Once a refuge for fugitives , hermits and pirates, Comino is a paradise that is best kept lost. Salvu Vella, one of the four survivors of a small farming community and Stanley Borg send love notes from a small island near Malta.

In much the same way that saying Africa is hot or Italy is nice smacks of a simplistic, limited vocabulary, so the name Blue Lagoon does not do Comlno any justice because, first of all, it is not blue. Rather, the water is a deep, dizzyingly dazzling, rich turquoise, iridescent even in the face-numbing, nose-watering cold of winter. Secondly, it is not a lagoon; it is a paradise which no artist's imagination or palette could ever match.

As soon as it seems that the boat, thumping on the solid waves, will soon take flight, and when my face is about to be shaved off by the whoosh of freezing spray, we go around San Niklaw and Salvu kills the engine. The boat bubbles in resignation then simmers on the cove's calm waters, so calm, in fact, that I manage to read the sign on the boat's sides. 'Driven by Venewwa’; it says. Then Salvu busies himself with a remote control and on the shore, a light flashes and a small engine whizzes to life and runs down the boat slip with the boat trailer in tow. As it proceeds to pull the boat out of the water, Salvu beams at his clever invention.

On Comino, which was named after the cumin herb that was once grown here, necessity is the mother of invention. In summer, tanned bodies throng the beaches and laze around the 3.5 square kilometres of Comino and its romantically named natba s-Sewda and Tant il-Mazz. In winter, however, the Comino Hotel pulls down its shutters and tourists go back to their daily grind, leaving Comino in the hands of its four permanent residents: SalvuVella, his brother Angelo, their aunt Maria Said and cousin Evangelista, better known by everyone as Veggie.

Their only human company comes in the form of the two policemen down at the police station, which was originally built as a watch-post in 1743. During the weekend and on feasts, Dun Karm Xerri comes over from Gozo to bring them necessities and celebrate mass in a small, white-washed chapel dedicated to the Return of Our Lady from Egypt. No one agrees on when the chapel was built, but a 12th century navigational map at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich shows a chapel where the present one stands.

"Dun Karm is an angel;' Salvu tells me as he drives towards the Santa Marija Battery. The silence is deafening, and is only disturbed by the occasional explosion of fluttering wings as a flock of pheasants, which Salvu raised and then set free in the wild, fly by. "Here, we have no shops and whenever I go to Gozo or Malta, I stock up on everything;' Salvu continues. "I have friends on the mainland who source everything I need. Dun Karm also helps us no end. He has been coming here for the past forty years. He is old now, but he still sees to our needs. He even used to teach me when I was young. We had a local school on Comino, but it shut down in 1968.I was the last student there. I still remember herding sheep before and after school”

After a five-minute drive, we arrive at the Santa Marija Battery. Now restored, the battery was built in 1715 and equipped with two 24-pounder and four six-pounder cannons. Its semi-circular shape was planned so that the guns would cover most of the South Comino Channel and prevent disembarkation of enemy fleets. We walk around as Salvu continues with his family's history. "I was born in St.Paul'sBay but have been living here ever since Salvu says. "My father, a farmer, was originally from Mellieha and moved to Comino for work, as did my maternal grandfather. It was here that my parents met. "At the time, there was a small community, growing cumin, tomatoes, cauliflower, onions and potatoes. By the time I was born, most had already left and there were only about six families left, two of them from Sicily. These were the first to start growing tadam tal-qasab, which are tomatoes grown on a wicker tripod:'

Then we start moving towards Santa Maria Tower, passing by the cemetery and isolation hospital built by the British. In 1416, the Maltese petitioned the Aragonese king, Alphonse V to build a tower on Comino, which would serve as a deterrent to the pirates who frequently hid on Comino to ambush ships crossing between Malta and Gozo. The Tower was finally completed by the Knights of Malta, who used Comino as a hunting ground for wild boar and hares. The Tower, financed by Grand Master Wignacourt and from the sale of brushwood from the island, was finished in 1618 and formed part of the defence system of coastal towers that linked the Cittadella in Gozo to Mdina. Throughout the 17th century, the Tower also served as a prison for some fifty Maltese suspected of spying for the French.

Recently restored by Din l-Art and sponsored by the Malta Maritime Authority, Santa Maria Tower stands twelve metres high on an eight-metre plinth. Eighty metres above sea level and surrounded by a thick rubble wall, the Tower rises imperiously from the garigue, fragrant with wild thyme. Its six-metre thick walls defy strong winds and time. Below it, the sea thunders against the plunging cliffs and seagulls paraglide lazily to fold their wings and find an impossible balance on precarious edges.

"Apart from Anglu, all my brothers and sisters left long ago:” says Salvu. "Some emigrated while others settled down in Malta. Being the youngest, I could see their lives and plans unfold, and I could make an informed decision. Eventually, I decided to stay.” Salvu looks around, and continues."Here, nature and the seasons regulate my body and mind. I feel alive and I have precious freedom. I would be mad to ever leave:”

It is cold, but spring is in the air. And I understand Salvu, this man who is an island, because as the sun occasionally blushes the cliffs or a patch of land, I feel like getting marooned here, and left unrescued for the rest of my living years.