Eastern coast of Sardinia, Tunisia with a side trip to Tunis, and more Sardinia
After a wonderful and boisterous week with David and Andrew onboard Waiata, Gavin and I found ourselves alone again (in Olbia) and heading south on the eastern coast of Sardinia. There wasn’t much wind during this time but what wind we had was enough for a fine sail or two, however, we did have to motor at times, something we try and avoid, seeing as Waiata is a SAIL boat, as Gavin often (sternly) reminds me when I ask for motors, LOL.
On one of these days there was some big wind forecast, but in the wrong direction, so the skipper decided we’d use the wind anyway and tack to windward in order to get some nautical miles south under our belt. Some of this day was blissfully fun, flat sea, 15 knots, beautiful sailing, I think I put on some Carlos Santana, heaven. Then of course the wind crept up to 25 knots and we put two reefs in and it was noisy and intense. And at the end of the day, we’d gained 20 nautical miles in the direction we wanted to go and as Gavin pointed out later over a beer, it was actually a great day sailing.
There are no words to describe the unique beauty of the vast white sand beaches that appear everywhere on this coast, the water colour and clarity. the temperature of it, and the rock formation cliffs that tower above. It is a dramatically stunning land and seascape. We never felt the manic crowding of the high season here, yes, there were loads of boats, both super yachts and others, (semi-rigid’s are what they call the ribs!) but all very manageable and easy to cohabit within this exquisite space.
One day we anchored in Villasimius in south eastern Sardinia, a beautiful bay where a ruin of a coastal watchtower from the 1500’s sits upon a promontory. It is called Torre di Porto Giunco and we decided to walk up to it. As dinghy’s are not allowed onshore, we took our paddle boards and carried our walking shoes in the backpack. This is by no means a long or difficult walk, but it is uphill and we very much appreciated the exercise and view.
Our mission at this stage of the season was to get to Tunisia and knock off the required process to avoid paying VAT on the boat. This is a familiar protocol with yachties who have bought boats in the EU, for others it will be a new concept. Basically, you have 18 months to get stamped out of the EU in order to NOT pay the tax on it; you needn’t linger in the country of choice to do this, just get the stamp and get out if you want. We’ve gone to Montenegro and Turkey for this before, and we know from fellow cruisers that Albania is also a popular place to do this. With our sail plans for this season, and the fact we’d gone there last year, Bizerte in Tunisia once again won the destination of choice.
We took a berth in Marina di Cagliari at the bottom of Sardinia and were happy to be back with the nice vibe that exists there. The wind wouldn’t be favourable for us to leave for a few days so it was perfect. We met a really nice Norwegian couple on our pontoon, Jørn and Cecilie, sailing on S/V Kompromiss - that’s the Norwegian spelling of Compromise - and I loved their story about them buying their boat and the compromises they needed to make to ensure both husband and wife achieved their aims. As I’ve recently discovered I have 31 percent Norwegian in my DNA, we decided Cecilie and I were probably cousins!
On the day we were to leave, the skipper called a 4pm departure time as the wind wouldn’t really be doing anything until then. I wish we’d gone earlier but oh well, hindsight is 20/20. It was a Sunday and we checked out of Italy in the morning at the customs office. Afterwards we strolled the streets of Cagliari to fill in time, somehow ending up in a restaurant for lunch where we dined on delicious seafood, drank some wine and even had a digestive liqueur with our Tiramisu dessert. Why would you do that on a day you are starting an overnight sailing passage? Well, lunch was delicious, we were in high spirits, and thankfully we even managed a wee nap before we left at 4pm.
We started off sailing with just the Code 0 and not long later the wind died and we were main and jib tacking. Once we reached the headland the wind filled in and it became necessary to put a reef in, followed by another reef when the winds hit 25 knots. We were honking along with a top speed of 11.3 knots, yet, I didn’t love this passage, not necessarily due to the wind speeds, rather from the 2 metre high swells hitting us on starboard causing me to feel seedy (wish I hadn’t had the wine) and wonder, what am I doing here? I have my captain but where is my crew boy?
We arrived in Bizerte around 7am and were helped on to our pontoon (with lazy line rope assistance) by two young men. I knew from experience that it was a good idea to have bank notes in small denominations on hand to tip the marina workers and I gave each of them a 5 euro note. After tying up, you really would just like to go to sleep and recover from the passage, but in Tunisia, you need to allow two to three hours of official check in process. Within an hour of arrival, the police visit your boat to inspect it to ensure you aren’t bringing in stowaways, drugs, money, arms, you name it. You need to provide a full list of all your electronics aboard and declare any drones or things that may be deemed illegal. A list of all alcohol on board is also required. When that is done, you walk back with them to customs office where you provide a bunch of other information, surrender stuff, and get your picture taken, fingerprints. This was all going very well until we needed to provide some paperwork regarding Gavin’s captaincy - that was found to be out of date - and quite frankly, WE should have updated and printed that out before even leaving Sardinia, we know the rules, our bad. Their internet was down and we couldn’t retrieve or update them so this caused another 90-minute delay. I got frustrated and grumpy but also had laughs with the police guys who remembered us from last year.
We ended up staying a week in Bizerte, not only because the wind wasn’t playing ball, but also because we had such a fun group of fellow cruisers on our pontoon. There were a few social nights on Waiata where we met Brits, Pete on SV Ollie and Andrew on SV Jandar. Later in the week more came, Canadians, Americans and Aussies each boat with their own story of what they were doing and where they were going. It’s these moments while sailing here that you really enjoy the connections you make with people on a similar journey.
Andrew, who is a long term resident of Marina Bizerte, suggested to Gavin and I that we might like to go visit the capital of Tunisia, Tunis, where you can visit the ruins of ancient Carthage, The Bardo Museum, The Medina (a grand bazaar, not dissimilar to Istanbul, but not as big) plus just get the whole vibe of a city of around 700,000 people. He kindly drew a map for us with suggestions and itineraries and it became our ultimate guide and saved us on many, but not all, occasions.
We took up his suggestion and booked for two nights into the boutique hotel he favoured, the Dar el Medina, a mere 50 euro per night. The hotel bordered the bustling Medina and the modern boulevard that some compare to the Champs-Elysees in Paris. I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that comparison, but it’s very interesting how on one side of town you’re in a chaotic, noisy bazaar (The Medina) in Northern Africa and a few steps over the road, you’re amongst well known high-end brand shops and taking high tea at the Royal Victoria Hotel, the ex-British Embassy to Tunis.
Our 90-minute cab drive to Tunis from Bizerte cost 50 euro or 160 Dinars, the local currency. We were so glad we booked this through our ‘mate’ from the police in the marina, his contact Kais operated a fleet of drivers who had air conditioning in their cars, wonderful relief in the 30+ degree heat.
We decided to hit the national museum of Tunisia first, The Bardo, an institution that boasts the largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world amongst other relics dating back over several millennia. Getting there proved to be a wild ride indeed. We tried unsuccessfully to get a taxi - note to Tunis travellers - when a taxi passes you and its light is flashing green, it is occupied, red means it’s free. There were no red light taxi’s to be found in the wild city chaos and suddenly two young men approached us on motorcycles offering a ride, 15 Dinars for the two of us. I instantly said no thank you, ‘I am a grandmother!’ Gav pleaded with me to get on and I thought if I didn’t, he’d go alone, so I jumped on and gripped this young man’s waist as if my life depended on it. The poor guy probably dined out later on telling his friends about my shrieks and whimpers as he cruised through tight spaces in busy traffic, on the sides of buses, nearly touching them, at high speed, and oh my God, it was the scariest experience for me! But we made it and our impressions of this museum, one of the most important in the Mediterranean, lived up to its expectations. Highlights for me included the many stunning mosaics dug from archaeological sites in Carthage, Hadrumetum, Dougga and Utica, that depict the everyday life of the Roman Africans. The grimacing mask in the photo below is from somewhere between 814 -146BC and from what I read, they put these in the tombs of their dead to ward off demons. Just look at it, the quality of the sculpture and the entire collection is extraordinary.
We made a wee mistake the next day in our half-day visit to Carthage, Sidi Bou Said and surrounds. Instead of booking an air-conditioned taxi, (as Andrew had told us to) we mentioned to the lovely people from our hotel that’s what we were going to do and of course they wanted to help. These people who own/manage the hotel could not do enough nice for you; they delight in helping you (and feeding you!) and in providing advice and the best hospitality. So they offered up one of their workers to take us. My heart sank the next day as I saw our driver’s beat up car with no windows on one side and no air con or seatbelts. He was delightful and kind, (like everyone we met here) but he had no idea where Carthage was and didn’t speak a word of English. There was Gavin using Google Maps to show him where it was, sites nearby, the amphitheatre, Sidi Bou Said etc. It was still 180 Dinars, as it would have been with another provider, but we were sweating buckets in the back and would suggest to anyone doing this half day trip to get a professional with an air-conditioned car.
Carthage was remarkable, even though we confess at times to be ‘over ruins’ having seen so many in these last four years cruising Greece, Turkey and Italy. But looking out over this ruined city that began as a Phoenician colony and was conquered and destroyed by Rome in the Punic Wars, ultimately fell to them in 146BC and re-emerged Roman to be taken by the Byzantine army in 705, it causes you to pause and think, (amongst SO many other things) what will the tourist humans think of our ruins in a few thousand years? Who will conquer and replace us? I was glad we got a guide for this visit (Youseff at 35 Dinars) even though it was hard to hear him at times.
The same day we asked our driver to take us to the Santorini-esque town of Sidi Bou Said on the coast, a beautiful town built on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. If I was going back to Tunis, I’d stay there longer, it was really charming, full of cute shops and eateries, bougainvillea in flower everywhere.
The wind forecast was good and it was time to head off. We hadn’t yet visited the open market in Bizerte, something both Andrew and Pete said was a must see. They also cautioned to prepare yourself, it would be confronting on some levels. I would have to say that is correct and while the fruit and veggie stalls were very much the same as any market in Europe, the fish market and butchery section had me startled and unable to linger or purchase anything. I suppose we’re used to all the health, hygiene and safety rules around food in our home country and here, blood and guts swish about on the floor, (not great to walk around with flip flops), chickens are stacked together waiting for their end, and whole heads of cattle and sheep appear bleeding out on the floor. This could be a halal practice where minimal suffering to the beast happened before slaughter, but it is visually confronting. I bought a big slab of pumpkin, with a load of other produce, and went home to make a vegetarian curry - a dish we ended up really appreciating on our passage from Tunisia to Sardinia.
On Sunday August 11 we departed Bizerte for Arbatax, Sardinia, a journey of 160 nautical miles. We got to the marina fuel dock for processing out at 7am and left around 10am, when all the policing and customs were finished. We noticed while hauling the main sail that our electronic winches weren’t working well, they kept shorting out meaning Gavin had to manually winch it up, no mean feat. Then, in unfurling the headsail we accidentally took the Code 0 line around the drum. I think this was my fault for not looking carefully, but it was all too dramatic for the skipper to take me to task. Long story short, we had to drop the headsail and lash it on the deck, re-run the lines and thus, we were left with one sail, the main. It was blowing 20 knots, gusting 25, and on some level, this handicap didn’t affect our performance too much, we were doing steady 9’s and 10’s on a fairly calm sea. The following morning when the wind had eased a bit, we reinstalled the jib and then, ended up motoring for a few hours to Arbatax with no wind at all.
I can’t say enough good things about Marina di Arbatax, from the people in the marina office, the recycling and rubbish collection, the cleanliness - to the various contractors on hand that helped us by installing new house batteries on Waiata - the best! When the owner of the marina found out there were no taxi’s available to take us to the police and check back in to Italy, he took us himself, waited with us in the police station and then dropped us back. Then there was the sheer luck we had in actually getting contractors to help us with the work we needed when it was a major Italian holiday- to say we felt blessed is an understatement.
Gavin and I have been sailing north and have made stops in Porto San Paulo and other small bays, taking in the utter beauty of Sardinia which we can now say we’ve sailed both sides of. We believe it to be some of the best cruising we’ve ever done with the most dramatic scenery. And don’t get me started on the food - it is sensational!
We’re now in Porto Rotondo (gorgeous chi chi town and jam-packed with super yachts) waiting for our friends Pip and David to arrive this evening, the four of us will sail up to Corsica and explore the western side of that island this time. Arrivederci Sardegna, Bonjour Corse!
Once more, my very amateur map of where we’ve been this leg!
