It was around 11 am before Todd started the clearing in process. We had our Q flag up, (on arrival in the first port of a new country outside of the EU, we had to fly a quarantine flag until our papers and boat had been checked by the border agents. Only then you could replace it for the courtesy flag of that country), and I tidied up the boat and organized cookies and drinks in order to offer some hospitality to the boarding party (they declined refreshment). The captain is responsible for taking all the boat papers, crew list, passports etc, around to the various offices. A young man “the handler”who spoke some English, met the boat and said he would take Todd around the port offices.
The first stop was at the police office. Todd had taken a bag of candy with him which he shared with the office ladies and everything was going well initially. They were happy for the candy and one of the ladies gave Todd a Tunisian yogurt to try. About this time the chief of police came in and saw Todd’s shirt with our logo on it, and indicated he would like 4 shirts. “The handler” (who was holding onto our passports and ships papers), walked Todd back to the boat to retrieve the shirts , and after these were handed over (Todd was told not to do this in public so he had to return to the chiefs office), he was sent on to customs.
The customs office was a very small pie-shaped affair, with a fridge squeezed between the door and an office desk, above which a soap opera was playing loudly in Arabic on the flat screen. There were 2 amply proportioned women in jeans and t-shirts (one sporting Minnie Mouse), standing in the middle of the small space. More paperwork (declarations lists for numbers of cell phones, computers, etc) and standing around followed. After the paperwork was completed to satisfaction, the women came to board the boat, but wouldn’t/couldn’t board it because apparently the distance was “insurmountable”. In reality it was an easy step to the transom (much more so than boarding a mono hull anyway). There was a short delay while someone summoned the head of customs, who arrived professionally dressed in uniform, with shoes and belt polished.(This nice man even covered his black soled shoes with vinyl booties when he boarded.) He appeared somewhat displeased about his staffs performance judging by the short but terse exchange of words. The boat search was fairly thorough and done efficiently. Todd signed off on the declaration and we were cleared to sign in with the marina. It had only taken an hour and a half and no money to complete the formalities. (When we first started going to Mexico in the 90’s, it took the better part of a day and you had to hike between all the various offices across town, and pay a number of fee’s, so Tunisia seemed streamlined in comparison). The marina staff were friendly and helpful, and we were directed to an end tie. There was another catamaran sharing the space, and our stern ended up extending a few feet past the end of the dock. All the other boats down our end of the dock were closed up and prepped for winter afloat.
Great relief and relaxation followed, along with a bottle of bubbly, showers and a nap! (At our slip, the power worked but the water was not potable).