Wintering in Tunisia

Viridian has now been moored in the marina at Monastir in Tunisia since November 2018.  We plan to leave in the last week of March 2019 weather permitting, so will have been here almost 5 months by then. At no point did we plan to do this. Last year rather than over-winter in one port, we kept travelling through Spain for most of the winter and this year we planned to do the same but in Greece.  Talking to others with more experience than us, we decided it might be a bit cold in Greece, so instead decided to check out Sicily, Tunisia and Malta.  However, once we arrived in Monastir and were met with the friendliest of welcomes, we were hooked.  Its fair to say that the friendliness has continued, and we have felt very at home.  

We have tried to blend this blog so it contains technical information and prices for other yachties thinking of coming here and more general stuff for non-yachties who are just interested in the travel. 

Monastir Ribat.  our viewers we arrived!

The view from the top!

So why have we happily stayed in Tunisia?  

Well it would be disingenuous not to start with the fundamental underpinning reason - which is cost. After 5 months we still marvel at the very small cost of eating out.  There are currently about 4 Tunisian Dinar (TND) to £1.  A typical three course meal in a restaurant without wine would cost about 50 TND for two of us – about £12.50.  Only a few restaurants have a licence to sell wine, so if you get lucky its about 28 TND for a top-quality bottle i.e. £7.  We will be highlighting the restaurants that we recommend throughout this blog and will mention whether they have wine or not.  Four restaurants around the marina have alcohol licences and another four don’t. 

A typical grilled fish main course

There is also excellent street food near the main market which is ridiculously cheap.  Greg recommends a Chawarma – which is a sort of kebab and consists of chopped lamb and salad in a wrap.  3.8 Dinar 😊.  You also get chips with it.   

The cost of the marina for our boat which is 15.1m long is 680 TND per month – about £170/€200 including unlimited water and electricity which is very important in winter.  Compare with winter rates in Ragusa in Sicily of €600.  

The marina has been surprisingly full.  There are only a few Brits here, but there are a lot of Canadian and American sailors managing their Shenghen timing and there are also many French sailors, who pay for yearly berthing here but sail in Italy and Greece in the summer.  We have had a very sociable time meeting up on Sundays at the communal BBQ and occasionally having games evenings/eating on each other’s boats.  It appears that gradually small numbers of tourists and yachties are returning to Tunisia after several very bleak years.  So, if you are planning to winter here in 2019/20 it might be worth booking.

The marina itself is generally well kept and is served by 24-hour marina staff.  There don’t seem to be any problems with security.  The port police and customs offices face onto the marina and there is a general police station at the entrance to the marina.  We regularly see patrol vehicles and it is impossible to drive into the marina complex without passing the security guard and having the barrier lifted.  There is a marina social room with lots of books to swap in a courtyard behind the main office.  

In high winds which we have experienced this winter – as much as 55 knots, we have felt very secure in our berth.

There is a CrossFit gym and a range of restaurants all facing onto the marina with apartments above them. Greg and I have joined the gym and have been going every day because it is so convenient. 

The gym is next to the marina

We also tend to use the showers in the gym.  However, the marina showers are clean and work fine - the cleaners are constantly in and out to make sure they remain clean.  

There is no chandlery in the marina.  There are hardware shops but nothing specialising in marine equipment in the main part of the town.  The only local specialist chandlery we have found is at the fishing port which is a few kilometres south of the marina. Even that chandlery is limited, and ordering parts is possible but anything coming from overseas is painful.  Most people bring parts back with them from overseas trips.  

However, some boat services are very inexpensive.  We are having Viridian lifted out next week for the equivalent of 157 Euros and the bottom cleaning with 3 coats of antifoul applied is 200 Euros. We are hiring an apartment overlooking the marina whilst the boat is out of the water which is 66 TND per night for the two of us.

There is also a very keen sail maker and maker of boat covers.  Almost every boat in the marina has got matching covers, sometimes it looks like the owners have got giddy with the excitement of the ridiculously cheap prices.  

We have had a couple of hatch covers made and had our steering wheel recovered.  The quality has been excellent. 

Lots of people are having stainless steel work done which is also very competitive.  We are having some extra struts made to support solar panels which we plan to fit this year.  However, we won’t be getting that work done here as we haven’t found a good marine solar company here.

Importantly there is a small Mg (Auchan) supermarket just by the entrance to the marina (with a massive alcohol room discretely off to the side) which sells top notch wine for less than a fiver – the alcohol room is open every day except Friday which is a religious day.  You will be amazed by the length of the queues and hauls of alcohol being furtively shipped out of there by Tunisians!!! 

Our favourite wine

In our first couple of weeks we decided to check out Hammamet marina which is the other main marina in Tunisia.  Hammamet marina is quite a way out of the town of Hammamet in what was destined to be a massive holiday complex, so it is surrounded by hotels, restaurants and shops most of which have failed in the last few bleak years when tourists have not visited Tunisia.  The marina is more expensive than Monastir and felt closed down and soulless, so we were pleased with our choice of Monastir.  

Lots of motorboats in Hammamet - it was very soulless 

Monastir town

The main languages here are Arabic and French so we have dusted off our school day French and found we have managed very well especially in the brilliant fresh food and fish market (open every day except Mondays) where we buy most of our provisions. It makes cooking a pleasure, so we have experimented with lots of new dishes on board. 

Tuna sashimi

We were excited by the Medina (the old walled city) where you can buy anything from traditional crafts to a live tortoise or hedgehog. Gradually we have worked out what is on offer in the many fascinating little shops and can usually find what we need.  We have realised that most large towns have a Medina and some of them are enormous.  Tunis and Sousse have spectacular medinas.  The butchers tells you what they have in stock by what heads are hanging outside ☹

One of the spice merchants in the Medina

Baby tortoise for sale!

Nice to know your meat is fresh!

Natalia from Island Bound and Sandie from Persephone introduced me to the Hamman in Monastir.  We have a girl’s trip every Wednesday afternoon and get a full body scrub, a mud and menthol massage and a 45 minute full body oil massage.  Total 49Dinar 😊

To find the Hamman go through this entrance opposite the Monoprix

Then turn immediate left. The revolving sign is red for women only and blue for men

In our first week we visited the Ribat and the Bourguiba Mausoleum which are the main tourist attractions in the town. 

Monastir Ribat - the location for The Life of Brian

Habib Bourguiba Mausoleum

 We also cycled out to visit the Habib Bourguiba palace/museum which was not very extensive but worth a visit and we had a nice lunch (without alcohol) at a nearby restaurant called Le Pelican with excellent sea views 

The Habib Bourguiba Palace

President Habib Bourguiba's Merc!

Down at the fishing port there is a massive open-air market on Friday and Saturdays which is definitely worth a visit. We also tried the five-course fish menu at Le Pirate restaurant which was mountains of food for 45Dinars per person.  Sadly, no alcohol licence.  

Le Pirate restaurant

Exploring Tunisia

If you are spending months in a place its good to get out further afield and we have had some excellent trips to other parts of Tunisia.  We have tried different types of transport, car hire, taxi, and train but not yet the bus!

Tunis

We spent a couple of days in Tunis inside the medina at El Patio Courtyard boutique hotel which was beautiful, very traditional and extremely convenient.

Door to our room - very pretty

Breakfast at El Patio Courtyard

Exploring the maze of small shops, the mosques and restaurants was wonderful.  

Some interesting fish in the market

The fruit and veg were good.... 

The dates were amazing!

We took a taxi the 180kms from Monastir to Tunis for 160 TND/ c£40

The decoration in the Dar El Jeld was splendid!

Had a delicious but more expensive meal at Dar El Jeld.

We took a train out to Carthage to see the ancient remains - the amphitheatre, the baths and the Roman Villa.  This was very easy and there are frequent trains.  You can get on and off at any stops, so we stopped off on the way back for an excellent meal at La Spigola in La Goulette - with alcohol.  

You can meet interesting people on the train in Tunisia

The baths at Carthage

El Jem

We hired a car to visit El Jem which was one of our favourite trips.  We passed through very poor rural areas and the amphitheatre was spectacular.

A rural petrol station....

The amphitheatre at El Jem

El Jem

Graffiti has been around for a long time!...

Sousse

We were thinking of hiring a car for a day to go to Sousse but then realised we could easily get the train.  It cost us 4 TND return for both of us. ie 50pence each!  

The Medina is definitely worth a visit in Sousse and we discovered a good restaurant called L’Escargot which does sell alcohol 😊 

The medina in Sousse 

Greg was sure this interesting cafe would be full if only it sold beer!!

Tozeur

This week we hired a car for three days and headed for the desert.  We based ourselves in Tozeur and stayed in a good small hotel called Residence L'Oued.  We would definitely recommend it.  

Residence L'Oued

We arrived late afternoon with blue skies and a blazing sun, so we strolled down to the Medina and explored the town centre.  Tozeur is striking for its brickwork.  Every single building has a different brick pattern making the buildings very ornate and interesting.  As Greg said - the evidence of a place where labour and craftsmanship is still very affordable.  

 If you look on Trip Advisor for best restaurants you will find restaurant Le Soleil which we ate at and I tried the camel stew.  It wasn’t that tasty to be honest and the stew was watery.  Should have picked up on the fake palm tree decoration strewn with Christmas lights and tinsel.  All in all, a bit of a disappointment compounded by no alcohol.  Definitely not worth the guilt of potentially eating baby camel.  

The waiter was so eager that we had three courses in half an hour so ended up back at the hotel a bit early.  Luckily Greg has got the measure of Tunisia now and had packed a bottle of wine and a cork screw!  😊

On our second day we drove out to the massive salt flats at Chott El Jerid and then to the Star Wars film locations…... the first is the canyon at Sidi Bouhlel which is not far from Chott el Jerid.  

Nothing for miles.....

Standing in the water...

The 'Star Wars' canyon at Sidi Bouhlel 

Then we went to the abandoned film set which is 20 km from Tozeur  It’s accessed by a tarmac road presumably built by the film company and which has the equivalent of a snow plough to keep it clear of sand.  It isn’t in a town, it’s in the middle of the desert – but the nearest town is Nefta.

All were interesting but you definitely don’t need to hire tour guides and dune buggies if you have a rental car. There is a bit of hassle at the Star Wars film site where the tradespeople are absolutely desperate to sell you some rocks or sand! We think they would do much better to put up a sign saying they look after the site and a small donation would be appreciated.  They would get more money that way but our French wasn’t good enough to suggest it.  

On arrival back in Tozeur we made a great discovery which we really wished we had discovered the day before.  At the Palm museum and park called Chak Wak there is a café/bar/restaurant.  It has an alcohol licence and the food is great!  Bilal the main waiter speaks great English.  You can have a beer in the afternoon sunshine outside under the palm trees and/ or full evening meal with wine inside later on.  Highly recommended (the bar not the park!) 😊😊. 

On our final day we were travelling home to Monastir, but we did a small detour and went via the mountain oasis of Chebika.  There are several oases near here, but we decided only to visit one as we wanted to get back to Monastir before dark and its quite a long drive.   We were approached by Hassan, a very personable and knowledgeable guide who spoke English and escorted us throughout the abandoned Berber village and the oasis, adding a lot of value.  Definitely worth the 20 TND he asked for. 

Greg with Hassan

The oasis in Chebika

Driving back through the desert we spotted these three mums with their matching coloured babies.  What a privilege to see them.

Well there must be some bad things about Tunisia……..what aren’t you telling us we hear you say.  

Well of course there are some irritations.  The Tunisians are pretty crazy drivers, so it is a bit stressful on the roads.  

The lack of alcohol may not be a problem for some, but we found it a little frustrating.  Greg likes a beer when its sunny and we both like wine with dinner, but hey look on the bright side, we have had 5 months of reduced intake!

Many Tunisians are cripplingly poor. In the medina the stall holders will try to invite you into their shops.  They are however very accepting if you decline politely.  We have purposely not bartered them down and have tried to support the local economy wherever possible. The average monthly salary is 700 TND. Even a small tip is greatly appreciated.  Wherever possible we buy from the market rather than from the big French supermarkets like Auchan (Mg) or Monoprix and we bought most of our Christmas and birthday presents for the year in the medina.   

There are some products you can’t get.  If you like tuna tartar or sashimi the tuna is very inexpensive, but you can’t find soya sauce or any Japanese condiments anywhere so if you are coming here bring some with you!

Finally, this is a double-edged issue – we have found the Tunisians to be really friendly and extremely keen to make visitors happy.  They have obviously had a huge economic set back with the collapse of their tourist industry and they are hell bent on ensuring you are happy.  However, as a result they tend to over-promise.  This is most irritating when you are trying to get work done on the boat. They will promise a time by when it will be done but knowing it is impossible.  Rather than tell you the truth and risk your disappointment they prefer to tell you what they think you want to hear.  Its best to ask them to be honest and say you would prefer the truth rather than be disappointed later.  

But apart from that we have had a brilliant time here and will definitely return.  

Winter is coming.......

Being relatively new to liveaboard sailing, we hadn’t really understood the dynamics of the winter months when we set out in 2017.  Last year we kept travelling throughout the winter, although we holed up three or four times for a few weeks in Gibraltar, Fuengirola and Cartagena when the weather was too bad to move, and then intentionally for a month in Valencia for the Las Fallas festival. However as we have met other sailors living aboard, we have realised that there are three different approaches to wintering in the Med;

1. People who keep their boats in the Med but lift their boats out of the water over the winter months.... Usually from Sept/Oct to March/April when they go home for the winter.  There are frequent conversations about the best and least expensive places for a haul out and general debate about waiting lists and the importance of booking your lift out early.  

2. People who stay on board on the water but stop in one marina for up to 6/7 months - Some marinas offer a very low winter rate to stay for several months and as a result there are many people taking up this offer, thereby creating what are known as liveaboard communities.  Again, throughout the summer, numerous conversations take place comparing notes about the best places to spend the winter based on a) cheapest marina rates; b) safety, shelter and quality of marina; c) range and quality of marina on shore facilities; d) interesting town and access to supermarkets; e) sense of community engendered by many like-minded individuals with time on their hands to organise events.

3. Those like us, who stop for shorter periods and continue to move when the weather permits. This approach means you pay more than the 6/7 month discounted rate (although you do get lower winter rates) and you never really fully belong to any established liveaboard community. However, the advantage is that you are less likely to get bored by being holed up for so long in one place.  So far though, we seem to be in a very small minority - in fact we haven’t actually yet met anyone else doing this!!

This year we decided to check out a few places with a view to considering staying put a bit longer for this winter.  We discounted staying in Greece because by mid-October we had been in Greece for almost 5 months and we couldn’t face a winter of eating more souvlaki. So, over the last few weeks we have checked out Marina di Ragusa and Licata in Sicily and Monastir in Tunisia which is where we are at the moment. 

The weather forecast for our trip is not very favourable!

We enjoyed Sicily much more on this visit than when we stopped there on our way over to Greece in May, finding more interesting places on the east and south coasts.  After a sub-optimal overnight trip from Crotone on the boot of Italy to Sicily, trying to outrun the storms which devastated much of Italy this October, we arrived exhausted in Catania which is nestled under the constantly simmering Mount Etna.

The weather en route to Catania

Approaching Mount Etna

Catania was a big surprise.  A brooding city made largely of volcanic basalt and granite, it is defiantly impressive with some stunning buildings albeit many of them decorated with graffiti.  

The theatre in Catania

The cathedral in Catania

Sadly, the graffiti was everywhere.....

The pilot book says the residents don’t worry about caring for their city as it may be destroyed at any time! Whatever the psyche we enjoyed the bars and restaurants if not the usual aggressive and impatient driving.  

The castle in Catania

A very old church in Catania

We were planning to go up the Mount Etna on the cable-car, but the weather continued to be foul and poor visibility as well as high winds made us decide against it and instead visited the gallery of modern art which was brilliant.

We then arrived in Syracuse in pouring rain which continued for several days, fuelling floods and landslides in Sicily as well as on the Italian mainland. Despite the awful weather, we found Syracuse a delight.  It’s a beautiful city with interesting shops, restaurants and bars as well as a very unusual cathedral and generally stunning architecture. 

The amphitheatre in Syracuse

Just us moored alongside the Town Quay in Syracuse

The very modern cathedral in Syracuse

We enjoyed the Archimedes and Leonardo da Vinci exhibition – what stunningly clever human beings they were! 

 Leonardo was ahead of his time understanding human anatomy

A model of one of Leonardo's inventions

Well worth a visit although we imagine it will be absolutely packed in the summer.  Amazingly we spotted no litter or graffiti here, the streets were beautifully lit and most included exceptional planting in pots and on balconies; this was a town like Taormina – clear about what draws tourists with money to spend. 

The cathedral in Syracuse

Dionysius' ear 

A procession through the streets- no idea what it was about!

Our next stop was Ragusa but we ended up breaking the journey and stopping off in Porto Palo overnight.  That was a bit of a mistake.  We were the only yacht there and we moored alongside the quay having been warmly beckoned in by some fishermen.  

Just us the trippers again ....just arrived alongside in Porto Palo

All was well for about 10 minutes and then the stream of voyeurs began.  It seemed a message had been relayed and the whole town drove out to stare at us.  It was a strange experience, reminiscent of appearing in the Wicker Man. We assumed it would stop once it got dark….but no….. it continued all night with the same cars driving up, slowing down, turning slowly round and driving off only to come back again a few minutes later.  We were definitely under surveillance but not in a good way.  We decided perhaps they were waiting for us to go to bed before boarding us, so as you can imagine, we didn’t feel comfortable going to sleep.

The locals cruising the dock to examine us......

The next morning there was a sharp rap on the hull and we discovered the police had come out to see us.  We were told that we had stayed in a very unsafe place – frequented by thieves and that for our safety we should move onto anchor or go to another port with a marina.  We had guessed that was the case at about 0100 and wondered why the police hadn’t warned us earlier – everyone else in town knew we were there!  Needless to say Porto Palo has been crossed off our list of recommended places to visit. 

Marina de Ragusa was a great relief after Porto Palo.  Clean, efficient, well organised and with loads of facilities.  Excellent bars and restaurants around the marina, good supermarkets and a pretty town which was not entirely closed down like many holiday resorts.  We discovered tons of novels to swap on the bookshelves in the laundry which always excites me and is typical of a big liveaboard community.   Everyone is really friendly and we bumped into Ray and Cath on Cady who we first encountered on anchor in Torreviejo in Spain last year.  

The beach front at Marina di Ragusa

A drink on the terrace with Cath and Ray

We went on the bus to the inland town of Ragusa and the old town Ragusa Ibla which was absolutely stunning.  The sun was shining again and it was very tempting to just stay for the rest of the winter because the cost for us to stay was only €660 per month.

Ragusa Ibla clings to the side of the hill....

The cathedral in Ragusa Isla

There were wonderful gargoyles underneath the balconies

The gardens in Ragusa Isla

We then decided to hire a car, to explore further inland and to look at Licata, another marina with a strong liveaboard community and a reputation as a good place to winter.  The drive there was horrendous, Italian drivers are a very unpleasant combination of impatient and aggressive - which means sharing the roads with them is not very enjoyable. We were very disappointed with the town of Licata and the marina seemed tired and run down.  In its favour it did have Lidl and another big supermarket but that wasn’t nearly enough to persuade us to spend much time there. We crossed it off the list.

We had been talking about checking out Tunisia but hadn’t found anyone else who was planning to go there - after the recent suicide bomb in Tunis, many of our friends were counselling us against it.  We negotiated a safety net with Marina de Ragusa, that if we didn’t like Tunisia we could come back and they would knock our mooring fees to date off our monthly tariff.  We were confident there would not be a space problem if we returned; despite being warned that you need to book early we haven’t come across anywhere that didn’t have space for us.

So, we did another overnighter taking 33 hours straight to Monastir.  It turned out to be another horrid sail with a forecast that seemed benign but turned out to include gale force winds and thunder and lightning overnight and into the next day. In the end we just stayed down below with the radar on and rolled with the punches! 

No-one answered the VHF despite several attempts as we approached Monastir and we wondered what to expect, so it was a great relief to be met in a dinghy by the most wonderful port captain Macram and his deputy.  We have been treated like royalty, nothing is too much trouble.  Within an hour we were moored up, we had checked in with the Port Police and with Customs and been taken to the sailmaker to get our obligatory Tunisian courtesy flag. We were then shown the very clean showers and toilets and invited to a residents' barbecue. 

Monastir Marina

The beach front at Monastir

There are no fitted lazy lines so you have to get your own brand new mooring lines (no slime lines!) and Macram personally dives down and attaches you to the concrete blocks! 

Our lines have just been successfully attached by Makram.

The cost of mooring here is the equivalent of €200 per month.  So, we have booked for 3 months and today we joined the gym, went to the market and cycled to the fishing port to check out the lift out and antifoul costs.  It’s actually hard to believe these prices.  Eating out, food, wine etc is unbelievably inexpensive.  The best wine is about £4 and its delicious. We’ve already met some very nice people although most are French so we are dusting off our ‘O’ level French and making an effort! 

The Ribat in Monastir

Bourguiba mausoleum

Which piece of tuna?? Less than £3 per kilo!  We asked for half a kilo but were given a kilo as a half was clearly not worthy....

The spices in the market are fabulous and no plastic packaging in sight.

Best of all, this is a new country and culture to explore, with different and delicious cuisine and very friendly people.

We will be in the UK over Christmas and New Year visiting friends and family so we hope we will see and catch up with many of you then before we return to our adventures.