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.

.

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.