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Rose & Brian 05 February 2010

Tunisia Monastir to Houmt Souk

Hi All

We were feeling a bit chilly in Monastir with the continuing tales of snow and ice fromboth the UK and further afield, so decided to move further south. One plan was tostop off on the way at fishing harbours, but when the final day of our month inMonastir arrived the winds were looking a bit unsettled. As we didnt really want tobe stuck in a fishing harbour with no facilities for a week or so, we did the usual andjust sailed the 160 miles overnight to arrive in Houmt Souk at 2pm on Friday 29th

January.

It is extraordinary how a small distance

makes so much difference to the localcustoms and outlook. Houmt Souk is still abit of a tourist haven, but much more down toearth than Monastir. It is smaller, so doesnthave as much to see and do in the town, buthas a completely different ambience. It doeshave the requisite castle of course!

The sun has shone almost continously since

we arrived a week ago, although it does getcold at night, there are flamingos, herons

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and egrets in the bay on the other side of the breakwater, and we are treated to thetourist pirate boatsgoing out almostdaily with soundsystems at fullvolume playing amournful dirge andreturning at about3pm to the track Iwill survive at fullblast!

Firstly though, whathave we done in themeantime? Theplanned car trip got

off to a bad startwhen I booked thehire car for thewrong date (16thpm instead of 15th pm). However they were kind enough to bring the car early onthe Saturday and we set off almost at the same time as we had planned. The hirecompany (Camelcar) seems to offer very good rates, made even better as we wereallowed an extra free day because of my mistake. Mr Kamel (!) the company agentwho had helped me out of my error delivered the car to the marina, I handed over the75 cash for 3 days (no credit card impression taken), then took him to get petrol (thecars are delivered empty) and drop him off at the taxi rank. As neither of us hasdriven for 6 months it was a bit of a nervous time negotiating Monastirs busy streets,

but as with riding a bike, it all came back quickly.

The Rough Guide hits the nail on the head with its description of driving in Tunisia. Ihave to say that we have complied with the pedestrian and cyclist rules quite happily.These are that cyclists and mopeds can drive in any direction on any road, frequentlyin the middle to avoid potholes and raised manhole covers. Pedestrians have right ofway so long as they are walking along the road (not trying to cross) preferably fourabreast. Pedestrians and cyclists dont have any rights to cross roads though unlessthey have a death wish or are just being awkward. Cars have to negotiate all thesemoving targets, as well as other cars pulling out, or trucks stopping in the middle ofthe road to drop off passengers or goods, and do generally have to obey one waysigns (unless you can get away with it)! Louages (public minibuses that go from town

to town very very quickly) have right of way over everyone.

The trip took in Kairouan, anIslamic centre with asignificant and very oldmosque with a veryimpressive exterior wall anddoorways.

Posh hotel converted fromthe old fort where we stoppedfor a beer and to warm up itwas a cold day!

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Part of the Grand Mosque the 7 th holiestplace in Islam

James and Rose went to the carpet museum,then we visited the Governors House.This was the residence of the Turkish Bey alocal governor. Very opulent carved andpainted interiors. As soon as we had visited afew rooms, we were seated with cups of minttea and the rolled up carpets which had linedthe walls were duly unrolled for our delectation.The different qualities and methods of weaving,embroidering and knotting were explained insome repetitive detail. Brian and I removedourselves at one stage and saw a bit more of

the house, and Rose, James and Rhiannoneventually tore themselves away although theprice had fallen considerably. Rose wanted toget a carpet and had identified what she

wanted and the type of quality she wanted in the museum. Later they looked inanother shop, and were taken back to the Governors House to barter, so shemanaged to get what she wanted at a good price!

We stayed in a reasonably pleasantHotel (called Spendid you can justsee the sign in the middle of thepicture), and had an early supper

across the road and night in aftersharing a bottle of wine while watchingthe Africas cup match on TV alongwith the hotel owner and his friends.The football continued to form a themeof the next two weeks up to this week,when I assume Egypt beat Ghana inthe final. The caf here where we areusing the internet was packed, and agreat cheer went up in the 63rd minute I assume overtime when Egyptscored. I suspect there is a bit of a north south divide here...

The next day we went on to ElJem which has the largestremaining Roman amphitheatrein the world it was veryimpressive.

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Among the pictures I took was one withBrian standing in one of the externalarches you can barely see him it is sobig! It is amazing how the detailed stonecarving can last this long when it must bescoured by sand and wind every year.

We then went to the museum on the other side of town which was extraordinary. Ithas been built on the site of a number of Roman houses the excavated remainsbeing laid out at the rear of the museum.

Again there were mosaics remaining onthe ground covered in lichen and grass,but the best ones had been lifted anddisplayed in the museum along with someof the artefacts that had been dug up.The mosaics are huge and very brightwhen cleaned up.

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On our way back to thecar we stopped off at asmall caf and weretreated to an enormousand very tasty lunch. Theusual free starters(harissa, crudites, friedsamosas etc) with a bigbasket of bread werefollowed by soup, variousmain course choices(stews, omellette mainly)

then ice-cream and minttea! We waddled back tothe car and drove back toMonastir feeling very full.Brian and I went for a

beer which arrived with more tasty snacks and a small plate of chips so we didntneed anything more to eat that day! It was an early night too as we had promised tohelp get Swyn-y-Mor over to the boat yard to be lifted out and have her bottomcleaned.

We managed to be ready

by 8am, James reversedout of his tight spot withconsumate ease. Aftersome discussion andsome help to take thefront sail and stay off tolet the hoist manouevreinto the right place theboat was lifted out withJames gnawing hisknuckles in anxiety please dont drop my

home! All went well untilwe discovered that somevital items had been lefton board, so James and I went to get them, climbing a ladder up the side of the boatand wading through the slurry of sand and mud that had accumulated.

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The past few days had been reallywindy with waves breaking over theharbour wall and depositing largeamounts of sand on the road. As thehoist was being put in place to getJamess boat out the water a large JCBturned up to clear away the sand andrubble so that the hoist could reverseback with the boat on its slings.Remarkable coordination of effort Ithought.

James, Rose and Rhiannon stayed on our boat that day. Rose and Rhiannon hadschool work to get on with, so we took James in the car and went bird watching in thelagoons to the north and west of Monastir. It was pretty cold, so apart from onefruitless excursion through a very muddy lake bed we ended up watching somewaders from the car whileeating large hot turkey

baguettes we hadpurchased. The secondlagoon we visited didntexist at all we drovedown a dirt track towards itbut there were just bushesand sheep and a veryunpleasant hustler whowanted money to look afterthe car which we turneddown with some effort.

A long drive back throughthe acres of olive trees that

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characterise this part of the world, and Rose had started making dinner for us verynice! We had managed to clear one of the aft cabins for Rose and James to sleep in,and made a Rhiannon sized space in the other so we all fitted quite snugly. It was agreat opportunity to find out what it would be like to have visitors on the boat noproblem at all you will be glad to hear. Rose and James were very thankful to havesomewhere to stay without too much hassle as well, so everyone was happy.

The next morning, being able to keep the car until 6pm (an extra half day) Rose and Iwent off into Sousse to check train and bus times for their trip to Libya. We managedto stop off at Carrefour where I managed to get some very nice pain-au-chocolat formy breakfasts, we picked up some pies and pizza slices, then went on to KalaaSeghira to check further train times. We got thoroughly lost on the way back but stillmanaged to get back to Monastir to deliver a rather late lunch. The afternoon wasspent helping James and Rose get Swyn-y-Mor back into the water and taking herout for a quick spin round the bay to empty bilges and holding tanks in preparation forbeing left on her own for 6 weeks while the Parnells tour Libya and Egypt.

The rest of the week was spentcarrying out essential repairs, as wellas doing some more wiring. As youmay remember, the kicker bracket hadbroken on our way from Palma toTabarka. In Monastir we took thebroken part to the shipyard and theymanaged to get another one cast inaluminium for us. Unfortunately theydidnt have any stainless steel rivets ora gun big enough fix them. After a bitof hunting around we decided to order

rivets and a rivet gun from the UK asthey are surely going to be neededagain at some stage. The packagearrived in three days from AtlanticSpars who had been really helpful. Ittook two half days to rivet the newbracket on, refit the kicker and then drill

out the rivets on the boom that wenoticed had become loose.Fortunately the holes in the thing theboom is attached to (technically calledthe gooseneck) were fine we had

been worried that they also might havebecome enlarged, so we riveted it allback together with a couple ofwashers to take the slack out of theholes where they had worn, and put in

a couple of extra rivets for goodmeasure having looked carefully at theboats around us who all had at least 8rivets there rather than our paltry four!

This is someone elses gooseneck, butyou can see the principle. It was thelight grey aluminium bit on the left that

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was loose and now has more rivets in it! The dark grey gooseneck slots inside it.Big rivet gun above.

Another small task was to put a cover on the new anchor windlass switch, as it was abit fizzly when holding it in wet hands! Brian used a piece of small waste pipe andtwo water bottle tops amazingly just the right size to fit inside the pipe. (As B keepsreminding me, 12V wont hurt, but it was a bit tingly). He rewired some 12V socketswith thicker cable we use them for our spotlight which wasnt operating at fullstrength on the old cable. While he did that he fixed the aft cabin ceiling panel thathad been loose. All these little jobs! I have just seen Rampages blog(http://djbyrne.wordpress.com/) which hilariously describes their similar experiences one ostensibly small job extends into something much bigger!

A propos nothing, butthought you might liketo see the octopus wehad in a very nice stew!

Mackerel were eatenthe following day.

It was time for us to start thinking about where to go next too, as mentioned at thebeginning. Our month was up but the weather forecasts kept changing. Our originalplan, right up until the last day, was to spend a couple of nights at Mahdia, then on toLa Chebba both fishing harbours. Then we were going to negotiate the KerkennahChannel using a route given to us by the French couple we met in Tabarka, andanchor in the shallows before finally coming down to Houmt Souk on Djerba Island.However on Wednesday evening we saw that further strong winds were forecast forthe following week and we decided to head straight here while it was reasonablycalm. We had a good trip although a bit bumpy, and successfully negotiated the oiland gas wells scattered around the bay north of the harbour although the wind

direction meant we had to go east of them rather than west which would have beenthe shorter route.

Kerkennah islands inthe middle, Jerba atthe bottom, HoumtSouk is on the northcoast of Jerba. Darkblue=shallow,Green=dry land so wewent all the wayround outside thedark blue bits!

http://djbyrne.wordpress.com/http://djbyrne.wordpress.com/

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Purple blobby bits are oil wellsIt was Brians turn to cook the beef stew in rather bumpy conditions en route, but justas he was starting he smelled smoke and the fire alarm went off. It wasnt hiscooking the bilge pump wiring had shorted out (had the new switch been left on bymistake?) and a considerable amount of wiring behind the switch panel had melted.Everything was in darkness and we were sailing without navigation lights, radio orGPS for hour until he managed to jerry-rig the connections back again with a fewcrocodile clips and bits of wire. I was just preparing to start doing a bit of manualcourse plotting! The boat stank of burnt plastic for a few days after that. It has takena day or three in Houmt Souk to get it sorted out and to find that the bilge pumpmotor itself has burnt out. Fortunately the shower pump motors are the same typeand as the one in Brians workshop is redundant he has swapped it over. We arehoping that we will be able to get the motor rewound here in Tunisia they are adeptat fixing things. Further work on the wiring included taking out more redundant stuff,and fixing the switch panel so that all the switches actually do what is on the label atlast! The bilge pump is back on the panel too having to repair some of the burntbits meant that Brian took the whole thing apart, found out why some of the switches

didnt work and fixed them. The inbuilt cutout switches he discovered will prevent arecurrence of our melt down.

The formalities whenwe arrived were theleast formal we haveexperienced in Tunisia.We are tied up on apontoon with about 10other yachts of whichmaybe four areoccupied. Most are

French a couple wemet briefly in Sidi BouSaid were here brieflybefore they set off forLampedusa. The costof mooring here is quitelow about 150 for themonth.

There is lotsof activity in

the harbourwith loads offishingboats. Theydidnt movefor the firstfew days asit was quitewindy some of thefishermenseem to live on the boats and looked very bored. Then the wind dropped and they alltook off together. The sea here is very calm even in high winds as it is all veryshallow one of the features of the area but a bit alarming when navigating around.

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We have taken the plunge andrented a flat for the month. Wewere pointed to one of the cafwaiters who hunted around andfound a huge place about 15minutes cycle ride from themarina. It is a bit scruffy andcold (no heating to speak of),but has 3 nice bedrooms andtoilet, shower and cookingfacilities, not to mentionsatellite TV! The marina herehas no toilets or showers yet(still in the process of beingbuilt) so we are developing theroutine of eating dinner and

sleeping in the flat, spending the morning doing odd jobs there and then coming tothe boat for lunch and working on the boat in the afternoons or even going for a sail.We have yet to explore the island and the flat is fairly close to the bus station. Mysister is joining us for a week soon, so the flat will be handy for her to stay in as well,although we will be out touring the south of Tunisia for a few days.

Thats about all for now I hope this finds you all well and thinking spring thoughts!

Rose & Brian

Fishermen going back to their boat