 Mt Etna (or Mongibello in Sicilian) is one of the best known and respected volcanos on our planet. It is the highest active volcano in Europe, outside the Caucasus, currently 3,326m high, though this varies with summit eruptions. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 with a basal circumference of 140 km. Mt Etna also is one of the world’s most active volcanoes and is in an almost constant state of activity. Volcanic activity first took place at Etna about 500,000 years ago, with eruptions occurring beneath the sea off the ancient coastline of Sicil
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Here are a few highlights from our time in Tunisia. Apologies in advance for the earworm this soundtrack will undoubtably give you. Well what a mixed bag our journey was, sometimes things don't quite go according to plan, but in the end it doesn't matter. We had planned to leave the dock at 8am and the country at 9am, however a last minute problem with the bilge pumps required a parting coffee with our trusty engineer, Mike Turner. Mike only has to look at something for a nano-second and it seems to start working again. All good, now we can get away about 9:30. Our exit from the dock was not quite as elegant as we had planned, but thank you Patrick from Tok Tok. The berth was meant for a 40' boat after all! First stop, the Capitanerie to pay our bills - TND150 for water and electricity. Next stop, the port police, lovely people and I managed the whole process in French, including the discussion about why I am already retired and such a young age (!) - maybe I should have put "housewife" or "boat-wife" on the formulaire but Google translate could not deal with that! So far so good, no request for baksheesh...
A bit of wild weather ahead of our departure tomorrow! While we did not spend a lot of time on ITIKI over the northern winter, we did manage to tick off quite a few items from our wish list of boat jobs, but don’t worry we still have a few more things to keep Keith amused over summer. A big thanks to Mick Turner here in Hammamet who actually did most of the work and took great care of ITIKI while we were away. Mick and his lovely wife Jo, really helped us navigate our way around Tunisia and made our stay very special.
Here are some of the highlights. As you can see we have had some serious problems to solve and have come up with some tailor-made solutions. We have also made a good contribution to the Tunisian economy!  The Marvellous Mustapha It was one of those plans that seemed like a good idea at the time - before we left Tunisia we booked an Intrepid 2-week tour of Morocco (Best of Morocco) to kick off season II in the Med. We may spend some time along the Moroccan coast next year on the way to the Canaries, so the plan was to see some of the interior of the country. We started off in Casablanca, which sounds sooo exotic (its not, but might be when they finish building it…). There were 16 of us in the group (7 Canadians (including another Keith!), 3 Aussies, 3 POMs and 3 yanks) and our fearless guide, the lovely Mustapha - who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Cat Stevens. |
AuthorLynda is slowly getting used to the transition from working to not working and racing to cruising. Archives
February 2020
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