Wednesday 22^nd April – Bizerte, Tunisia (More like Brighton - again)

37:16.424N 9:52.819E

Over night the strong winds returned, keeping us awake as the gusts buffeted the boat, and driving the rain before them.  Fortunately there is little room for any fetch to build behind us in the harbour so we remained fairly comfortable.

This morning we had breakfast in the cockpit and watched the heavy dark clouds rushing by overhead.  We listened to the rumble of thunder as a thunderstorm approached and then watched as lightning forked down over the town.  Oh dear.

Later it started to brighten up, so we took a walk into town to pick up a few supplies. 

First we took a walk around the medina, the oldest part of town surrounded by a high stone wall with arched entrances around it.  Most of the housing is wonderfully ancient with thick stone walls.  The place is full of character...  

...and rubbish and stray cats and sand and rubble where they are renovating some of the buildings.  Sadly, some of the buildings are being renovated with modern materials which although more practical will take away some of the character.

We then headed back to the market for a meander as usual.  There was a coach load of tourists in town getting in the way and taking pictures of everything – strange how you stop considering yourself a tourist when you are staying in a place.  Richard bought some lamb for dinner, a very generous piece for about £1.50; it's really good value here and the sheep appear to have some meat on them – the Sardinian lamb always seemed a little starved.

Late afternoon Richard and Otwin did another run to the fuel station and then both went into town with Rosi to try to find an internet cafe to check the weather whilst I sorted out the lockers to store the additional fuel we had bought.

When Richard came back the initial view of the wind forecast was that there was a window to move on along the coast tomorrow; however, the waves are still crashing over the breakwater, so it is still very rough outside.  We've paid up just in case, but we expect we will be staying another day at least...