21.08.2009 MALTA
We came to Malta without knowing too much about the island. But it was magnificent! Entering the Grand Harbour was like sailing into a historic theatre wih castle-like constructions on all sides. As we even made it to the start of a fiesta made it even more grandeur as there were flags hanging on all poles and other places where they could possibly be displayed. It was the St. Lawrence fiesta. We never found out why they celebrate this old martyr on Malta, but it's probably got something to do with the St. Johns heritage.. The fiesta was about bands marching in the little village Vittorioso which is also the village where the Grand Harbour Marina is situated. So we were in the middle of it! There were people in the streets all night, there were fireworks both day and night and of course seremonies in the church. St. Lawrence cathedral is next to the marina.
When you come to Malta the Valletta Port Control won't let you into the harbour without an arrangement with a marina. They have a very efficient way of handling the traffic via VHF and everything went smoothly even though we had not made arrangement before we came. Grand Harbour Marina was expensive but excellent. The sanitary facilities were pure luxury even though the capacity was a little too low. We managed to avoid the rush hours so it was not a problem, though.
The majority of people in the marina, besides maltese, must have been Italians. Many Maltese speak Italian as well as English and Maltese. We learnt that at the time of liberation from Britain it was a debate on whether Italian should be the new official language of the island. But it was not the choise of the masses so English/Maltese won. I didn't realise before that Maltese is actually a language that is very much alive. The Arabian dialect, as someone described it, has survived through the years of British influence, and we saw that today Maltese is the language of the children in the streets.
We visited a lot of museums on Malta. Maritime Museum, Malta War Museum, Fort Rinella, etc. present a lot of military history which is of course central to their history. It was a bit much for some of us, but still it was interesting!
The most time consuming project for us at Malta was, however, to try and fix the generator. As mentioned earlier seawater had been leaking in through the exhaust bend due to siphon effect. We should have installed a siphon breaker on the pipe due to the location of the generator below the waterline. The Greek Kubota supplier Agripan had been very helpful and sent us the workshop manual and the parts catalogue for the engine, so we decided to lift out the generator, open it and see if we could fix it. We found corroded cylinder parts, a broken spring and a cylinder top gasket which had seen better days. We had localised the Kubota dealer on the island, and hoped we could fix the motor with a little help from the Gaetana brothers. We got on one of he Maltese yellow buses and went as far as Zeebugg where the Gaetana company had their premises. And they did what they could! But when Italians and French have closed for the summer holidays nothing can be done to get parts from their storages. But the Gaetana brothers ground the corroded parts and found a new spring, but a new gasket was unavailable. They suggested a temporary repair of the torn part of the gasket by using a "gasket on a tube" type product, and so we did. The generator was hopefully fixed, at least temporarily. Our main engine had been installed without a siphon break, too, and now Stein started to worry that our loaded ship could have shifted the waterline to above a critical level where siphoning could cause drowning of this engine too. And it didn't take long to confirm this suspicion. So now we have installewd a siphon break on the main engine, too, and changed the motoroil repeatingly and hope that the water has not harmed the cylinders.
We think we found the homeland of the Bingo game on Malta. You could hear the numbers being announced from every corner and people was filling the benches, enthusiastically it seemed. Luckily we were able to withstand the temptations.. We didn't meet and talk to that many people beyond our neighboors on the pontoon and the personnel at the marina. There were quite a few Italian yachts with teenagers on board, but the treshold for taking contact was too high. However, Ingeborg met the local fisherman, Philip. He spent the days along the quay with a dog (or three) and four fishing rods, and sometimes his wife was there, too. They were good company several days. A green grocer selling his goods from the back of his truck supplied us with fruit and vegetables almost everyday. We had to go farther for other food, but it wasn't too difficult either when the supermarket would pick you up at the marina and also bring you back with all the shopping bags! Foods were generally cheap in Malta from our experience, at least cheaper than Greece!
Now that school has started in Norway we had to start more seriously here, too. The students have got the task to write about something they found interesting in the Maltese history. Thorstein will write about the second world war, while Ingeborg will write about the Knights of St. John. As mentioned above we visited a lot of museums which gave some insight into the different periods of the history of this island so they both had material to work from in addition to internet.
Malta was very much worth the week we spent there, and there are lots of things we didn't find time for during the week we were there. We didn't swim or snorkle as the water within the harbour was not very tempting. Other areas are said to be wonderful, but very crowded in August. Next time we come to Malta we will visit the bays, but now Africa was waiting!
29.08.2009 TUNISIA
A summary from our visit to Africa: Bakshish, Ramadan, Sahara, Karthage..
The adventure started the day we arrived in Yasmine Hammamet, Tunisia. We had motored almost all the way from Malta, caught another tuna.. 5-6 kilos and passed an oil rig some miles offshore. We could see that this was another "holiday land", paragliding, windsurfing and an endless beach. And hotels. We didn't have the coordinates for the marina, but were still able to guess where it was from the map. Once inside the breakwater we were met by a marina fellow in his dinghy, and the French lesson started! We were not prepared for the fact that Tunisians seems to expect all Europeans to speak French! But after some struggle we understood that he wanted to know whether we came from Libya! As we didn't we could just enter the customs jetty and go through the formalities with the different authorities. Everything went smoothly, except for my meeting with bakshish. It was when one of the officers followed me over to the next office that he asked whether I had something to offer to them, a small present.. I was not totally unprepared for the fact that bribery exist in these countries, but I think I looked a bit funny when I realised what happened. He wanted Euros, and all I had in my purse was a 10€. You can guess what happened.. Well, with the next officer the same thing happened, only this one knew it was not an acceptable part of the visit. He was sweating, poor man, in the 40 degrees summer temperature and from trying to communicate his unsound message in a very poor English-French mix. Why don't they charge us a small tax and use it to pay their people better? That's what they do back home! Well, normally they don't come that small though.. On departure the officer that first introduced me to the bakshish could smilingly inform me: "no presents on departure.."
The marina in Hammamet was quite new, opened in the 90's sometime. But the concept included a whole complex of shops and restaurants, and most of these buildings were still empty. Sad for the investors but also a bit sad for visitors. It's more pleasant when there are people in the houses! To see some more real Tunisia we first visited the old city, Hammamet. Yasmine Hammamet is like a touristy suburb. In Hammamet we saw a city with an arabian culture. In many ways similar to other Mediterranean communities, especially in Turkey, but there is also little things that makes it more exotic: Shop windows, clothing, signs with arabian letters, the smells, the mosques. People are very friendly and we liked it!
Ingeborg had expressed a wish to see the desert, Sahara! We thought it was a good idea and ended up renting a car to go south. It would be a two day trip (at least) to reach the sand dunes and we also added other touristy sites to our route. We didn't know that Kairouan is the fourth most holy city for the muslims. This was what Stein understood from trying to read our French(!) guide book. We had to pay a visit even though this was the first day of Ramadan and we didn't know what that would mean in Kairouan. People doing Ramadan (thats how the car renter expressed it) don't eat or drink the whole day. Will the restaurants be open at all then or is it possible to get some bread or fruit or even water? In Kairouan there was a real medina where the different types of workshops were organised geographically, so that for a while we saw only carpentry shops, then we saw tailors, and so on, and in the end we found the food market! Some restaurants might have been closed in midday, but others were more than willing to serve the visiting tourists. We continued south from Kairouan and came to Matmata where we stayed overnight. We should of course have accepted an offer from one of the boys who would take us to see a berber house from the inside! But we didn't. It was exiting to see them from the outside, too, like caves with a white painted front and a nicely arranged yard in front. And our hotel was build in the style of a berberhouse and that was fun!
Next day was Sahara day! We drove from Matmata to Douz and further on to the little village El Sabria. This was a tip from a German family we met in Matmata. They had met Toufik who had given them a great experience in the desert landscape. We met Toufik, too, as soon as we arrived in the village. He is waiting for tourists who would like some guiding, and we can recommend this service! Toufik and his barefooted friend in the burning sanddunes. Ingeborg and Thorstein was running around, feeling the soft sand around their toes. We were taken to an old French fort, just like the ones used by Legion d'Etrange in numerous books from Stein's younger days. We could have spent the night here, inside or in a tent, had dinner with the nomades from the village, taken a trip on a camel into the sand. Toufik would have arranged it, but we couldn't..this time. I hope we can go back.
We went to Tunisia and Karthage the next day. I always seem to get stuck in the middle of a terrible traffic jam when I'm visiting new places. This time I drove through downtown Tunisia around noon.. But I came through without a scratch, even though I must admit that part of the distance was driven along a street reserved for the tram.. I just ended up there, somehow! Then we came to Karthage with the President palace and all the nice villas. What a contrast after being in the villages closer to the desert the day before! Of course, we came for the museums and ruin parks that are very nicely presented. It was an interesting day!
Gjertrud
