9 – Change of culture, Tunisia part I

Change of culture, new impressions – Tunisia part I

We had a beautiful and speedy crossing from Cagliari/Sardinia to Bizerte/Tunisia, passing in between lots of tunny fishing boats 30-40 miles off the Tunisian coast, which was quite exciting and challenging. Interesting was also our arrival in Bizerte: waiting in the absolutely calm bay while JL finished some urgent mails, the wind suddenly picked up to 30-35 knots, sandstorm and waves! We headed as quickly as possible towards the harbour entrance and were distracted from our stress by some dolphins accompanying us into the harbour. Reinsuring, and a wonderful experience!

The paperwork on arrival took, as expected, a few hours, but we felt welcome and had a good contact to all the different agents (doctor, customs, marine police, maritime guard).

For me and JL not unknow, but what a discovery Tunisia has been for the boys! Starting with the markets, street life, the medinas, souks, food specialities, over the friendliness of the people, the art of negotiating, but also the complications of formalities, the paperwork, harbours not being used to sailors (we were chased from a harbour at sunset – the next harbour being 5 hours sailing away…), the rubbish all over, the heat and hundreds of cats and kittens all over. We hope we’ll have an occasion to tell you more about it this Summer during our break.

We left Tunisia by plane after 11 days of adventure and will be back to see more at the end of August. During this time Illika is getting a new upper coat! Her teak deck has really suffered, and so have our feet walking on the worn teak wood. A craftsman and his workers in Tunisia are taking care of that right now for the next month, while we are in Switzerland. We’re looking forward to seeing her all relooked and beautiful. 😊

As most of you know, we’re not heading any further eastwards. With the technical issues at the beginning of our trip, we “lost” more than a month and would like to have the possibility to sail on the Atlantic and not necessarily spend winter in the Mediterranean. So we’re planning to head westwards, meaning Algeria, Morocco and out through the strait of Gibraltar, down the Moroccan west coast to the Canaries and back to the African west coast…? We shall see. Maybe I’m talking too much already: the plans of navigators are written in the sand! (we like to repeat it)