Farho Family Blog

Snorkeling with John

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 19:40:00 +0000

We snorkeled together three times. The first two times were good practice, but the water wasn't clear, because of storms. I had trouble with cramping in my calves, so we weren't in the water more than 30 minutes each time. The third time, the water was very clear. We stayed out for a total of two hours, with a rest break in the middle.

We saw many kinds of fish and crabs. I brought home some new coral and seaweed we found floating in the water and a hermit crab for our aquarium.

Praying: Citroen Berlingo

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:36:00 +0000

We're considering purchasing a Citroen Berlingo. It is the same as a Peugeot Partner. They are assembled in Spain. Makes the price lower. Mechanics say it is best to get one from France.

Citroen Berlingo Multispace 2003-2010 Specs from Honest John

Engine: 1.4i: 0-60 14.2 seconds; top speed 94mph; combined economy 7.5 litres/100km (37.7mpg); CO2 emissions 176g/km.
Standard specification:- Variable ratio power steering, five three-point seatbelts; five adjustable head restraints; 60:40 bi-folding rear seats; rev counter; Multiplex wiring; colour coded cloth seat covers; drawer under drivers seat (not on our car...); rear floor cubbies; front door bins; ceiling nets (what are these?); auxiliary 12v socket; cupholders; remote central locking and immobiliser; automatic door locking above 6mph; speed sensitive wipers and radio volume(??); rear wiper activated by selecting reverse gear(??); driver’s airbag; front seatbelt pre-tensioners; acoustic floorpan to cut road noise.
Dimensions:
- Length: 4,137 mm
- Width:1,724 mm
- Height: 1,810 – 1,819 mm
- Luggage capacity (seats up): 624 litres
- Luggage capacity (seats folded): 2,800 litres
- Kerb weight: 1,204-1,311 kg
- Braked Towing Capacity: 900-1,100 kg

Honest John likes them and found these minor disadvantages:

"Just two small criticisms: Drivers with big feet might find themselves pressing more than one pedal at once. And there's no automatic. But, hey, you can't have everything, even though Citroen gives you more for less than any other car maker."

Please pray that we would make a good decision.

Ordered a Berlingo (christ-web.com)
Tough car for Brits abroad (telegraph.co.uk)

Baptized new SCUBA outfit

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:40:00 +0000

Just got home from baptizing my new SCUBA outfit. It was exciting.

See big photo and specifications at Beuchat.fr

The wind died down today, after blowing up a storm yesterday. There were no white caps visible from the street, when we walked home from church. We thought we'd give it a try.

Not a good day at all for snorkeling. Better than yesterday, anyway. The sea was flat, except at the shore. The waves were big enough to body surf.

It took me a good 30 minutes to get everything ready and put on my body. So we felt it was OK just to take a quick swim in the cold Mediterranean Sea. There were about seven fisherman nearby. They seemed amused to see anyone get into the frigid water. My new cold water wetsuit is a 5mm thick class B Beuchat Moorea vest with hood and Farmer-John pants. It is made for diving in water that is 50° to 64°F or 10° to 18°C.

I was happy to stay warm and mostly dry. I was wearing diving socks and gloves as well as the hooded wetsuit. I walked backward in my fins into the waves. When the water got deep enough, I laid back into it and swam out about 60 meters/yards. The waves were very strong. The visibility was zero under water. Air temp was about 60°F/15°C and the water was much colder.

Since the view was zero, I rode a couple waves back into the shore. Sue was relieved to see me on solid ground. Before I got in the water, ☺ I told her to save me, if I got in trouble. As she watched me swim, she was trying to decide which clothes she would throw off and which she would keep wearing.

One thing about a good wetsuit is that they float you on the surface of the water, unless you wear ballast to weigh you down.

I don't like getting into the sea or ocean anymore without a wetsuit. Especially with the jellyfish and other wildlife we encounter.

Very little water got into my wetsuit. When I took it off, it seemed to be sweat. Now I'm praying for a sunny calm day off, when Sue and I both can put on our wet suits and go for a snorkel together. Want to join us?

I'm a CMAS 1 Star - Qualified open water diver since 2005, when we were refuges in Dakar, Senegal from the civil war in Cote d'Ivoire.

Blizzard in Tunisia

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:07:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:30:00 +0000

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

Mike in our kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:18:00 +0000

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

Kuriat Islands, Tunisia

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:41:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:40:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:02:00 +0000

Mike on his camel

Mike and Sue after our camel ride

Mike, Sue and Joshua

Taking a shower

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:15:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:50:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:37:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:57:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:56:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 21:39:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:22:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:32:00 +0000

Joshua really thought this accordion was fun to play.

Rebuilt the toilet

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:32:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:05:00 +0000

-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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:58:00 +0000

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

Saw a jellyfish

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:56:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:14:00 +0000

Joshua and Sandy at the Kantaoui Golf Course

Sea cucumber Holothuroidea

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:05:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:42:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Farho) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:37:00 +0000