World Tour Leg 10 - Sétif to Tabarka

I spent the morning talking with the aircraft technician I had to carry on to Tabarka. He kindly checked my engines and certified that all the modifications and repairs had been done properly. The visibility was a bit low due to a kind of fog mixed with sand that covered the area, but the satellite showed better conditions along the coast for the early evening. So after a short lunch we decided to take off from my last Algerian runway, before the weather would become worse.

Runway 27, variable 9 kt crosswinds and low visibility. Interesting. Right traffic pattern and VOR navigation towards the north, keeping low altitude to see the ground. To be honest, the visibility was better than on my morning flight out of Algiers.

We left behind the busy Sétif and headed directly to the coast, supported by Jijel VOR. Some hills were in front of us, easy to overpass with a soft climb rate of 500 ft/min. As we approached the coast, the visibility improved a lot. Just for safety, I reached 7500 ft., since there were still few scattered clouds at lower altitude.

Once over Jijel VOR I turned to the east and followed the coast till our final destination. I lowered to 5500 ft. The technician made this trip an interesting experience, giving me tips about how to better combine the manifold pressure with the propeller rotation and mixture leaning. Meanwhile, we flew over Collo and Skikda, small coastal towns surrounded by green waving hills. It's easy to forget that most of Algeria is a desert.

 

From Skikda to Annaba, one of the largest cities in Algeria, I decided to leave temporarily the coast, to fly over Fetzara Lake.

Few minutes later I started the descent towards Tabarka KW point, over El Kala, last town of Algeria, surrounded by three large lakes, Mellah, Oubeïra and Tonga. I have to admit that I didn't expect the landscape I found along the Algerian coast, but I regret not having visited its inner desert. Anyway, after Tunis I'll have plenty of desert to get lost.

The border with Tunisia passes by few green hills right before Tabarka, a small city with an old history covering Berber, Punic, Hellenistic, Roman, Islamic and Turkish cultures. Its aiport was known as Tabarka-7 November Int. Airport until 2011, when it was renamed to Tabarka-Aïn Draham Int. Airport, due to the Tunisian Revolution that led to the democratisation of the country and motivated the Arab Spring movement.

The runway was next to a long and beautiful beach. For a second, while I was on final, I thought about the landscape I will find on the Pacific islands. But this is still far away, so I quickly focused on this landing, a bit challenging due to a moderate crosswind from my left.

So Tunisia, new country to explore. I'll try to follow the coast towards Libia. But enough flights for today. Tomorrow, if the weather allows for it, I'll do a short leg to Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. There's a certain Dr. Smendrich that is looking for a pilot...

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Technical details:

DAAS - DTKA

JIJEL COLLO ANNABA KW KW1

Distance: 200 nm

Average GS: 200 kt

Average alt.: 5500 ft.

METAR:

DAAS 171100Z 23009KT 200V260 8000 FEW030 SCT100 24/06 Q1021
DTKA 171200Z 35005KT 320V040 9999 FEW020 28/14 Q1016 NOSIG