I’m back from a day off on Tuesday. We didn’t do anything to report on. And, I don’t have much to report on for Wednesday. We went for a long walk along the seafront, around Exile Point, and down along the limestone to il-Fortizza. This is becoming our favorite walk. In addition to the sea, the limestone is fascinating to study. We could spend hours watching the waves throw water up on the shore and follow the many pathways the water takes in the limestone. All this got me curious about the Mediterranean.
The Mediterranean Sea is what is called an inland sea. It is nearly landlocked. At its deepest it is 5,267 feet, with an average depth of 4,900 feet. It connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar, which is only about 9 miles wide. Because of its narrow opening, the influence of the Atlantic on the tides in the Mediterranean is minimized. The tide is no more than 3 feet, and in most places it is only about 1 foot.
The movement of the water goes from the Straits of Gibraltar eastward. The sea is dependent upon rivers flowing in to the sea as evaporation is greater than water coming in from the Atlantic. As the water goes eastward, it gets saltier, due to evaporation, so that by the time it gets to the Levant region, it is very salty. The salty water sinks to the bottom and then starts to move westward back to the Strait. I read that in the Atlantic, this salty water is still detectable for hundreds of miles out into the Atlantic.
Malta sits about 60 miles south of Sicily and is essentially right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea so it is very strategically located. Thus, it was a stopping point for all the empires who controlled the Mediterranean, and controlling Malta meant that the empire could more easily control the Mediterranean. I’ll talk more about this over the next couple of months.
The Mediterranean is noted for its deep blue color, and that is one of the things we love looking at from our balcony. We seen the wonderful deep, almost navy, blue of the sea farther out from St. Julian’s Bay. When it is windy, the deep blue is punctuated by wonderful whitecaps, and the waves crash into the rocks around Dragonara Point and the Portomasso sea walls in great white sprays of water. Closer into the bay, the water becomes shallower and a beautiful teal color. I guess I now know where Christine got her love for this color! We stand at the window and drink all this in.
On our walk Wednesday, it was windy, but not quite as windy as another walk we took along the same rocks. But the sea was still pretty wavy.
It is really fascinating to watch how water moves and the channels, holes, and patterns it makes in the rocks.
In one area, there was a fairly large pool that was only a couple of inches deep. When the waves came it, they brought lots of little fish who fed on the algae on the rocks in the pool. The water in the pool would flow back out into the sea, leaving the little fish nearly stranded. But, those little fish wriggled their way across the nearly waterless rocks back in to the sea. It was interesting to watch how the fish used the currents of the water in and out.
More beautiful scenes of water and rocks.
We left the seashore at Sliema Point where the il-Fortizza Restaurant is. Sliema Point is the site of the old Sliema Point Battery built by the British between 1872 and 1876. It then eventually became a searchlight tower used to spot enemy ships advancing on the island. Now it is a restaurant. We’ll be having dinner there next week with Carol.
We made our way back home, stopping in at a pharmacy to buy a couple of things, like plasters (Band-Aids) and corn pads. We both had bought a couple of pairs of new shows prior to our trip and our little toes are not happy about that. Hopefully, our purchases will help this situation.
And so, our little adventure along the seafront came to an end, but here are two of the best photos (IMHO).
