Travels in Sardinia

After leaving Yasmine Hammamet in Tunisia we had a good sail north to Cagliari in Sardinia, though in crossing the shipping lanes in the Skerki Channel between Sicily and Tunisia in the middle of the night and under sail, we had to weave our way between at least 60 ships; must be one of the busiest channels in the world. Kept us on our toes. Then, on the morning of our arrival, the last several hours were into a 35–40 kt headwind. So, we were glad to arrive. Cagliari, the largest city in Sardinia, was interesting to visit and we sent a couple of days sight-seeing and stocking up supplies. Our plans to sail up the east coast were denied by the weather. Fresh onshore easterlies. After a great sail up the west coast in favourable offshore winds, reaching along around 9-10 kts, we have arrived at Alghero, a lovely town. Enroute we spent several nights at anchor and a night at beautiful Carloforte on Isola di San Pietro off the SW coast. From here, the NE coast beckons and after that, Corsica. The weather remains cool to cold. Hopefully the last few sunny days may herald the arrival of the warmer season.

Pirate ship trip boat, Port Yasmine Tunisia

Downtown Cagliari

Marina in the distance from atop Cagliari

Church near the marina

Cagliari from the harbour

Downwind, cold!

Carloforte

Exercising the dog

Carloforte

Town quay Alghero - free berth - hooray!

Alghero old town

Good way to sell lollies?

The passegiata begins

Tourist transport

Cocktails on the terrace

Villa, Alghero

We get company

Tunisia 2

Even though we have seen little evidence of the revolution, yesterday we visited Tunis and saw a significant military and police presence around the city centre. And we have seen numbers of young people, probably uni students, who seem to be celebrating the regime change. Perhaps any continuing unrest is their doing; no one else seems the slightest bit interested.
We travelled by louage, a minibus much used by the locals; less than two euros each for the hour long trip. Tunis is a fascinating sprawling city, exotic, chaotic, dirty and great fun. The rubbish strewn streets are off-putting; as bad as we saw in Egypt. The medina was like most bazaars and souks we have seen with shops selling anything and everything and with pushy touts trying to get you in. We think they are suffering the effects of the revolution in a lack of tourists but it is still early times yet.
Tunisia seems a tolerant, liberal society; women dress in all fashions, there are bars where the blokes get stuck into the beer, the predominance of Islam seems far less obvious than was the case in Turkey. We have yet to hear a call to prayer.
The people are all very friendly and despite French being the local lingo we haven`t had any trouble being understood in English. Generally speaking, things are very cheap; meals, booze, groceries, cab fares and even wifi internet are ridiculously cheap. Though still paying EU40/night for the marina berth.
Today we hired a car and drove down to Monastir to buy a new 2.8 m Caribe brand RIB from the factory there. Great boat and the price hard to beat. Check out www.caribeboat.com .
All in all we would recommend Tunisia as a place to visit. Once our new dinghy has been delivered we`ll set sail for a two night crossing to Cagliari in Sardinia.


Largely unoccupied hotels near the marina

Louage station Tunis

Central market Tunis

Guess who?

Cafe at the entance to the Medina

Medina scene

Minaret at the Great Mosque in the Medina

Spring cleaning at the Mosque

A princess in the Medina

Mosaic on Roman baptismal font - Bardo museum Tunis

colur somewhat enhanced by picasa - probably more like the original

More mosaics

That princess again

Lunchtime downtown Tunis

Security presence

Sit-uation normal?

Garbage strike?

Red meat butcher near the dinghy factory

Caribe dinghy factory

Lunch at the marina at Monastir

Crossing to Tunisia

Greetings from Port Jasmine Hammamet, Tunisia. Finally,we were able to achieve enough work done to enable us to set off from Malta. The parts for the furler finally arrived and the new lazy bag, after several returns to the loft for rework, was acceptable[?]. So, we set sail, tacking into a fresh 20 kt headwind as a short shakedown sail to the island of Comino between Gozo and Malta. It sorted out a few gremlins and we were able to spend a quiet though short night in a calm anchorage before an 0400 start for the crossing to Tunisia. A lack of wind saw us motor all day before a fresh breeze came in, just as the grib files had predicted, and we then had a cracker of an overnight sail in 18-20 kts of quartering wind all the way to Port Yasmine, arriving too early for the locals to be ready to receive us. Enroute we shared the sea with turtles, dolphins, swordfish and sheerwaters and negotiated our way through a large fishing fleet and around several unexpected offshore platforms [our charts, both digital and paper apparently out of date]. We were received by the local authorities without too much hassle and now find ourselves in a strange place. The marina precinct is an architect`s dream of acres of buildings for shops and accommodation, ninety percent of which is empty and obviuosly has never been occupied, surrounded by wide malls and collonaded walkways. Judging by what we see here and in the local surrounds you would not know that there had been any recent "revolution". The town area is comprised of miles and miles of hotels, all empty at the moment. Who knows if there will be normal season here? If not, then many of the locals will find things tough as they rely totally on tourism. Anyway, these are first impressions.


Departing Marsamxett Harbour, Malta

Comino anchorage

Lovely day motoring

First Mate ready for a COLD night watch

Approaching Port Yasmine

Downtown Port Yasmine

Our berth in the marina at Port Yasmine

Exploring

We cycled about 4 km to nearby Barraksal for fresh supplies

And returned to the marina