear. Once the boat was moored for the rest of the day, we made our way to the beach, and while Alex preferred to remain onshore, I went into the sea to check out the underwater scene. Reminiscences of the Great Barrier Reef, Eilat's Coral Beach and the basalt reef of Lanzarote, an island of the Canaries!

But at the Blue Lagoon, the entire seabed was covered by a submarine lawn of seagrass, and there were small jellyfish swimming everywhere. Here, I had to admit, the presence of jellyfish did make the underwater scenery more interesting. But the sight of a small child on the beach screaming in pain in his mother's arms after being stung on the leg had lowered my evaluation of the Blue Lagoon. Indeed, it's a beautiful scene when viewed from the surrounding clifftop, but the underwater view failed to match the views of the other locations I snorkelled at - and in itself was not worth the price for hiring the snorkel.

Seagrass, just seagrass covering the sandy seabed, with no sea life to add enhancement to the subaquatic environment. And to carefully avoid being stung by the jellyfish, I decided to take off my snorkel after just a short time and wade back to the sandy patch of beach. 

Blue Lagoon, Comino Island, taken 2012. 

We then took a stroll along the cliff-top. The views were spectacular! After the walk and before reboarding the boat that would take us back to Malta, we called at one of the many kiosks lining the beachfront, selling refreshments at an inflated price.

That's the trouble with tourist's hotspots. Even refreshments are expensive, but this did not deter the long queues for the most popular traditional English fish-and-chips kiosk, and we were both hungry. So I lined up to wait my turn to be served. Having bought two trays of chips (that is, home fries or potato wedges) and giving one tray to Alex, we settled down to enjoy the snack.

Only for my beloved to accidentally drop her tray without taking her first bite, and the tray landed face down in the sand.

With every wedge covered in sand and little money left in my pocket, my heart fell at the sight of the queue. Oh, why must life be like that? She refused any offers I made from my own tray, instead, insisting that I must eat. Yet, any idea that by eighteen months later, she would be confined to a wheelchair had never crossed my mind. Not even for a moment.

However, before she was confined to the wheelchair, Alex was a good swimmer. Malta's rocky coast provided excellent natural lidos without the nuisance of beach sand clinging all over us. But I was more fascinated with the cliffs, caves and stacks of its coastline. One area where I found to be so inspiring was the Blue Grotto on the south coast of Malta. Here, natural chemicals interacting with the sunshine causes the seawater to turn a deep turquoise as if illuminated from beneath its depths. Fishermen at a nearby port double up to take paying tourists to the bay, which boast deep caves, a huge arch and stacks. It was at one cave that the effect was so striking, I was sure that there was artificial lighting somewhere below the surface.

Swimming in the cave was allowed, or at least the fishermen turned a blind eye, and among a boatful of tourists, I was the only one who jumped off our boat, after watching someone on another boat do the same. Alex stayed on board, keeping a firm eye on me. There is something about allowing the boy in me to take over, to forget all responsibilities, even to act as a nuisance among the other more reserved tourists remaining in the boat. However, at the back of the cave, there was a submerged rock onto which I was able to scamper and from it, climb effortless back into the boat. It was as if the fisherman was shaking his head and wondering if these tourists will ever grow up as we sailed back to harbour.

The seawater at Blue Grotto, taken 2012.

And so we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. No, not with champagne, nor in a ballroom dressed in a suit, nor at a house party, but by enjoying a semi-independent holiday in Malta, and to this day, the very last one which involved a return airline flight. Semi-independent, as I call it, means that the flight and hotel involved separate bookings, unlike with a package where, as the name implies, flight and hotel are both in one booking. On this trip, we vied for self-catering. This is a cheaper option than the use of the hotel restaurant. Self-catering also holds memories of those great days of backpacking, when hosteling includes the use of member's kitchens. 

However, when we arrived at the reception, we were told that all the self-catering apartments were overbooked, and so we were given an upstairs double room with a balcony and full access to the restaurant without any further payment. That meant every day of the holiday we enjoyed a full breakfast and evening meal on the cheap.

But the glory of Malta and its two neighbouring islands of Comino and Gozo lies with the rugged yet haunting beauty of the coastline. What a phenomenon! Especially that massive arch at Blue Grotto. The arch was large enough for the boat to sail through. As I see it, our God the Creator loves aesthetics. And all this must give Him pleasure when a believer sees such beauty and acknowledges His power. The same power that opens the bud of a delicate flower and how it attracts a bee or other insect to feed on its nectar whilst at the same time, collecting pollen to fertilise another flower elsewhere.

Natural arch at Blue Grotto, taken 2012.

Finally, it's worth mentioning here that Malta was the scene of a famous shipwreck as recorded in the Bible. In the New Testament book, The Acts of the Apostles chapters 27 and 28, we read of a ship carrying both cargo and prisoners ending up beached near the island during a winter storm. Paul was on board that ship, and it was down to him to order all crew and prisoners to swim to the nearby beach. They were all welcomed by the indigenous Maltese people who had a bonfire blazing despite the rain. As Paul was gathering more wood for the fire, a snake hidden in the bush reached out and bit him. But he just shook the reptile into the fire. Everyone was watching, believing that justice was served and Paul will soon die. But as he carried on, perhaps talking amongst the group, the people began to believe that Paul was a god.

And that's not the first time either. Sometime earlier, Paul and Barnabas were preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the crowds of Lystra (Acts 14:8-20) when he ordered a cripple to stand up and walk. As he stood up, the rest of the crowd gasped in astonishment and believed that Paul and Barnabas were gods incarnate.

This same Paul firmly believed in the historicity of Adam and Eve and referred to him as the First Adam, and to Jesus Christ as the Last Adam (Romans 5:12-21.)

The statue of Paul now stands at the site in Malta. Nearby, the remains of an ancient shipwreck lie on the seabed at the traditional site of the Biblical shipwreck. Could these remains be the very ship Paul was on? If so, it goes to show the historicity of the Bible. And Paul taught the historicity of Adam and Eve. Such was necessary for his Gospel to be effective.