The passage to Hammamet in Tunisia is 198Nm requiring a weatherwindow of two days before departure something that could be tricky this time of the year.

On Saturday February 3 we got a descent window for heading west,allthough with 25kts of headwinds the coming night, we decided to cast off.

Getting a bit less heavy seaway going south of the Island Linosa we would be only 20Nm miles north of it´s famous neighbour to the south-Lampedusa.

Dora Mac was behaving well this first tour of the year and the first 12 hours were calm.Once coming into the night we got 25kts of headwinds and heavy seaway forcing us to launch paravanes and plow through headseas in 4,5kts taking spray all over us.

The lights from Lampedusa were visible and Italian coastradio warned of an unmanned 10m boat drifting freely in it´s vicinity.

(Media shows no interest in the refugee crisis anymore but that doesn´t mean it stopped to exist).

With slow progress we didn´t reach the Bay of Hammamet until sunset and allthough it was beautiful to see the sunset over the African continent,it´s allways more demanding to make landfall in darkness. At nine o`clock in the evening we were moored below the Capitainerie of Yasmine port and started the procedure of clearing in. That meant all ships documents,insurance and passports starting at the Harbourpolice and ending with customs. They also made a visit onboard Dora Mac searching randomly here and there and finally gave us clearance to continue to our prebooked berth in Yasmine Marina helped by 2 very helpful "marineros".

The procedure of clearance went smoother than expected (around 1 hour) and yes, they asked for a gift,but not in a demanding way-rather as an option of tip.

The marina itself is in good standard and with something ALL MARINAS should mimic-electricity and water included in the price with NO APPS to manage daily consumtion of necesitties.

We are in Africa !