Farho Family Blog

Blizzard in Tunisia

2009-11-18T22:07:00.000+01:00

Joshua, in front of the Amen Bank in Sousse, Tunisia

This fog rolled in like a blizzard. We were laying on our backs, watching the Leonids meteor shower. Joshua saw a couple meteors. I saw a few.

Joshua on a quad

2009-11-08T22:30:00.000+01:00

Joshua getting ready for our departure. He drove most of the hour.

Mike in our kitchen

2009-11-05T20:18:00.000+01:00

:-) A quick web cam photo to prove I'm real.

Kuriat Islands, Tunisia

2009-10-10T20:41:00.002+01:00

They are about 18 kilometers off the coast of Monastir, Tunisia.

View Larger Map

This is our pirate ship. I'm holding the camera about one inch above the surface of the water.

I'm in the water, behind our pirate ship.

Joshua is climbing down into the water. He was glad we didn't see any jelly fish in the water. We saw three large red jelly fish on the way there.

Something growing on a steel pole off the coast of Kuriat Island, Tunisia. I assume it is coral.

My favorite fish today. The stuff falling around him is some left over broiled fish from lunch. The workers assured me it was a waste of time to put cooked fish in the water, but it drew over 50 fish to me in minutes.

This is the clearest fish photo I took today.

Octopus and fish

2009-10-05T23:40:00.000+01:00

These are some fish I saw feeding near a stone wall.

This is an octopus hiding against the same stone wall.

I saw him reach out and grab one of the fish swimming by him. When he saw me, he pulled his tentacles in tight, and blended in with the wall and all its green algae. He is there on the lower left hand side of the photo. His head is above the white rock. His tentacles are to the right of the white rock and around counter clockwise. I looked for something to poke him, but he was gone a minute later.

Camel Ride in Douz Tunisia

2009-09-22T22:02:00.000+01:00

Mike on his camel

Mike and Sue after our camel ride

Mike, Sue and Joshua

Taking a shower

2009-09-08T14:15:00.000+01:00

At last! We can take a shower in Sousse. :-) Why did I put this off? It only took 15 minutes. No, I didn't hire a plumber. After four weeks trying to get our hot water heater fixed, easy jobs are mine.

Our first shower head in Sousse.

We had a hand held shower head to use in the bath, but it wasn't too hand for washing Sue's beautiful long hair. Now that we have hot water, I thought it best to drill some holes in the wall and mount a real shower head. This one cost about $7.50, with all the hardware. A pretty good buy really.

Wish we could have purchased one of those fancy Amazon Plumber Shop Showerheads, but really, who needs a water filter on their showerhead? I'd bump my head on that Aquasana filtered shower system. ;-D

I had trouble getting our new showerhead to point in the correct direction. It wanted to spray the wall. Kais, the hardware store owner, told me I would need to tighten the screw that holds the shower head in position. I did as good as I could with our Phillips head screwdriver, but I couldn't get it tight enough. :-(

Then I remembered that cool pocket screwdriver someone gave us in USA, before our departure overseas. I grabbed it out of my toolbox and gave it a twirl. Yes! It gave me the leverage to get another half a turn. :-)

I searched Amazon.com for this handy pocket screwdriver, but I couldn't find it. Let me know if you do!

Mosque at Ramadan Sunset

2009-09-03T22:50:00.003+01:00

Sue and I saw this beautiful sunset this evening. We were there specifically to take photos when the mosque announced that people could break their daily fast. We're told a cannon fires to announce the moment to eat. In this case it seemed to be one of those loud, bright, flashing fireworks rockets. I had my video recording on the minaret, but the explosion and flash was too far to the right.

Joshua feeding turtles

2009-08-26T10:37:00.003+01:00

Our neighbor in our building has several of these turtles in the garden by or back door.

I debated with myself, whether I should rotate this photo correctly, with Joshua above. What do you think?

Acqua Palace Sousse

2009-08-24T22:57:00.004+01:00

This is a view of the lazy river that circles around the kiddie pool and the wave pool from the kiddie pool.

The kiddie pool with mini water slides

Joshua with the big water slides

This is the Google map of the Acqua Palace. It has reasonable prices for food and drinks. The price for a day pass is about $10 for children and $14 for adults.

Sink drain - water heater

2009-08-24T20:56:00.002+01:00

Out with the old.

In with the new.

Why did I bother replacing this drain? We found that the pipe down to the septic tank was one of two entry points in our bathroom for some nasty large cockroaches. Unfortunately, plumbers here are too rare. So instead of waiting for days, I spent 45 minutes and fixed it myself.

We're still waiting on parts to fix our water heater.

Our Saunier Duval water heater in need of parts.

The gray box on the right is the main part that needs to be replaced. When I bought the parts for the bathroom sink, I asked where I could find the parts myself. Might do that tomorrow. I think I can do the replacement myself, one screw and one clip hold it in place.

Turtles and snake

2009-08-22T22:39:00.005+01:00

Look at the neck on that turtle!

This looks like the snake we saw today. It was about 36 inches long.
Photo credit: FloridaSnakes.net

Name that pickup!

2009-08-22T00:22:00.003+01:00

I took this photo at the local fish market. The previous shark photo was taken the same day. I took this photo with my HP iPAQ 910c smartphone

Joshua playing accordion

2009-08-19T14:32:00.002+01:00

Joshua really thought this accordion was fun to play.

Rebuilt the toilet

2009-08-12T23:32:00.005+01:00

It was a major job, taking about two hours of patient dis-assembly, cleaning and reassembly. It was hot and humid today too. Sweat was pouring off me, as I worked in that little restroom. New parts are on the seat. Old parts are in the red bucket. The silver hose, coming from the wall on the left, is what is used instead of toilet paper.

Praying mantis in our yard

2009-08-10T19:05:00.003+01:00

-Found this praying mantis on the roses by our front door. He was a patient model. When he had enough he walked off to the perfume tree. The lens of my Fuji S8100, in super macro mode, was only an inch from the praying mantis.

Baby Sharks in market

2009-08-10T18:58:00.002+01:00

-Found these two sharks at the Hamman-Sousse fish market today.

Saw a jellyfish

2009-08-07T22:56:00.006+01:00

Aequorea Victoria jellyfish off the coast of California. See full resolution‎ (1,600 × 1,200 pixels, file size: 450 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Joshua and I were snorkeling north of Sousse this evening. We happened across a small jelly fish that resembled an Aequorea Victoria. Joshua did a quick u-turn for the beach. We were about 50 yards from the shore.

I didn't want anything to happen to him, off alone. What if he saw another jelly fish on his way back without me? So I quickly grabbed his arm with one hand. I studied the transparent jellyfish, less than 3 inches in diameter, with black specks around its bell perimeter. Joshua will say it was much larger! I couldn't see any long tentacles.

Josh enjoyed looking at our jellyfish for a very short time. It started to swim toward our faces. :-0 Joshua shouted through his snorkel tube, "I'm getting out of here!" As I held him tight, I raised my right hand and pushed enough water toward the jellyfish to change its direction. Then it propelled itself gently out to sea, a beautiful sight to see! Wish we had a camera with us.

Some extremely important rules of SCUBA diving or snorkeling we learned in Dakar, Senegal:

Always dive with a buddy! Never, ever, dive alone! Keep an eye on your buddy. Make sure everything is OK. When something happens to you, your buddy could be the difference between your life and death.
Relax! Being relaxed in water is vital in an emergency. When something happens, follow these steps: stop, breathe, think and act. Never panic and immediately flee or surface. You can make a minor situation fatal.

Joshua and Sandy

2009-08-06T21:14:00.004+01:00

Joshua and Sandy at the Kantaoui Golf Course

Sea cucumber Holothuroidea

2009-08-04T20:05:00.003+01:00

A sea cucumber feeding while on gravel

Joshua found one of these today on the beach. He felt sorry for it there where the people were walking. So he carried it over by some rocks and threw it in the sea.

I wasn't too sure about touching it with my bare hands, so I picked it up with some plastic to put it in a plastic cup for Josh.

Electrician at our house

2009-08-03T21:42:00.001+01:00

He was a hard working fellow. I ended up spending 5 1/2 hours with him, as he fixed various problems.

Wonder what an inspector in USA would think about this mess.

Sousse Sunset

2009-08-02T16:37:00.001+01:00

Name that car 2!

2009-07-27T22:16:00.002+01:00

☺ Saw this old beauty on our walk this evening. Can you guess the brand?
Sue is walking past the rear of the car.

Name that car!

2009-07-26T22:41:00.002+01:00

What kind of car is this?

Kantaoui Golf Course

2009-07-26T17:09:00.001+01:00

Mike and Sandy walking the Panoramic Course

We're at the tee for the green on the other end of the lake. The Mediterranean Sea is the darker blue that merges with the blue sky in the back ground, beyond the white buildings.

Joshua at the practice green