Bisou de partout: Back to Tunisia

Our wonderful taxi driver, Fawzi, was at the airport to meet us and within an hour we were back on Bisou. Jo and Mick Turner had washed her down and the cover we had had made prior to our departure had kept everything pretty much dust-free. Certainly the inside was clean and with no musty smells about which I was surprised and very pleased.

The first order of the afternoon was to get unpacked with as much stowed away as possible, followed by getting the bed made as we were exhausted and had an early night planned. We were able to get a fair bit accomplished prior to a quick bite to eat at a local restaurant and then a heavenly sleep in our cosy bed.

The next day was May 1, Labour Day in Europe, and so many of the shops were closed. I was able to pick up some fresh vegetables, fruit and meat from the nearby town as the local vendors seem to be always open regardless of the day (except the religious festivals, of course). Our Aussie friends from Perth, John and Theresa Boardman had already arrived in Port Yasmine and were planning a day trip to Dougga (ancient Roman ruins in the centre of Tunisia) in the morning and the Bardo Museum in Tunis in the afternoon – we were happy to join them and booked the trip for Sunday, May 3^rd.

Over the next couple of weeks we gradually put Bisou back together and made a few adjustments to things that we hadn’t been happy with the previous season (more on this later)*. Our excursion to Dougga was fascinating and we were fortunate to have acquired a wonderful guide to take us around the site and show us places and things we would otherwise have missed. The visit to the Bardo Museum was somewhat sobering due to the recent massacre of 13 innocent tourists by a couple of crazy gunmen, and in fact, the bullet holes in some of the display cases and the walls bear testament to the event. The mosaics and statues contained within the museum were spectacular, however, and well-worth the visit.

Another exciting event for us was the arrival of our airfreight shipment from Australia. We had been told so many horror stories of clearing customs in Tunisia that we were somewhat apprehensive of what would happen at the airfreight depot in Tunis. Whatever the reason, all the planets lined up for Robin when she went to collect our goods. The customs officials were somewhat baffled by the large quantities of vitamins and containers of Isalean shakes that were in the boxes but eventually waved her off with a “Bienvenue en Tunisie” (welcome to Tunisia) and no duty to pay! Even our driver, Fawzi was gob-smacked! Unpacking and stowing the 6 cardboard boxes was another fun-filled afternoon.

We did make another longer-distance trip two weeks later, this time to Tozeur, near the Algerian border and the northern verge of the Sahara Desert. We rented a car for this excursion which was exciting and nerve-wracking (especially for Tad who is completely unused to driving in these sort of conditions) at the same time. We drove via Keirouan which we had visited last October with the same Aussie friends, and Robin wanted to stop to buy some handwoven cotton bedspreads. We arrived just before midday prayers on a Friday so people were starting to close down their shops and we were able to purchase three lovely bedspreads for less than AUD $50 – probably more than we should have paid, but we were very happy with the price.

The drive to Tozeur took about 7hrs all up – this was mostly due to the road winding its way through small towns that had speed bumps, donkey carts, and various other paraphernalia along the road that caused us to slow down, swerve and brake suddenly. We had pre-booked a hotel that was luckily expecting us, and were given a choice of several rooms (they were obviously not busy). It was not fancy, but well-located, clean and comfortable and the front desk staff were very helpful when it came to booking some 4WD tours for the following day (the only way to get around the sights worth seeing in the area).

We were collected by our guide, Najeeb, the next morning for our tour of the three oasis villages in the hills bordering Algeria, and the location of some spectacular gorges and natural springs. The area is famous for its “palmeraie” or palm plantations, and of course the resulting dates. Many of the gorges were used in the filming of “The English Patient” and other movies and we were literally the only ones there – no other tourists seemed to be in the area, and although we saw a few local Tunisian ‘tourists’ at the natural spring in Chebika, they were the only ones. The three villages that we visited were washed away in 1969 during a torrential rain lasting a week or more and have now been abandoned. However, the inhabitants were relocated to nearby villages and they continue making their living by growing dates, tending goats and sheep and selling knick knacks to tourists.

Najeeb was an excellent guide, answering all our questions, but his only downfall was that he did not speak much English (only French) which meant that Robin had to provide a simultaneous translation for Tad. He drove us back to our hotel for lunch and a siesta as our next tour was of the desert and it was too hot to visit until later in the day. We took the opportunity to have a bite to eat and a short rest before heading out to visit the Tozeur palmeraie in our rental car, returning to the hotel about 30 minutes before we were to meet Najeeb for the afternoon’s excursion.

The afternoon’s destination was Ong Jamal (neck of the camel), so-called because of the shape of the rock formation after which it is named. We were surprised to be followed by a cavalcade of 4WD vehicles which produced a huge number of local school children heading to the same destination. It turned out that these kids (6^th graders) had been treated to a desert visit because they had achieved high marks in their final exams for the year. We were happy for them to have had the opportunity to see the beautiful environment in which they live, but wished they had been able to ‘celebrate’ on another day! Our next stop was the site of the Tatouine village from the Star Wars movie “The Phantom Menace”. The site is remarkably well-preserved and looks very authentic until you glance inside some of the buildings and realize that they are just shells. There was even a local vendor with some moth-eaten costumes that, for a small fee, you could pull on, and together with a plastic light sabre, pretend to be a Jedi and take photos (which, of course, we did!).

This was followed by some serious ‘dune bashing’ which had us both hanging on for dear life! The final stop was the “Corbeille” a basket-shaped depression in a village called Nefta, which has a natural spring at the bottom of it. Quite a view! Then it was back to Tozeur for a camel kebab dinner and an early night. Another 7 hour drive had us back in Port Yasmine later that afternoon, after a quick provisioning stop in nearby Hammamet.

Another item on our ‘to do’ list, prior to our departure, was to have Bisou hauled out and her bottom pressure-sprayed. We were fairly confident that there would not be too much growth and that we would not need to repaint the bottom with anti-fouling paint. The lift of the boat was nerve-wracking; even though the guys at the shipyard were very experienced and Tad had watched them lift and put a couple of boats back in the water again, when it’s your boat, it’s a different story! We had been given an appointment time of 8:30am and as we made our way to the bay to be lifted we saw another catamaran already there! Chatting with the French owner we discovered that his appointment was also for 8:30am! Needless to say it was 10:30am before we were lifted out of the water. We had been told we would be kept in the slings while we were sprayed and then put back in the water, however, obviously the schedule had changed and we were put on the hard and left to our own devices for over an hour while they lifted and sprayed another boat. It was just as well, really, as we wanted to give our sail-drives a good scrubbing as well as repaint them. Tad also wanted to change the zinc anodes on the propellers, so by the time we had finished these chores, the travelift was waiting to lift us and spray Bisou’s bottom clean! The good news was that she was not very dirty and we got everything done…just! The bad news was that the shipyard manager wanted to charge us extra for being on the hard longer! I politely pointed out to him that we had been left on the hard by his workers and not of our own accord and that we would not be paying a penny more than the quote. In the end, when Robin went to pay the bill, the manager cagily mentioned that he could give us a discount if we could provide him with a ‘gift’. Translation: we paid him TND 50 in cash (about AUD $30 and he took TND 200 (about AUD $120) off the bill! Wonders will never cease!

After the clean and Bisou being put back into the water, we took her out of the marina for a little motor (we didn’t have the sails on yet) and anchored out in “pirate’s cove” (our name for the bay off Hammamet Medina. On the way back into the marina we decided to fill Bisou up with fuel so that we would be ready to leave once the kids arrived. This was a bit of a drama as we ended up being ripped off (charged for almost a whole tank of fuel when the gauge read that we were half full), which incensed both of us. Robin went back to speak to the manager, but we had no proof so we had to just pay up (cash only for fuel in Tunisia!!!) and let it go. VERY frustrating!

After almost three weeks in Tunisia, with the boat ready to go and the weather having turned rather windy and cool, we were ready to go. We had one more thing to wait for however, and that was the arrival of Tad’s youngest son Patrick and his girlfriend Erika. You may remember that Pat came out to La Rochelle last year for almost three weeks, to help us get the boat ready and hopefully sail with us to Spain. Sadly for him, the work took longer than anticipated and all he saw (with the exception of La Rochelle) was the inside of Bisou! We did treat him to a couple of days in Paris and in Madrid on his way home so he saw a little of Europe. This time he was very keen to get some sailing in so we planned to leave Tunisia as soon as possible after their arrival.

Of course we did want to show them a little of Tunisia as well, and so we planned a visit to a local medina (old town with markets) and some Roman ruins prior to our departure. Pat and Erika arrived on schedule on the 20^th May and with no time to suffer from jet-lag, we whisked them off to Hammamet Medina the next day, and Thuburbo Majus the day after! We enjoyed the latter as it was a little closer than Dougga and with no one about, we just wandered the ruins on our own for a couple of hours, guided only by our Lonely Planet Tunisia!

Robin had been watching the weather for several days and declared that Saturday, 23^rd May would be the best day to depart. We prepared the boat, provisioned as best we could (we did a big shopping at a large supermarket in Tunis the day Pat and Erika arrived, prior to collecting them from the airport) and made ready to depart early Saturday morning. Clearing customs and getting the police to stamp our passports took almost an hour but by 8am we were on our way to Malta.

*we had a few items that were under warranty from the company which had been repaired over the winter, but Tad had some additional things he wanted fixed/altered, the most important of which was our mainsail. Our boat (for reasons known only to Fountaine-Pajot) has a mainsail with a gap of almost 4 metres between the first batten (closest to the boom) and the next one, with no support or attachment to the mast in between. We suspect that it was a cost-cutting exercise as other similar-sized catamarans built in France do not have this ‘defect’. We have communicated with other Helia owners, in particular some Americans who have corrected this by inserting ‘cars’ in between the existing ones and modifying the mainsail to have more attachments. Tad had ordered the intermediate ‘cars’ in the USA and had them sent to Patrick who was able to bring them when he came. In the meantime, we found a sailmaker in Sousse (about an hour’s drive south of our marina) who was able to put in the grommets and reinforcements necessary to attach the sail to the new intermediate cars.

In addition, Tad wanted to increase the air-flow around the freezer and cockpit refrigerator as he felt that neither unit was adequately ventilated. He had purchased some vents and spray-painted them back in Australia to fit on the boat when we arrived.

We had also purchased a new mainsail halyard as the one that the boat was equipped with was of poor quality and created havoc raising and lowering the sail. Our new halyard, much thinner, of a better quality (and bright yellow!) works a treat.