Monastir, Tunisia

Sadly, we arrived in Tunisia at a less than ideal timing. It was the afternoon of October 8th, a little over 24 hours since the news from Israel/Palestine came through.

Three days earlier, at four in the morning, we had left Malta in a rush. We sailed out of the beautiful bay of Il-Bejta tal-Fenek in an attempt to catch up with the Easterly to take us to Northern Africa. The 180 NM journey that should have taken us no longer than 48 hours ended up lasting 57, as on the second night we accidentally ran our engine dry, sucked some sludge and air into the system and despite our efforts couldn’t bring it back to life there and then. The wind kept encouraging in the right direction, so we complied with it. By the time we were within cell reception range again, and the news started flooding our screens, it was too late to turn back to Europe.

So we entered Tunisia as the unsuspecting and inconspicuous German and Brit that we are. Our birth places scribbled illegibly on the local police and customs forms, our gazes avoiding the Al Jazeera news on the screen at the corner of the room.

We politely smiled through the intimate inspection of our boat and forcibly laughed at the critique over our marital status (or lack of) and after all was done, and the best of our chocolate bars was securely padding the stomach of the “Douane” we were finally able to rest.

Luckily, to contrast the humiliating and stressful process of, well, being processed, Monastir marina, at least during the winter months, is a lively haven for a large liveaboard community of expats, who, to alienate the alienation, feast together every Sunday. We were welcomed with open arms and curiosity over our engine saga from earlier that morning, when some of the liveaboards called the Marineros to come and tow us into the marina since we couldn’t get them on the radio ourselves and didn’t want to risk coming in under sail alone.

We had come to Monastir for three reasons, firstly, it was on our way West and out of the Mediterranean, secondly we wanted to get some boat works done and heard Monastir was the place to be for good quality, affordable works, and lastly, we wanted to experience something new, something different to the familiar European waters we grew up in. But with the stress over the political situation in the Middle East and the constant urging messages from friends and family demanding our safety, we were left with the former reason alone.

And honestly, “it was on our way” is not a good enough reason to stay anywhere longer than a couple of weeks, when that anywhere is covered with piles of garbage, conservative men and a general atmosphere of anti-semitism. Normally we wouldn’t take any of those too seriously and just mind our own business, but circumstances prevail.

So on the afternoon of October 22nd, we hoisted our sails and left Monastir. Pretty much immediately, Cameron had struck his little toe on one of the Genoa travellers and had seemed to have broken it. Luckily, we decided to be experimental and had invited Sonja to crew with us back to Europe. Sonja, apart from being a salty sailor in her own right, and a general badass, is also a certified ICU nurse. She fixed the fracture in place and checked on it every now and then.

The first 24 hours passed by and the second night arrived, with it came the winds and the waves. Gusts up to 40 kts and 2-2.5m waved from the stern. Our Autopilot wasn’t happy with the prevailing conditions, we were also tired, the night was dark in the absence of the moonlight and we had to hand-helm through it. We decided to run the shifts with two awake and one asleep at any given time, so that the two awake crew members can rotate helming duty between them without getting too worn out.
It was quite scary at first, sitting in the cockpit, whilst someone else is helming. Facing them to talk, to keep them awake, to keep them company in the dark, and suddenly a wall of water towers behind them and crashes onto the deck. After we each had about 20 minutes on the helm, we weren’t frightened anymore. Yes it is not a soothing sight, to watch the dark ocean move vigorously all around you, but when you are at the wheel you must attune to the rhythm of the water and direct the boat to surf those waves like you would direct a horse to jump over a hurdle. Like with any great beast, what gives you control and confidence over it is the practice of adapting to its pace and harmonising with it.

By morning it was calm again, we caught up on sleep and had many a small visitors on our boat.
A whole pod of dolphins who probably wanted to play and race us, but after about 15 minutes got bored with our inferior speed and left. Later we had three little birds hang out for a while. They were tiny, fluffy things, but fearless. Probably due to not having met many humans before, they let us hold and pet them like kittens. They took turns sitting on our heads, exploring downstairs and in all the cubbies. They came and left, called upon another friend. We hope they found more ships to rest on along their long and weary travels across the ocean.

The rest of the leg is nothing to write home about, or perhaps we’re just too tired to remember how it went.
We arrived in Cagliari, the sky was grey and the smell of autumn rain was in the air. We cleaned the boat, and ourselves, and after a long nap went out for a celebratory meal of  pizza.