Back to the beginning

Due to lack of internet we haven't been able to write anything for a while.

We went thru the german rivers Mosel and Rhein and the canals from Duisburg to Lübeck. In Travemünde we had the masts raised at Trave werft. From Lübeck we sailed across to Gislövs Läge, Sweden. It took about 20 hours and there was a lot of traffic in all directions.
We sailed slowly up the swedish baltic coast arrived back in Stenhamra on monday the 13th of October. It was a grey and rainy day it a temperature of 5 degrees centigrade.

Now we start to update and repair a lot of things. Next summer we plan to take up the boat on shore to sandblast and paint the bottom, change bearings to the rudder and many other things.
We will continue to report the progress.

Schengen

It is good to be able to travel  freely in Europe. We left France and the next village on our left side was Schengen in Luxembourg, on the right side was Germany. No one cared, we just had to change flags.

Fete de mirabelle

After more than 100 locks we reached the beautiful city of Metz. We stayed in the nice port de plaicence in the middle of the old town.
It was a festival of mirabelle. Mirabelle is like a small plum.
We took part in the juru of the best desert with mirabelle. We got four very good ones and as I was offered an extra one from the lady next to me I was absolutely full. They were very good-
In the evening we went to an outdoor consert with nice music.  After the first part there was going to be a flamenco performace and they rerigged the stage. Just when it all should beginn it started to rain and it was pouring down. Unfortunately it had to be cancelled.

The Gollywobler - the quen among sails

What is a code zero, spinnaker or genua - nothing compared to the gollywobler.
A gollywobler is hoisted on the fore mast of a scooner and sheeted to the top of the main mast and to the deck.

We saw this boat in Bonifacio strait.

Some locks are small and some are the biggest in the world

When going on the Rhone all the locks are big. They are all about 180 m by 12 m and the height varies from 10 to 23 m.which is 49.680.000 litre of water. The Bollene lock was the biggest in the world when it was built.

Up the river Rhone

We heared rumours about the strong current in the river. People usually dramatise and tell how bad things are. We started out and the first part up past Arles to Beaucaire took us a day and we averaged about 3 knots which is ok. The next day it was worse. Now the current was up to five knots and in certain stretches we were down to .7 knots. The old ladies with wheel chairs overtook us. Not a very funny day. We were working our ways for about 12 hours each day. But we reached Lyon and had done the worst part.

Everything breaks down!

As we had a leaking propeller shaft when arriving to Monastir we put the boat on the hard and changed the sealings and was happy that we solved the problem. But we hadn't! when crossing to Sardinia it started to leak even worse, then the electric bilge pump failed, the Navionics charts stopped working and the forestay to the main mast  broke.. We pumped manually and navigated with 15 years old charts but finally we reached Olbia where we bought a new bilgepump and a lot of grease for the propeller shaft. We contiued up along the east coast of Sardinia and Corse and crossed to Ile de Porquerolles and reached Port St Louis where we once againg put the boat on the hard. The men driving the travel lift remembered us from 2010!! - they dropped us accidately.
Now we bought a new stuffing box and took down the masts. The Navionics charts started to work after a new release of the app.
Everything was back in good order again.

Kelibia - a big fishing harbor

Kelibia is very different to Monastir. It's a working place. The harbour is full of fishing boats, there is a huge travel lift to take care of even the biggest boats and there is a yard building new wooden boats. There is several hundreds of fishing boats but less than five pleasure boats. We have been here for almost a week and like the place. The town is 3 km away so we get good exercise almost every day. We also walked to the fort on top of the nearby hill. It is the biggest in Tunisia and very strategic close to Sicily and Malta.

Monastir - a nice place

We stayed in Monastir for a month. It was a very nice experience. People are friendly, the marina is good and the officials are ok.
There was only one more swedish boat, Catten from Uppsala which was on hard standing to cure osmosis. We had a nice time together, playing Okey and Quirky, watching fotball and other things.
Monastit is a bit touristic with the hotels and marina.

the grand mosque

the market

midsummer eve celebration on msy Catten

the ribat, the monastery

A lunch break

On the way back to Monastir we stopped in a small village to have lunch. It's easy to find the place, they have put up a skin or a head from a newly slaughtered sheep outside and there are plenty of them.
We stopped at one of them and asked if we could eat there. As we understood it was possible so we sat down, The choice was easy, sheep or sheep. The only thing was that we had to decide how much. When we said 200 grams the cook went in to the building and we could here, tjopp, tjopp and then he came out with the meat and put in on the bbq. He then went across the street to get fries, tomatoes and cucumbers, and bread. There was an excellent meal!

Midés, the mountain oas

Up in the Atlas mountains we drove on a small road to reach the Midés oas. It's almost on the algerian border and we could see the watch towers. Here we met a nice guide who took us on a walk in the canyon. Down there we saw traces of wild boar and cobras. Where we walked it was now dry and 40 degrees but in winter it was three meter of water and it had happened that the village on the top had been flooded.
Here the movie "The english patient" was shot. It is a spectacular area with high mountains, deep canyons and palm trees.

The oasis - Tozeur and Midés

Tozeur is a big oas where a lot of dates are grown. We stayed in a hotel called Karim, which once had been beautiful. Now it had passed it's best before date. I think there were two more guests but we and there were a lot of rooms.We payed 35 dinars for the night with breakfast. As we took a walk in the evening we saw a lot of big hotels, all closed down. The tourists don't come any more, which is a pity as it is perfectly safe and the people are very friendly.

Chott El Jerid - salt lake

We crossed the big salt lake Chott El Jerid. It's big, almost across Tunisia from the Algerian border to the sea. It is mostly dry, but in places water comes up and it is red. In the middle of the lake we stopped at a hut to have a cup of coffe. It was a young man and he served the coffe from a termos. He also wanted to sell sand roses. It is sand that creates crystals. He showed one and said he wanted 45 dinars. We had seen them before on the market where we could by five for one dinar so we told him we didn't want any. He discussed with us all the time and finally he was down to five dinars but as we had told him we didn't want any we just payed the coffe and continued.

Douz - a desert town

Douz is on the edge of Sahara. We intended to take a camel ride in the sunset but had to cancel it due to the sandstorm. We stayed in a small hotel, Hotel 20 March, which was very nice. It was a bit hot here. In the courtyard it was like a hot sauna, it must have been 70 degrees. In the evening the official temperature came down to 42 degrees. We had a room with air conditioning which was a relief. In the morning we had breakfast and there was three italians too, an elderly couple who spoke italian and arabic but they had a young woman in company who spoke good english. She explained that the man was a desert researcher and had studied Sahara for about 40 years. They were all very nice. The cook that served the breakfast was a nice man, old like us, big and pitch black with a white kaftan. When Ulla told him she wanted black coffe, he pointed at his skin and said like me with a big smile. He walked around, dancing and drumming.
After breakfast we walked around asked for the camel market and found it in a  small oas, Unfortunately no camels today but a lot of sheeps and other animals. It was crowded with men, no woman but Ulla.

To Sahara

We drove along the Sahara dessert and the wind picked up and soon we had a sandstorm. It became more difficult to see and the mouth became full of sand.

We had to watch out for camels!

Fuel stations

Along the roads there are a lot of small fuel stations that imports fuel from Libya and sell it to a low price.
It looks quite dangerous with all the fuel in jerry cans in the sun,

Matmata a troglodyte village and home of Luke Skywalker

In Matmata the people created their "houses" by digging a big round hole in the ground and from there digging caves where they lived. In this way they created places which were not to hot in the summer and not to cold in the winter. In one of these places, Luke Skywalker lived in the Star Wars movie.

Colloseum of El Jem

We rented a car and drove south to El Jem. Here is a very nice colloseum built by the romans. It was built in AD230 and houses 30.000 spectators.

Repairs in Monastir

In Monastir we did some repairs to the boat. Ulla sewed a brocken batten pocket in the sail and she managed to do it without taking off the sail. We also had to take the boat ashore to change a sealing to the propeller shaft. Our neighbour had the same problem but it started to leak 10 hours away from land. He made a mayday on the radio but no one responded and he was almost sinking as he arrived in the harbour with the boat full of water and nothing working.
We also welded a fastening to our dolphin striker.

Tunisia - a nice experience

After sailing between a lot of fishing boats we arrived early in the morning to Monastir, Tunisia.
Here we met some old friends that had been here for a month. They guided us to the market and internet shop and to the restaurant with a swedish speaking cook.
We cleared customs and immigration and port police with ease. One of them asked for a bottle and another for old emergency rockets. The marina doesn't look like in the pilot book, but the book is more than 10 years old. It's a nice place with friendly people.
We went shopping at the market and we got shrimps and tuna, delicious. Ulla also bought a bouqet of yasmin flowers.

Rescue operation

This is italian warship, it is a rescue operation!
On the passage between Malta and Lampedusa we heard on the vhf-radio rescue operations all the time. In Lampedusa were several rescue boats and warships. In the harbour was a lot of old fishing boats that had been used for transporting refugees. That night was 300 people rescue and so it went on for every day.

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From Pylos to Malta

We started out from Pylos on the Peloponnessos heading for Malta, 350 nm west. It was a nice day but with very little wind so we motorsailed again. After a day the wind picked up and we could sail. The forecast for the four days we expected the sail should take was good but on the fifth day the forecast said gregale which is a strong northeasterly wind. We were a bit afraid that we shouldn't make Malta in time but we did.We arrived early in the morning about three o'clock so it was dark when we entered Valetta harbour. We tied up to a buoy and slept a few hours before we went into the marina. Here we had to stay for a week as the gregale soon arrived.
Malta is very nice with it's old history and as the english had been there not much had changed during the centuries.
The army museum is intressting as Malta is at a crossing where everybody wants to be.
We also celebrated our fortyith wedding anniversary at "Mama Mia", un excellent restaurant in the harbour.

Plaka, Return from the deads, Kastro and the Folklore Museum

In Milos we took the bus to Plaka and walked to the catacombs in Trypiti. In the catacombs in the mountain side there were about two thousand people buried since year 300.

Plaka is a wonderful place with narrow streets and white washed houses. On the hill top is as always a castle, Kastro.

We asked a young woman where the folklore museum was. She said; It is closed but if You like I can open it. It was an old house that had been donated as it was when the family lived there. Very intressting and nice.

Meltemi in Paros

Short after we arrived in Paros the meltemi started to blow. It's a strong northerly wind. We were anchored in a bay with good protection. As the wind was quit strong we put out a second anchor and everything was good. We went ashore and walked around in the nature reserv. There were a lot of flowers as the small blue ones we used to buy dried and that last for ever.

We were a couple of boats anchored, one was a blue dutch boat. When we saw a person in the dingy together with a small dog we thought it might be a woman we met att Port St Louis three years ago. So it was, Marina from Longyearbyn on Svalbard. She used to sail out from there to Greenland and Iceland, very impressing.

Levitha - in the middle of nowhere

A day motorsailing took us to small island of Levitha. It's in the middle of the Aegan. Just one family lives there. They are farmers but has also put some buoys in the bay and runs a very small taverna in their garden.

Moored to the rocks

After a sail with thunder and rain we finaly reached Vahti on Kalymnos. It's just a crack in the cliffs. We moored alongside the cliffs. It's a spectacular place with high cliffs and crystal clear water.

Check-in into Greece

We arrived to Kos in Greece with the yellow Q-flag flying. Immidately a harbour police came and wanted our information. After a few minutes he sent us to immigration, customs and harbour authority. It took us about two hours to complete the formalities and costed 15 Euros.
It was very easy and not expensive contrary to all rumours.

Now we are on the old Hipocrates island and in town there is a very old platan from his time. It doesn't look very nice but who looks nice after several thousands of years. The Bogainvillas and Hibiscuses are very beautiful.