Central Mediterranean
Republic of Tunisia
Gulf of Hammamet
Hammamet
SY "Kamu II" at anchor, off the beach.Click below for a bird's-eye view of our anchorage:
25 Jun - 27 Jun 2003 Hammamet
Central Mediterranean
Republic of Tunisia
Gulf of Hammamet
Hammamet
Yasmine Marina +21671860093
SY "Kamu II" with her stern to the pier and with one bow anchor.
€ 26.- per night.Click below for a bird's-eye view of our marina berth:
Taking a louage from Hammamet to Tunis, Tunisia's relaxed capital where the East meets the West, and exploring both (i) the medina of Tunis (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) in the city centre - a dense agglomeration of palaces and mosques, mausoleums and madrasas, alleys and covered passages, full of intense scents and brilliant colours, boisterous and active trade, a surfeit of goods on offer ranging from leather to plastic, and (ii) E of the Sea Gate (aka Bab el Bhar or Porte de France) the modern city, or Ville Nouvelle, built with the introduction of the French protectorate at the end of the 19th-century CE and transversed by the grand Avenue Habib Bourguiba (the Tunisian Champs-Élysées with its cafes, hotels, shops and theatres), where the colonial-era buildings provide a clear contrast to smaller older structures.
Admiring the views from the top of Byrsa Hill onto the UNESCO World Heritage Site of ancient Carthage, founded in 814 BCE by Phoenician colonists under the leadership of Queen Dido, time-travelling back for 2,000 years and looking down at the two large, artificial harbours which were built within the city, one for harbouring the city's massive navy of 220 warships and the other for mercantile trade, and only dimly remembering the details of what we once had learned in the history classes at high school about Carthage: (i) the love story between Aeneas and Dido, (ii) the child sacrifices to the god Ba'al Hammon, (iii) the three Punic Wars with Rome, (iv) Hannibal and his elephants in the Alps, (v) the Battle of Cannae and (vi) Scipio Aemilianus the salt sower.
Clearing Tunisian customs and immigration (free of charge) at the Yasmine Marina +21671860093 at Hammamet where an apathetic gang of government agents worked to rule.
19 Jun - 25 Jun 2003 Monastir
Central Mediterranean
Republic of Tunisia
Gulf of Hammamet
Monastir
Marina Cape Monastir +21673462305
SY "Kamu II" with her stern to the jetty and with a permanent bow mooring.Click below for a bird's-eye view of our excellent marina berth:
Matt: Pilgrimaging one seventh of the distance to Mecca and visiting the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the splendid Great Mosque of Sidi-Uqba at Kairouan (only guessing the considerable number of its many columns as over 400, since it was forbidden to count them, on pain of blinding), where in 670 CE the Emir Oqba ibn Nafi received a mystical revelation which impelled him to found Kairouan, a city that was to become, after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, the fourth most venerated one in the Muslim world.
Strolling together with German yotties Angelika and Gerd from SY "Ariane" through the cosmopolitan coastal city of Sousse (founded by the Phoenicians as Hadrumetum In the 11th-century BCE and which is in the 1980s CE still in demand as an exotic film location, e.g. for the Indiana Jones movies when Sousse acted as an idealised Cairo without bearing any resemblance with the real McCoy), thus visiting the intact and authentic medina in the heart of Sousse (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) with the ribat from where we got fantastic views of the medina and the Great Mosque, built in c. 850 CE, and an austere and surprisingly tranquil place despite its location in the middle of the city.
17 Jun - 19 Jun 2003 Kuriate
Central Mediterranean
Republic of Tunisia
Kuriate Island
SY "Kamu II" at anchor, on sand.Click below for a bird's-eye view of our anchorage:
14 Jun - 17 Jun 2003 Mahdia
Central Mediterranean
Republic of Tunisia
Mahdia
Fishing Harbour
SY "Kamu II" alongside, in front of the harbour police.
TD 7.750 (€ 5.40) per day.Click below for a bird's-eye view of our harbour berth:
Berthing alongside in the fishing harbour of Mahdia aka Al Mahdiyah (founded by the Fatimids under the Caliph Abdallah al-Mahdi in 921 CE and made the capital city of Ifriqiya, by caliph Abdallah El Fatimi), entering the town through the enormous 16th-century CE gate Skifa Kahla, visiting the 10th-century CE Great Mosque, wandering together with our daughter Ulrike through the ancient casbah - a maze of vine-shaded squares, narrow cobbled streets and old mosques, and climbing over the dilapidated graves of the old sailors cemetery and around the rocks at Cap d'Afrique aka Ras Ifriqiya, the extremity of this narrow peninsula.
Matt and Ulrike: Boarding a louage and visiting El Djem's 3rd-century CE amphitheatre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most impressive Roman monuments in Africa, capable of seating 35,000 spectators and mainly used for gladiator shows and chariot races, marvelling at the collection of intricate Roman mosaic floors in the El Djem Archaeological Museum and browsing through the souqs and ramparts of the fascinating medina at Sfax, where life and business behind the thick walls still go on as much as they have for centuries.
12 Jun - 14 Jun 2003 Kuriate
Central Mediterranean
Republic of Tunisia
Kuriate Island
SY "Kamu II" at anchor, on sand.Click below for a bird's-eye view of our anchorage:
Anchoring off Kuriate Island aka Ile Kuriate aka Jazirat Qurayyat, a low island, lying about 10 nm ENE of Monastir, making landfall with our vintage Bombard AX 300 inflatable dinghy, rambling together with our daughter Ulrike over this uninhabited, desolate island with its salt marsh vegetation and exploring its 26-m high lighthouse (which is notoriously unreliable according to many navigational warnings for seafarers).
Sailing around the N tip of Kuriate Island
09 Jun - 12 Jun 2003 Monastir
Central Mediterranean
Republic of Tunisia
Gulf of Hammamet
Monastir
Marina Cape Monastir +21673462305
SY "Kamu II" alongside.
Click below for a bird's-eye view of our excellent marina berth:
Click below for a bird's-eye view of our excellent marina berth:
Click here for a summary of this year's travels:
2003 Map
Accommodating our daughter Ulrike who came from Freiburg i.Br. and moved into the lower bunk of SY “Kamu II’s” guest cabin in order to spend a week of her holidays to anchor, sail and dive together with us.
DM Konni, together with our daughter Ulrike, an advanced open-water PADI diver: Scubadiving together with dive instructor Jamel from Diving Centre Plongée & Loisir at their house reef in the vicinity of theGhadamsi Islands
DM Konni, together with our daughter Ulrike, an advanced open-water PADI diver: Scubadiving together with dive instructor Jamel from Diving Centre Plongée & Loisir at their house reef in the vicinity of the
29 May - 09 Jun 2003 Monastir
Central Mediterranean
Republic of Tunisia
Gulf of Hammamet
Monastir
Mohamed Mrad Marine Service +21673467451SY "Kamu II" on the hard.
Click below for a bird's-eye view of our ship out of the water:
N 35° 46.77' E 010° 50.11'
Click here for a summary of this year's travels:
2003 Map
Hauling out our 43-foot ship SY “Kamu II” and antifouling her with red-brown commercial bottom-paint from Tunisia (Astral Super Ionitox for TD 45.- or € 32.- per 5-litre can) and uneventfully launching her back into the water (paying TD 140.- or € 98.- for the travel lift, out and in, plus bottom wash and two weeks on the hard).
Topping up our 480-litre main tank with 220 litres of cheap diesel fuel for only TD 0.44 (€ 0.30) per litre at the fuel berth situated right opposite of Mohamed Mrad Marine Service +21673467451.
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