Sketching without sea legs in Tunisia

A few years ago, my husband, Daniil, got his skipper license. In need of more nautical miles for his logbook, we gladly trade a week in landlocked Berlin for a weeklong sailing adventure in the Mediterranean. 

It will be the first time I step on a sailboat — or in Tunisia, for that matter. 

“Encore” is a 10.4 meter sailing yacht based in Monastir, a resort town on the central coast of Tunisia that was once a major fishing port. The captain’s name is Anastasia. The boat is 50 years old and will be our home for seven days. 

We arrive at the Monastir marina at night. I climb over the back seats to reach the cockpit, then down to the salon just as a cat jumps and runs away — this cat has had many names, as he’s had many owners: the French called him Gris, the Italians Micio, and Anastasia calls him Kotik. Our forecabin has a triangle bed with a storage beneath. Above the bed, a deck porthole shows a view of swaying masts from neighboring yachts. 

At six in the morning I open my eyes to see the cat staring. I climb out the porthole to sketch the quiet marina. The water is still; the morning light, transparent and soft.

Anastasia, Daniil and I have breakfast in the tiny salon. We drink from two cups printed with an old sepia photo of a child hugging a fluffy toy.

“Is it your son?” I ask Anastasia.

“No idea who that is,” she laughs.

Bernard and Uschi, the previous owners, lived in the boat for 20 years and left almost everything behind: a satellite dish, two small TV sets, cassette players, and boxes full of kitchen utensils, spices, and even cake decorations. Christmas ornaments rest under the salon couch.

Sousse, a seaside town 13 miles north of Monestir, is the destination of our first sailing. The weather seems perfect: 27 degrees Celsius, sunny and breezy. But captain Anastasia sees it differently: a headwind and 0.6-meter waves are rolling straight toward us. Expect 13 miles of constant motion!

After one mile, Daniil is seasick. I can relate. We had taken medicine in advance but the antihistamine did not help him. I take another and I’m fine for a little bit, sitting motionless in the cockpit for three hours, eyes fixed on the coastline, afraid to move my head.

We sail on autopilot with the genoa sail up and the motor running. Short on hands and racing a coming storm, we reach the Sousse marina just in time. The storm hits at night. Rain, thunder, boats scratching. The sea rolls for hours yet I somehow sleep for 11 of them. If the boat had started sinking I would not have noticed.

The old Sousse Medina is within its ancient city walls. From the cylindrical watchtower of the 8th century Ribat fortress we can see the city’s diversity in one glimpse: white houses with blue shutters, gold colored sand and mud walled houses, towers and private rooftops where people hang laundry to dry.

The Medina is a maze full of colors: fabrics, leather shoes, fluffy camel toys, boxes of dates and bags of couscous, chickpeas and bulgur. At the marina market the day before I had an eye on a leather pouf. The price started at 150 dinars and dropped to 100 within a minute of my silence. So today in Sousse the bargaining begins. We lose the negotiation game but are happy to get two poufs for 120. Fair enough and a good souvenir of the trip.

On the sail back to Monastir no seasickness appeared though I avoided doing anything just in case. Three perfect hours when you cannot read or sketch, only watch the sea.

To restock we visit the Monastir food market and buy three delicious-looking doradas. The shopkeepers Mohammechka and Hammid clean the fish for us.They also sell huge tuna cuts and live snails that are trying to crawl out of a basket.

In total we made five short sailing trips over seven days covering about 50 nautical miles. We also sailed to the Kuriat Islands and back without anchoring because of the weather.

Seven days aboard the “‘Encore”’ were not the comfortable experience that some images of Mediterranean sailing often conjure. Weather prevented Daniil from logging as many nautical miles as he would have liked; nor did I make as many sketches of Tunisia’s beautiful seaside towns and local culture as I wanted. 

I came to Tunisia for sketching but accidentally discovered the sailing club and its community: people who help each other fix motors, share meals and nautical miles and make life on a small boat feel bigger.