Curare's Adventures

Chain Plate/ Deck Repair 2.0

When we crossed the Atlantic in 2017 on our way to the North Sea, we encountered some strong winds that caused some damage to our starboard side deck and chain plate. GG sourced some stainless plate in Cork and spent some time re-glassing the broken fiberglass and then installed the 5 mm thick plate as backing plates for the chain plates and side deck cleat. With fiberglass bonding to the deck and knee braces this repair seemed pretty strong.

Until this season of sailing when we noticed that the starboard deck around the lower aft shroud attachment was bulging a bit. Upon further examination, once the interior furniture was removed to allow access, we discovered that the fiberglass repair had broken completely through. Not delaminated, not fractured - it actually broke right through the six layers of 10 ounce woven fiberglass. What loads are being transferred through that shroud to cause such damage? It's incredible. Even the backing plate was bent upwards.

As an attempt to repair the broken chain plate GG drew up a template using a cardboard box from some cookies on board and went in search of a machine shop. We had heard that there was a fishing port in Monastir and that is always a good place to start looking for repairs to a boat. The port is 2 km south of the marina so we walked over there one morning to see what was available. It was a grimy, busy place, full of fish boats of all sizes with catches being unloaded into ice hoppers and nets strewn across the road being repaired. There is the most enormous travel lift we've ever seen that can handle boats to 250 tons; that is really massive. And in a corner of the yard is a marine chandler complete with stainless fasteners, bronze through hulls, paint, caulking and most items to be expected to fix a boat. Across the road was a metal shop with an incredible selection of flat bar and tubing in steel and stainless (in-ox). GG selected a piece of 8 mm thick stainless that was nearly 2" wide that could work for his envisioned repair. While talking with the metal shop owner, a metal fabricator came into the shop for a piece of metal. He spoke perfect English and in no time at all said he would bend the flat bar to the shape needed and drill holes in the required locations.

For less than $50 GG had a substantial piece of stainless bar that was hopefully going to firmly connect the base of the chain plate bracket to the knee brace attached to the hull. The hull will pull apart before that bracket breaks. But still, why is this happening to that one shroud attachment when none of the other seven shrouds and chain plates have shown any sign of movement. It's a mystery and one that needs to be figured out sooon.

Kairouan

To beat the heat we took a trip to the holy city of Kairouan, 69 km west of Monastir. This is probably the only large city in Tunisia that is not on a train line, which meant a bus ride, but when we went to the Monastir bus station none of the buses had any Roman lettering, only Arabic, so we could not figure out which bus to take. A lot of the population of Tunisia speaks French but people at the bus station just looked at us blankly when we asked them "Ou est le bus pour Kairouan?". All those years of French in Canadian high schools and we might as well be from Mars. We ended up hiring a private taxi who took us there and  two days later picked us up.

We booked a hotel on-line, it received good reviews. When the taxi deposited us at the gate we were stunned, it was a 5 star hotel occupying the Kasbah in the northern section of the medina. The hotel is, of course, called the Kasbah and it was refined and elegant, there was none of the tourist kitsch that many hotels with this name would have. The reception area looks like it was recently remodeled with beautiful stone work, tiles and wooden panels, the rooms are somewhat dated but they had charming tilework on the walls, and best of all AC. When we arrived in Kairouan it was 47 C and the humidity was very low, in contrast Monastir was also 47 C with 80% humidity - that is the reason we fled. The outer courtyard had an inviting pool (cleaned every day), the bar sold cold Becks beer and every morning we ate a delicious breakfast on the pool deck. We were transported for 2 nights to a life of luxury.

Kairouan is considered to be the fourth holiest site in Islam after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem because of it's Great Mosque - the oldest in North Africa. The first mosque was built here in 670 AD but that one was almost completely destroyed and tody's mosque dates from the 9th century. The mosque is located on the northeast edge of the medina and looks very plain from the outside but visitors are allowed inside between 9 and 2 PM and the interior is very grand. Visitors must wear appropriate clothing and LE's respectable outfit of long skirt, short sleeve shirt and Tilley hat was acceptable, but GG was wearing shorts so he was given a robe to wear - very dashing. After paying your entrance fee the first thing you encounter is a huge marble paved courtyard surrounded by an arched colonnade supported by columns salvaged from Carthage and Souuse, no two columns are the same. This courtyard was designed to divert rain water to the 9th century cisterns below, and the paving slopes toward a center drain with intricate carvings to filter out the dust. The southeastern end of the courtyard is the prayer hall - non-muslims cannot enter but we could look in the open door - and on the northwest end is a square, three tiered minaret, the lowest level was constructed in 728 AD. There were very few other visitors wandering around the courtyard, perhaps it was too hot.

As in Monastir and Sousse there is a medina and we spent a whole lot of time walking the streets. The medina walls of Kairouan are relatively recent being built in 18th century. Unlike the Sousse medina this one has many more residential buildings and shopping is restricted to a main north south road. Many of the residential buildings have ornate doors and ironwork over the windows, the majority painted bright blue and green in contrast to the building's white walls. We were only hassled once by a merchant asking us to come in and look at his carpets but when we politely declined he did not pursue us. The only other tourist site we visited was a spring named Bir Barouta built in 1676 to surround a well which has a prominent role in the city's founding legend. The water from the well is said to have the same source as the holy well of Zem Zem in Mecca and visitors making a pilgrimage to the Great mosque come here to have a drink of the holy water. It loses much of it's mystique when you see the poor camel attached to a water wheel endlessly going around in circles drawing up water for the thirsty pilgrims.

Kairouan is famous for a type of cake called a Makhroud, these are piled up in conical stacks and sold by the kilo, no bargaining involved. A traditional makhroud is a date filled semolina cake soaked in a honey syrup and cut into a diamond shape, recent innovations include fillings of fig or orange, drizzled with nutella, sprinkled with sesame seeds, and instead of a diamond shape short "logs". We bought the traditional kind, they were delicious. Geoff discovered a fast food stand close to our hotel on the edge of the market. This consisted of two hot plates on which the vegetable, egg, and meat filling was cooked and then rolled inside of a large flat bread named a Mlewi which was then also placed on the hot plate. When it was handed to you in a piece of paper it was barely cool enough to hold - also delicious.

We enjoyed everything about Kairouan, but two days was enough, Tunisia has many other places to visit and sites to see and we are only here for a month.

Sousse Tunisia

The city of Sousse, Tunisia's third largest city, is located a 22 km to the north of Monastir so we decided we would visit.

Like Monastir the city of Sousse has been here a very long time. It was founded in the 9th century BC as a Phoenician outpost and was part of Carthagian Empire from the middle of the 6th century BC. The famous Carthaginian Hannibal (the soldier with the elephants) used the town as his base in 202 BC in the second Punic war against the Romans (he lost) and the city was on the losing side again in 46 BC when Pompey based himself here during the Roman civil war and Julius Caesar won. In the late 7th century AD the Roman city was completely leveled by the Arabs and in the 9th century it was rebuilt by the Arabs as the town of Soussa, the present day medina.

Travelling on the Tunisian trains is easy and very inexpensive. As long as you know the name of the place you want to go and can pronounce it correctly you buy your ticket at the little window and then wait with all of the other passengers until your train arrives. The train we were on is a commuter train and is sort of air conditioned which was a pleasant surprise. The other surprise was the cost of a ticket; 1 Tunisian dinar (TD) for a trip of 35 minutes.

There are two main attractions - the medina (a UNESCO world Heritage site since 1988), enclosed by 2.25km of walls that reach a height of eight meters, and the Archaeologic Museum with it's splendid collection of Roman mosaics from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Within the medina are many other historical landmarks such as the Great Mosque, the Ribat, and the Sofra cistern, once the medina's principal water supply, but we were content to just walk along the twisty streets, sampling street food and taking photographs.

The northeast corner is wall to wall small shops, mostly selling tourist items. The merchants were quite aggressive in their spiels to get you inside of their shops by promising cheap prices. LE pointed to a scarf and asked how much, they said don't worry it would be a fair price, what did we want? Maybe we should look at another type of scarf? and soon LE was surrounded by 15 pieces of fabric with varying colours and different qualities. Eventually she picked a drab sand coloured one and as soon as she chose the merchant named his price. It was so ridiculous that GG asked the merchant "why was he insulting us"? Eventually GG got the cost down to 1/5 of the initial price and LE was willing to pay that amount. We think we were still ripped off but to us what we paid was what we were willing to pay and that is the art of bargaining. Later on, at another store, we walked away without buying anything because the seller would not meet our price.

At the southwest corner of the medina, on the highest point, is the Kasbah (fort), now the archaeological museum. The museum is located under the Kasbah's main courtyard and the galleries cover an area of approximately 2000 square meters, larger than we expected. We thought we were going to see a few small poorly preserved mosaics and were awe struck by the number and magnificence of the mosaics on display. The mosaics rival those displayed in the Bardo Museum in Tunis, some web sites claim the mosaics in Sousse are better, we cannot make a comparison as we have not yet been to Tunis but the ones we saw were outstanding. In addition to the mosaics there are also fragments of marble statues, funerary objects from the catacombs of Sousse and steles and urns found at the Trophet of Sousse (apparently very famous in the world of archaeology).

 

 

Monastir Tunisia

As mentioned in the previous blog we are staying for one month at the marina in Monastir Tunisia. So far we have had no complaints and we feel comfortable leaving Curare here while we do some inland travel.

But first we wanted to explore Monastir, the first truly Arab city we have been to for many years. Tunisia is more relaxed than the majority of other Muslim countries and a dress code is not strictly enforced. Women's dress varies widely - from shorts and sleeveless dresses to a full burkha with only a veiled eye slit - but more than 2/3 of the women wear long dresses and a hajib. Most of the men dress in a western fashion of pants and a shirt but young Tunisian men wear shorts so GG does as well. So as not to offend anyone LE wears either a long skirt or cotton trousers with a short sleeve top and in lieu of a hajib she wears a hat. This outfit seems acceptable - so far she has not heard any rude comments.

Monastir is a small city with few western tourists, although a lot of Tunisian tourists come to enjoy the horseshoe shaped beach. It was founded as Phoenician settlement of Rousse, but in 46 BC Julius Caesar based himself here while fighting against Pompey in the Roman civil war and when Caesar won and it became the Roman town of Ruspina. There are no Roman ruins, the oldest buildings are the Ribat, which dates from the 8th century AD, and the Great Mosque, built in the 9th century AD.

As in most of the larger towns/cities Monastir has a medina enclosed by walls. The medina walls are not as intact or spectacular as in other other cities because after independence there was a rush to modernize the town and some of the walls were torn down. What is seen today has been rebuilt except for a few of the gates (babs) which were built in the 15th to 17th centuries. And why was there a rush to modernize? Tunisia gained independence from France in 1956 and the first president, Habib Bourguiba, was born here in 1903. Besides a life sized golden statue of Bourguiba, there is an enormous mausoleum in his honour that covers a city block in the middle of the cemetery. The rush to modernize allowed the city look like it was important and prosperous enough to be the birthplace of a president.

The Ribat overlooks the beach and dominates the harbour, it was the first thing we saw as we sailed in. The term Ribat in Arabic simply means the place where one can be garrisoned. It is regarded as one of the country's finest examples of Islamic Military architecture and is one of the most ancient in Tunisia. Constructed in 797 AD. it has massive high brick walls with arrow slits, a watchtower to observe threats from the sea and a gate with a bent entrance, making it difficult to access the interior. By the 10th century the Ribats military function had diminished in favour of a religious center. We walked to the top of the tower via a spiral staircase with poor lighting, but the view was worth the effort, although the small wires to prevent you from falling off barely seemed strong enough and only reached our knees. Restorations have been well done and the place looks ancient, making it a favourite for film locations like Monty Python's Life of Brian and Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth.

We also just simply walked around in the relative cool of the mornings - when it is only 28 C. By the afternoons temperatures soar to 35 or 36 C although one day last week it reached 47 C. If it wasn't so humid those temperatures would be bearable in the shade, but with a humidex of 80% we can barely breathe. Monastir has a food market, much like markets in every other place we have been, but the selection of vegetables is generally restricted to bruised tomatoes, onions and green peppers with some stalls selling limp carrots and pieces of squash as well. Those ones have a line-up of customers. Fortunately there is a Monoprix supermarket close to the food market with a slightly better vegetable selection. Gasoline is 1.80 TD per liter or CAN$ 0.73, but engine oil is the best buy (according to GG). He paid 50 TD for 5 liters of diesel engine oil, or CAN$ 4.09 per liter.

Passage to Tunisia

We stayed in the Tuarredda anchorage for two nights awaiting a weather window for the 250 mile passage to Monastir in Tunisia, monitoring weather forecasts using the Windfinder App, the Passage Weather web site and GRIB files from our SSB radio. As usual, the weather was somewhat unsettled and not necessarily in our favour. We chose the appropriate mix of no wind and head winds for the crossing while avoiding the forecast thunderstorms. As it turned out we did get some favourable winds but motored through some calm periods. During the first night out we had a wonderful light show from thunderstorms to the north of us. We tracked these cells on radar and they never came closer than 8 miles to us although we did get a sprinkling of rain at one point.

Of more concern was the constant, steady stream of freighters, oil tankers and coastal steamers. We crossed and ran parallel to the busy shipping lane between Straight of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. Some of these ships were enormous, such as the 366 metre CSCL Mars container ship, others were in the 100 metre range going into ports along north Africa, Sicily and Malta. With our AIS transponder letting the ships know our course and speed it is easy for them to plot a course around us, making our navigation a lot easier.

As we approached Cap Bon on the north tip of Tunisia we were hailed on the VHF by Tunisian authorities wondering who we were and where we were going. A few hours later a Tunisian navy frigate came by for a close up look and wave hello, also asking the same questions. It was all done very politely without any sense of threat or intimidation as we have had in other countries.

While crossing the Bay of Hammamet the wind turned south and built to 15 knots putting us close hauled and heeled over for the first time this season. Fortunately nothing flew off of shelves or crew fell out of their bunk as the seas were still quite calm. We sailed up to the Cap Monastir marina where we were greeted by the ubiquitous pirate ship taking tourists for a turn around the bay. After a bit of confusion determining where we were to moor, we tied up securely to the marina pontoon at 10 am, 50 hours and 243 miles from our departure. Not the best, fastest or comfortable of passages but a reasonable trip overall.

Why Tunisia? Several reasons come to mind. For the past six years we have been cruising through European countries and while each has their own idiosyncrasies, it is pretty much the same culture. We had to get Curare out of the EU in order to avoid paying the dreaded 22% VAT. Staying anywhere else in the Med would have meant being within the Schengen Zone and our 90 days would evaporate before we got any real sailing in. But probably the most enticing reason to go to Tunisia was to experience life in a different culture on a new continent.

South Sardinia

After departing Masua, Sardinia we motored 15 miles south to the twin islands of San Pietro and Sant'Antioco. An artificial causeway, originally built by the Romans, connects Sardinia to Sant'Antioco and a ferry makes regular trips from the north end of Sant'Antioco to  San Pietro. We generally prefer remote anchorages but after a month out we needed to replenish some of our provisions. Also LE's cousin lives on the island during the summer season and she thought it would be fun to briefly stop for a short visit.

There was a place to anchor on the north end of the island, near to the town of Calasetta, and from there we could take a local bus to the larger city on the south end of the island, confusingly also named Sant'Antioco, where her cousin lived. Then friends of ours who were travelling in "nearby" England arranged to come for a visit. Conveniently there is a nice marina in Calasetta so we decided to stay for a few days and take our friends out on day sails. The marina idea worked well; after a month at anchor Curare was in dire need of a thorough cleaning and the marina fees included all of the water we could possibly use. However the day sailing idea did not work as planned because after the first day sail a northerly Mistral wind blew in and the sea became too rough to comfortably go out.

Before our friends arrived LE & GG managed a one day trip to visit her cousin, after figuring out the bus system (not straightforward as passengers need to purchase tickets through an APP, and face masks have to be of a specific type), and we also used that visit to the larger town as an opportunity to buy our groceries.

One morning, before it got too hot, we went for a stroll around Calasetta. It is an old town of white washed houses without a single highrise to mar the skyscape, but there was not a lot of the interesting architecture that LE so likes to photograph. Of note were the round tower at the height of land, the church with it's bell that sounded more like a dinner gong, and a town hall with a statue remembering the soldiers from Calasetta who had died in WWI. To stay hydrated we drank a lot of the local Sardinian beer, Ichnusa, the can proudly adorned with the Sardinian flag, and we ate a lot of thin crust pizza with imaginative toppings - as did everyone else.

From Calasetta we headed south and east back to Sardinia proper, passing more wild geological formations and, 32 miles later, ending up at the popular anchorage of Tuarredda. Unlike other anchorages most of the boats here were larger and stayed overnight, there were only a handful of smaller day boats. But not many boats stayed the entire day, by early afternoon only a few remained and an hour or two later new boats started to arrive. The water here was the clearest we had seen, so clear we could easily see the anchor 25 metres away as well as fish and even a small sting ray swimming beneath the boat. We had been told by my cousin that the water temperature is 28 C but it felt warmer. Early one morning we paddled our dinghy to a small island and went for a hike to the top. Not much of a hike, more of a walk, but the view of the anchorage was splendid, clearly showing the areas of white sand (good anchoring) and dark coloured Posidonia (do not anchor there). It would have been delightful to spend a few more days but we had a bit of a self induced deadline, a weather window opened and we needed to get to Tunisia before August 15.

Masua, Sardinia

After a lovely two nights tied to a mooring ball in a very protected location we decided it was time to move on south. Neither of us like staying in one place for an extended period of time, we use Curare as a platform to explore different cultures.

The wind was not perfect so we ended up motoring about 1/2 of the trip but that is usual when cruising in the Mediterranean, most boats motor more than they sail. Our destination was the tiny community of Masua, an old mining town, a distance of 34.1 Nautical miles which took us 6.5 hours.

As we sailed south we were enthralled by the geological landscape of the coast. LE was especially fascinated and, via the magic of the internet, discovered a geologic field trip guide book published in 2004. Reading this she learned that the rocks we were seeing are mainly Cambrian (500 million years ago) so she figured the information written in a guide book published 18 years ago was probably still OK. The first sentence in the guide book reads "In spite of it's relatively small surface area the island of Sardinia was one of the most important mining regions in Europe". We had no idea.

The first location we drifted past were the Piscinas Sand Dunes. These are a relatively recent feature, formed by wind in the Quaternary (2.6 million years ago to present). The dune complex covers an area of almost 20 square kilometers and locally reaches a height of 200 meters. Most of it is stabilized by a vegetative cover but the strip along the coast is a wide sand beach and, where close to a road, it is crowded with sun worshipers. LE kept looking with binoculars, it was an unexpected, spectacular view, so no photos were taken. The one included here is from the official Piscinas Dunes Facebook site - an aerial photo looking south.

Next we floated past beds of what looked like metasediments (sandstone, shales, quartzites...) overlain by a thick sequence of carbonates. It was all wonderfully deformed into fantastic shapes by the Caledonian and Hercynian orogenies ( 490 to 299 million years ago). All fascinating stuff to two geologist who were sailing past, but the best was yet to come.

We rounded the corner to Masua and a tall carbonate island reared up from the sea. This is Pan di Zucchero, an Italian National Monument. It rises 133 meters and all sides are sheer cliffs. Comprised of light grey limestone and yellowish dolomite it looks like a sugar loaf, hence it's name.

In the cliffs opposite the Sugarloaf we saw a strange opening, this was Porto Flavia, constructed in 1924. As stated in the guidebook Sardinia has had a long history of mining and one of the main production areas for galena (lead) and sphalerite (zinc) was in the southwest part. Each mine was not large, but combined they produced significant quantities of ore. However mining was only marginally economic as there were no nearby ports to load the ore onto ships. Finally in the early 1923 a Belgian company, which then managed the mine at Masua, decided to construct a loading facility in the cliffs close by. We could not imagine how this would work but LE found an historic black and white photo showing a ship loading at the Porto. It was a good idea and reduced the transport costs by 70%. The loading facility was finally closed in 1990 following the slow decline of Sardinia's mining industry.

We dropped our anchor in 4 meters onto a large patch of sand with a perfect view of the Sugarloaf to the west and the Masua mine tailing to the east. A geologist's dream anchorage.

Oristano, Sardinia

We spent two nights tied to a mooring ball on the west side of the Gulf of Oristano with our bow pointing west, to the narrow strip of land known as the Sinis peninsula. The view from Curare, of the round tower and the Roman ruins, beckoned us to go ashore so that is what we did, leaving our boat at 0930 and returning by lunch. By afternoon it is far too hot to be outside without shade, although judging by the number of people who stay on the beach all day we are the anomaly.

Our first stop was the tower of San Giovanni, built between the late 16th and early 17th centuries, on top of a small hill 50m above sea level. This was built by the King of Spain, Philip II, to defend the coast from North African pirate raids. It consists of two cylindrical structures, one inside of the other, with a base diameter of 14 meters and a height of 15 meters. To make entry difficult the door was placed at a height of 8 meters above the ground, although a staircase was constructed in the 19th century. We wondered how the the people of the 16th century gained access? Historical records indicate it was armed with cannons and was manned by a garrison of artillerymen and soldiers. We did not go inside, the exterior was splendid enough for us.

Past the tower is the archaeological site of Tharros, another place we did not visit. To us it looked much like all of the other rubbly ruins we had looked at elsewhere. It is a significant site and was founded towards the end of the eighth century BC, abandoned around the year 1050, meaning people lived here for a period of around 1700 years.

The first inhabitants were Nuragic, a civilization on Sardinia who lived here until the Roman colonization. No written records of the Nuragic civilization have been discovered, the only information comes from classical literature of the Greeks and Romans, so not much is actually known about them. The Phoenicians displaced the peoples of the Nuragic civilization, and the Carthaginians turned the site into a fortress. When the Phoenicians were defeated by the Romans in 238 BC the site expanded; roads and sewers were constructed, three baths were built, an aqueduct and water distribution center was located in the city center, numerous houses, religious buildings and shops were erected, and burial areas were defined.

The Roman Empire ended in the fifth century AD and other European peoples came to the area using the ruined Roman buildings as construction materials for churches and houses; this was the Christian era. Ever increasing raids from the Saracens made living here difficult so the population gradually drifted elsewhere, although Tharros remained an official church seat until 1071 AD. When the bishop moved the church seat to Oristano it marked the final end of this thriving ancient city.

LE decided she needed more exercise than just climbing to the tower so it would be a good idea to walk south to the headland of Capo San Marco and view the lighthouse. Unfortunately she had neglected to bring a hat, although she did remember sunglasses. We had not planned on this walk so we had no water - two unprepared people in a very hot climate. Walking south we passed other, less well excavated, Roman ruins but the landscape was mainly scrubby bushes that offered no shade. By the time we returned to the dinghy both of us were feeling rather parched and, upon returning to Curare, we each drank a liter of water. A good reminder to always be prepared for everything - not just a casual stroll.

Italy - Sardinia

After waiting on Mallorca for a few days watching the wind and swell diminish we set sail for Sardinia, a distance of 270 nautical miles, or two nights at sea. We wanted to go east and the forecast was for winds from the SE backing to the north so our strategy had us sailing northeast for as long as we could, past the southern tip of Menorca, then when the wind turned to northerlies we could adjust our course toward our destination of Oristano, Sardinia. This worked perfectly and we snagged the last remaining mooring ball (anchoring not allowed) at 1430 on July 30.

It was a weekend so, as in all of the other anchorages we have visited, it was crowded with boats that disappeared in the late afternoon. The setting was awesome with a round fat tower on a hill to the west, the rubble of Roman settlement in the foreground and a perfect location for the sunset.

What we had not expected was the lack of a decent cell signal to check our emails, get weather and post blogs. Using data for the internet while in Spain had been so easy and it worked everywhere so we were puzzled why we could not get a signal in such a popular place, when we knew everyone else was probably instagramming like crazy. On August 3, and still no cell signal, LE decided it was time to do something. We have three phones on board so the easiest thing to do was put the SIM card in another phone. That worked without a hiccup and why we did not think of this before remains a mystery.

Upon further investigation we determined that the cell phone we had been using could not connect to a 4G network, and that is all that Italy has. Thankfully our other two phones, although not the newest, are newer. So now we are busy trying to write a few blogs about lovely Sardinia before we head off again.