Serendipity – a happy accident, a pleasant surprise

Today at Across the Cafe Table at the Travel Belles we’re discussing serendipity.

The islands of Malta and Gozo were places of non-stop serendipity for me. My trip to Malta was last minute, a case of get the cheapest ticket going somewhere and go! I did no research, no planning, and had absolutely no idea what to expect.

I was wonderfully, beautifully surprised. (Click here for stories on the Inland Sea, the Azure Window, the cliffs of Sannat, and the exquisite flowers of Gozo.)

On my second day in Gozo I was about to board a boat to go visit Malta’s Blue Grotto, when suddenly in the jostle and lurching of boarding, my camera was dropped and disappeared beneath the crashing waves.

I was gutted. My camera may be tiny and cheap, but it is a treasure to me, my way to capture the beauty around me and record memories for future remembrance.

For a moment we were all stunned and then one of the Gozitan boys dove overboard and somehow found it on the bottom of the ocean. I knew the salt water was its death knell, but I hoped beyond hope that the pictures could be saved. A lovely elderly British couple we had visited with earlier saw the debacle and instructed me to hand over my camera into their keeping so they could attempt to salvage something while I went to the Blue Grotto.

Trying not to let the loss ruin my trip, I handed it over, thanked them profusely then took a few steadying breaths and boarded with my friend Barbara.

I’m so glad I went instead of moping over the loss of my camera. The speed of the boat, the wind in our faces, the sun on bare shoulders – oh, it was glorious! Barbara felt so bad about the incident she insisted that I use her camera to record our little adventure. It meant so much to me.

I had no idea there was a Blue Grotto in Malta, but there is, just across the bay from Wied iż-Żurrieq on the tiny island of Filfa. Our boatman took us in and out of all sorts of caves, including the Blue Grotto, and we watched divers plunge into the crystal clear water.

Filfa is uninhabited save for a unique species of lizard, and it is wild and weathered, buffeted by winds and waves into a place of rugged beauty. When Malta was a British colony, the British Armed Forces used the island for target practice! Thankfully it is now protected under Maltese law.

Blue Grotto Malta

When our boat tour was done, we bid farewell to the rugged cliffs of Filfa and motored back to Gozo.

As we clambered up the stone steps, we were greeted by the British couple who had not only kept my camera for me, but rinsed it thoroughly with fresh water and hung it to dry in the piping hot Maltese sun. The camera was  beyond repair, but thanks to their kindness the memory card was saved, along with the hundreds of pictures I’d taken on our trip.

Losing my camera was not the highlight of my day, but meeting that lovely couple who ended up saving all my pictures was indeed serendipitous. A most happy accident.

For more tales of serendipity, head over to the Travel Belles: Across the Cafe Table.

For information on boat tours to the Blue Grotto in Malta, click here.

What is the last “happy accident” you experienced?