So I’m the first one back to the boat and although I’m initially peeved about being in Tunisia for three whole days before Clare arrives, it probably is for the best. I get to be the Good Guy and have the musty mildewed boat aired-out, cleaned, and re-functioning. I have time to unpack and put on display all our new goodies from America, including a couple of new touches for Champagne. But most importantly, I run all over town to secure some romantic necessities and fill up our hotel room (actually more like a three-tiered apartment) with flowers, candles, gifts, and food.
Finally I’m all set and I can’t be any more excited, but in my hustle and haste to put this all together I misjudge the amount of time I need to get the airport and instead arrive appallingly late. By this point, the small airport is virtually deserted and Clare is alone waiting just inside the terminal…wondering if she even made the right choice in returning at all, to a nonexistent husband in a foreign African country in the middle of a frigid winter night.
So instead of being Johnny on the Spot—with a whole host of sweet sexy surprises awaiting us in a nice warm hotel room with a double bed—instead, I’m Mr. Super Late and with no good excuse. I mean what could possibly be more important than being at the airport to greet your wife who just arrived from half-way around the world and who you haven’t seen in two months? Despite all of the effort I’ve put into crafting a beautifully poetic reunion, I irrevocably deflate the moment and lose all momentum by missing the most basic step…actually being there! Yep, she’s in tears, but not the good kind. Better late than never?
Naturally the cab driver wants to practice his English and enthusiastically welcome us to his country by pointing out every decrepit half-finished building on the block…little does he know we’ve already been here and we’re not interested in making small talk, just fucking drive! So a tense and awkward silence settles over the entire car during a drive that seems to never end. Finally we get to the hotel (which is also the marina) and inside. Clare is exhausted and I’m demoralized, it’s all we can do to get down a simple nibble and attempt to share a bed.
Of course we are glad to finally be reunited, but it does take some time to reacquaint. There is unworked muscle memory and undue expectation; we’ve been far enough removed from one another to have developed new patterns that must now be integrated. Furthermore, the weather is complete shit—grey, cold, and blustery—and sets a tone of it’s own. At least we have enough sense to book the apartment for a week, ensuring that we don’t freeze on a damp, cramped and unheated boat. We ferry up some essentials from the dock and resettle into each other and our new home.
After a week of peaceful lounging full of long conversations, hot baths, TV shows, and home cooking we find our stride once more and are in no way ready to check-out. We decide to splurge and keep the hotel for another two weeks—certainly low-season Tunisian exchange rates make the cost palatable—and justify it to ourselves by diving into our growing list of winter projects.
Top of that list is to paint the cockpit and decks, a chore well-worth doing when not living aboard. Additionally, the hotel affords us plenty of space to reorganize a bunch of our stuff and do some thinning. So we both stay busy throughout the daytime and then cozy up together during the long evenings. We’ve returned from the land of plenty with a high-powered wifi antenna that succeeds in providing us with stable, consistent, and free internet for the first time since we’ve owned the boat. Of course, having online access alternates between being a useful tool and a limitless k-hole. Either way, the weather remains incessantly dismal (except for that one day when we took a lot of these photos, ha) so at least we don’t feel bad about our time spent indoors.
We occasionally meet up with the other cruisers for a meal out or an info-sharing session, but we mostly maintain our distance and independence. After all, we have an apartment to enjoy and work to get done. As the month of February draws to a close we feel the added pressure of preparing for an upcoming visit…
To bringing back the goods!