We spent some time waiting for a weather window to get us to Jasmine Marina at Hammamat. Some days were pretty wild with waves breaking over the wall behind us. We finally get further south and met up with Mike and his wife Jo, the local Ocean Cruising Club port officer as it turned out. He and Pete spent a day rewiring the transformer– a job Pete had been putting off as the access was a nightmare. Mike is tall and thin with long arms so it was a perfect opportunity! We had a good night out with them a couple of times and also to meet a tour operator who can take us in to the desert.
was standing on the back of the boat having a Berocca thinking that we needed a couple of quiet nights when a Outremer 45 pulled in behind us with 4 Aussies from Brisbane! Naturally we met them for drinks that night and they are going to come on the desert tour too. Tam, Vicky and Wayne and Sharon. They are leaving “Cara” in Jasmine for the winter.
The desert trip was good – over two days and a couple of really early starts. One to go to El Jem which. is the third largest Roman amphitheatre in the world and better preserved than the Roman one. One to see the sunrise over a huge salt lake. We rode on camels at the edge of the Sahara and had a hair raising 4WD trip over the sands to see the location of the Star Wars set for episodes 1 and 2. Wayne made the mistake of asking the driver had he been a stunt driver for the movies which only encouraged him! There was a lovely oasis to walk to after we had had lunch in a Berber cave and we stayed the night in a 4 star hotel which served wine and beer thankfully. Lots of driving but a good experience.
The next day we got organised early to sail to Malta only to be held up ages by customs and immigration for no better reason than they seemed to not know what to do……All in all we quite liked Tunisia but were looking forward to somewhere not so dusty and hard to shop in!