Don’t know what to watch or do at night? Follow a Zanzibari on his sailing trip around the world on Youtube, clipped by Mohamed Bajubeir of Zancinema. A trip, which was interrupted in the Philipines due to corona, and will continue next year. “The hardest thing”, Nassor Mahruki recounts, was not the sailing but “motherwatch”, meaning “kitchen and toilet service for a crew of 19.”
Everybody on board takes turns with any duty; most are amateur sailors who are led by a few professional skippers on the 11-month journey. “My passion for sailing started with a dhow,” says Mahruki, 62, who owns hotels in Unguja and Pemba. “And I love all water sports.”
On the trip from London to Uruguay, to South Africa and Australia he encountered waves of 8m and 80 knots of wind, “but the most taxing was absolutely no wind around the equator.”
“It’s inspiring with people of so many nationalities and ages on board”, says Nassor. “In Zanzibar we have been sailing for a 1000 years but few people do it as a sport, I want to motivate them.”
