Wintertime in the Med

Tunisia was not what we expected. We had heard that it was beautiful land a popular destination for people in Europe, so why not give it a try. The trip from Malta to Tunisia was another brutal journey. The winds have become very strong, as they do every winter. Getting there was not easy or straightforward. We would be sailing into the wind, so we decided to head north to Sicily and stay close to the southern coast, where the wind would be more mild, until we had to turn SW to Tunisia. Nothing about the trip was easy. The winds didn’t cooperate , so nearly all of the trip was bashing and bashing and then more bashing into the waves. Finally after two and a half days of this we made it into Bizerte, Tunisia, to the marina there. Upon arrival, the first thing we had to do was check in with the port police and customs. We heard that customs is a bit of a pain in the ass, as they confiscate any large quantities of alcohol for safe keeping until you leave. By large quantities, I mean any unopened bottle of liquor and anything more than a couple bottles of beer and wine. Well, this was going to be a problem. We just restocked in Malta……enough to get us through the whole winter, keeping in mind Tunisia is an Arab country, so alcohol would not be easy to find. So before we reached Tunisia, Mike and I found hiding spots for all of our liquor, beer and wine. Hopefully they wouldn’t find any of it.

It took probably an hour to get checked in…….so painful. And now it was time for the customs agent and the port police to search the boat. The moment of truth……did we hide our shit well enough? They came aboard and opened every cabinet, drawer and locker. Well, we hid everything so well, that I just found 2 bottles of liquor the other day…..3 months later. 😬

All I have to say….it is definitely winter. The cold and wind bites. I don’t even want to venture outside. However we soon had a decent day with sun and no wind, so we decided to venture into town. What a shithole! Not doing that again. All in all, this place sucks and we need to GTFO!

Mike and I had made a plan to go snowboarding in Austria for a couple weeks. If we were going to be cold, we may as well be doing something fun. So we made our arrangements, had our snowboard bags shipped from the US to our hotel in Austria, packed up Stella and our stuff and went to St Anton, Austria.

St Anton was really nice, although there wasn’t really that much snow and it only snowed once during the 2 weeks we were there but we had a great time anyway.

Since we didn’t really want to go back to Tunisia, and we had nothing we had to back to, we decided to extend our vacation and headed to Zermatt, home of the Matterhorn.

When I was seven, my family and my Uncles family took a trip to Disneyland. It was mid day and we had all stopped to have a rest. I saw that Matterhorn ride off in the distance. All I wanted to do was ride it, but I wasn’t big enough. As I stood there, mesmerized by the beauty and majesty of the Matterhorn, the rest of the world around me disappeared. When I finally came back to reality and turned to see what my family was doing, my stomach sank. Suddenly, I was alone in the middle of Disneyland. My family was no where to be found. I searched and searched. First I thought I would just go back to our motorhome out in the parking lot and wait for them to return, but I had no idea which way to go to get to the parking lot. When I realized that I really didn’t know what to do, I started crying. It turned out to be a great adventure, because someone came along and asked me if I was lost. When I said I was, they took me to this area with all of these phones and I got to talk to Mickey Mouse while I waited for my family to come.

Here I am, over 45 years later, once again standing in awe of the beauty and majesty of the Matterhorn. But this time I’m big enough to ride. And ride I did.