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.