Transiting Pirate Alley

“You are now in High Risk Pirate Activity Area ! This Is Japanese Navy Foxtrot Two Six Zero. If you see any suspicious activity, report to this Warship immediately!”

This was the gist of the messages that we received each hour during the transit, from different Naval Ships, from different countries.  At least this pirate situation has caused a form of International Cooperation between countries that may have never seen a reason to collaborate before. They herd the diverse ships into loose formations and then trundle through the night down the so called ‘Recommended Safety Route’.

It seems the Warships are lit up like Christmas Trees, while the others opt whether to show running lights or not.

All rather serene until yacht Freedom came along!

Tony was on “Watch” and was getting a “lift” from the wind, and did not want to tack and sail backwards away from the ‘Recommended Safety Route’, so he continued towards the convoy lanes…. With our lights off.

Well, of course a gaggle of ships saw him coming on radar, so they changed course, but could not see us in the dark. There was much concerned chatter on the radio, but Tony was enjoying himself with the helming. Perhaps they thought that this clandestine radar echo was a ‘mother ship’ and that the invisible pirate skiffs were about to launch an attack.

Search Lights came on and scanned the sea, paying particular attention to the area near the stern of each ship. Of course they did not see us, blinded as they were with their own lights.

Tony passed them and then tacked back into the anonymity of the dark seas of the Sea of Aden. Radio chatter continued.

But this was our contribution to the safety effort. One of the problems is that crews become complacent on the ships, and they stop keeping a good lookout. This particular evening they had something to chatter about…. How they thwarted an attack, and how brave they were.

So we supplied a small service to the general need for alertness in Pirate Alley.

The next day a helicopter came thwacking over us, no doubt taking close up photographs of the crew for later identification. We tried to get Marlene to ‘flash’ at them, but she declined. Just as well, as she would have perhaps found herself featured on the Gulf News front page, if they allow that sort of thing here.

Anything to relieve the boredom, because this has to be one of the ‘deadest’ seas in the world. It is devoid of birds and fish activity. Except for one fleeting moment when a large pod of dolphins passed us, with bill-fish, all chasing a school of smaller fish with urgent dedication. And that was it.

Nothing.

And to think that we nearly bought an arsenal of weapons to ward off attacks.

But seriously, the efforts towards achieving a safer sea for the commercial ships have proven effective. I am sure their crews are happier with the situation, particularly as they are all being paid a double salary for the transit! Pity there is no one out there to pay pensioners like us double as well!

The plus side of this tranquil period is that we have time to slip into the ‘Ocean Passage Mood’, which is a state of mind that one usually achieves after a couple of weeks at sea, away from the hassles and stresses of the shore. Up to now we have been so busy with the problems of thefts, missing equipment, adverse weather, delays by officials, engine difficulties etc that we have not had time to ‘Charge our Chi’.

Slowly that is changing.

If it doesn’t bore you, I will try to describe that mood swing later.

Right now we are two or three days from our next destination, and we are getting to be a little complacent as well.

Maybe we need a wake up call, like a Tony swinging in on a halyard from the night, with a bandana on his head, knife in teeth and a cutlass in hand and gold earrings.

Perhaps not…… We are supposed to be retired!

 

BUT  THEN IT ALL CHANGED!

Marlene was the first to see it: a small white object in the sea far ahead. We searched with the binoculars and eventually out of the gloomy haze we saw a fishing dhow with three skiffs on tow behind. This is the classical pirate ship, as depicted in all the information about this part of the Gulf of Aden.

I turned 90° and we watched for a reaction. After a few minutes the dhow turned towards us and started motoring. We had been seen.

We turned to motor away down our reciprocal track with the dhow slowly gaining on us. I called the Japanese warship and succeeded in getting in contact via another ship acting as a relay station. We gave them the information about our predicament and what we were doing.

An American voice came on the radio from an American warship saying they understood and good luck, but we were on our own. We did not expect any assistance from the Americans, because, after all, if they were not prepared to send forces to rescue their ambassador in Libya when he was in the process of being murdered by rebels, then it was hardly likely that they were going to expend any effort to save a couple of lowly American taxpayers like Tony and me.

However the Japanese Navy was a different matter.

They had been asking ships to report suspicious activity, and here it was.

While we exchanged information with the Japanese warship, the dhow turned away. We thought it was because they were monitoring the same general frequency that we were using to talk to the warship. They must have realised that there was no element of surprise for them.

We motored off into the night and soon after a helicopter from the Japanese warship came overhead, talking to us and getting more information about the appearance of the dhow and its collection of skiffs. It then did a search of the area.

We took a circuitous route closer to the shipping lane and returned to our original track.

We told Tony that probably the following morning we would find the Japanese Frigate alongside demanding if we would like to pay with VISA, MASTERCARD or AMEWICAN EXPWESS. Plus perhaps a contribution for the Japanese Navy Benevolent Fund.

But of course not.

Any other country maybe, but not Japan.

I am very impressed by their dedication to their duty here. They are on patrol and they are letting everyone know about it, and when something happens they take action.

I believe that we were in danger because this fishing dhow had all its buoys that long line fishermen use on the deck, not deployed in the sea. They were waiting for prey, not fishing: that was just a ‘cover’.

The Japanese Navy were there in what very easily could have been our ‘hour of need’ and for that we are truly grateful.

 

Aden

Our arrival into Aden was almost similar to the sorts of accounts that one reads about in classic Naval Tales or War Histories.

We left behind the convoys on the horizon which follow the recommended “safety route” so that the coalition naval forces can keep an “eye” on them in this pirate risk area. I was amused to think that it took skilled U-Boat packs in the Second World War to force the North Atlantic convoys to be created and yet here just a few lightly armed men in skiffs have caused a fundamental shift in the economies of several countries, changes of sea routings and the assembly of naval forces that would have been the envy of the British Admiralty back in the bleak days of the 1940’s.

Aden is impressive from the sea in the same way that Gibraltar is. It has massive rock formations emerging out of the sea that give protection to a large expanse of water, but there the illusion ends.

The reality of the place is that the signs of “yesteryear” are evident as buildings and infrastructure, but all of which have fallen into decay.

It is easy to imagine men in starched white naval uniforms scuttling from Office to Office with important sheafs of paper while other important men behind closed doors made significant decisions about the future of the British Empire.

Now cats and women dressed in black from head to toe fight for scraps in the rubbish heaps that line the sides of the roads. Faded signs here and there allude to past institutions, like the Seamen’s Club or the Offices of Import/Export.

And yet the people are surprisingly tranquil about their situation, on the surface. It seems that they would like the British to return. They have not fallen into the silly trap that so many Africans have adopted, that the British are responsible for all ills and ailments, past and present. One old man (like me) trundled past in his beat-up truck, carefully navigating past the potholes and asked, “Where do you come from?”

“Zimbabwe” I answered, to be a bit provocative.

“Ha Ha, “he called back, “Mugabe! It is safer here!”

I looked at the broken cars and the bullet holes in the apartment block across the road, and called back, “I think you are right!”

He was delighted to think that there was somewhere worse than Aden. We parted with smiles.

We anchored off what was once called “The Prince of Wales Pier” but now is called, rather misleadingly “Tourist Pier”. Now the sole inhabitants seem to be semi naked fishermen perched on the crumbling stones with hand held lines in the water.

Once on shore we were besieged by “Taxi Drivers” touting for business, and I erringly chose one that spoke Eengleesh. Mazen took us on a series of trips to closed shops in back alleys of Aden in search of “plugs” for engine blocks and spare fuel filters. The up-side was that we saw places that most people would have the good sense not to visit.

There are three statements that are well used in Aden: “What do you need?” “I can help you.” “It is not far.”.

They are all false.

The “I can help you” means I will mislead you in a series of ways to prolong my association with you, so that I can ask for more money. Rather like Lawyers!

The “It is not far” means that it is the other side of bay, when in reality you could find the item you want within a few minutes walk from the port. Again, this is for the same reason as above.

The “What do you need” is also false, because after being messed about all day, you find that you don’t really need the item after all!

We even inspected some firearms in the dark, up a “back alley”, that were owned by out-of work South Yemen soldiers, while street kids made lewd facial gestures that would seem to indicate their usefulness as boy prostitutes. Desperation starts from an early age here.

The reason that the soldiers are out-of work is that the “North” has invaded the “South” and sent all the soldiers and policemen and government workers home, without pay.

This strikes me as a very dangerous development, as Mazen and his friends protest this invasion by painting “Freedom for the South” on buildings and painting the “South Arab” flag on any exposed wall. Most days someone is shot by the soldiers from the North, and subsequently his picture is displayed on banners in the streets. The Freedom Seekers claim that they do not want violence, because they are “better people than the ones from the North”, but the detonator point seems to be close to mass bloodshed to me.

To reflect this, the price of firearms is increasing daily, as locals believe that they will need them, themselves.

Oh to be at sea again with the pirates!

We have to endure two days of “holidays” before being able to get fuel and final supplies before departure. The supplies we obtained from Lulu, a supermarket which is styled on western mall design, which has modern shops and banks. This is in stark contrast to the seedy cellars with strong metal doors that are found in the ghettos where Mazen took us.

One of the signs of British involvement here is the large British Cemetery. It seems to have been looted for all useful bits of building materials. It is interesting to note the lack of care British cemeteries have around the world, except perhaps for the ones of the downed British airmen in France which are being systematically renovated by the British War Graves Commission. Elsewhere the lack of care seems to reflect the lack of care of past soldiers who served the British Causes in various theatres, and then have been studiously ignored.

There is also a German Cemetery that has suffered the same degradation from the locals.

We managed to get fuel before we left, from the fuel bunkering wharf which is usually surrounded by floating pontoons from the Second World War. They were new back then and they have done well, because they have survived to the present day without a lick of paint to detract from their authenticity. We filtered this fuel assiduously, but it still succeeded in blocking our filters later on.

Our departure from Aden was stunning. We sailed out with a following breeze. (We knew the wind had changed because we were now downwind from the sewerage works.) The impressive rock cliffs slowly descended into the sea as we curved our way over the horizon. What wonderful opportunities there are here for so many possible projects, but all never to be realised with the present political realities.

I shall add a few pictures to this blog later, as this edition will be sent while we are enroute on the Satellite Phone, which is now in service. Pictures tend to take a long time to transmit.

Statistics: their falsehoods, assumptions and dangers.

We have been trapped for four days by the gales and storm force winds at the Island of Jabal Zuqar.

 

The two anchors laid in tandem have been doing a wonderful job and have held us firm, via the special harness which is attached to the bow of the two hulls and onto the anchor chain. The winds have been a persistent forty knots and at times exceeding fifty knots for an hour at a time. The winds howl over the island and scrape the water from the sea and hurl it at the boat. The force of the wind is stronger than standing on the back of a motorcycle doing the speed limit on a National Road in Europe. So there is no question of being able to walk on the deck of the boat!

 

Salt spray has dried all over the rigging along with trapped sand, so the boat is filthy. It looks as though frost has formed, rather like the rime ice that collects on the leading edges of aircraft in icy cloud conditions.

 

Only here it is not icy.

 

It is hot, sometimes with spurts of extra heat from the air that has bashed its way through the black crevasses of this volcanic island. All around the Red Sea the shores are flat and the mountains are in the far distance, almost out of sight in the dust haze. But Jabal Zuqar is different. It is a high black block of basalt spewed from multiple vents and craters, as though God had decided to, for once and for all, block the Red Sea to navigation, but had changed His mind half way through the Creation of it.

 

Now the Island sits in the middle of the Sea like a large black Neptune intent on denying passage to mortals. The ships squeeze past on either side with not a lot of room to spare, while we dangle on the anchor at the mercy of the elements. Perhaps our anchors have embedded themselves into a particularly sensitive area of his torso?

 

All of which brings me to the subject of statistics.

 

We all know the old joke that 97.6% of all Statistics are made up “on the spot”, or at the “drop of a hat”.

 

What is not a joke is that Statistics are used to misinform, hide and distort the truth. Politicians and Police, Law makers and Gamblers all use Statistics to manipulate people with so called logic.

 

And so does that august tome “The Admiralty Sailing Directions”.

 

Who would dare argue with the opinions expressed in a book with such an important title?

 

Well I would!

 

The BSD emphatically shows that winds from the South East in the southern part of the Red Sea blow about 50% of the time, and they blow from the North West about 25 % of the time and from various other parts of the compass for the remainder, at this time of the year. What is more, SE winds in excess of thirty knots blow less than 3% of the time, which is about one day each month.

 

So how can we believe them when we have been subjected to SE winds in excess of forty knots and up to fifty five knots, for nearly five days?

 

We have had six months of gales in less than a week!

 

No wonder our senses of humour are stretched to the limit!

 

Not even watching American TV “soaps” can alleviate our feelings….. Yes, I did say that this boat has many “mod cons”!

 

The only interesting thing that happened is that happened is that a small, seaworthy fishing skiff came into sight and approached us from around the side of the island. It came close to us and we saw a crew of three fishermen and five Yemeni Army men, three Officers and two armed soldiers. They asked who we were and we explained about the weather, which they understood. I gave them a crew list which has an explanation written in very polite Arabic that we “hope we are welcome to stay here for a few days for weather reasons. We are pleased to make their acquaintance and we thank them for their understanding”.

 

It seems that they were the “strandlopers” that we saw when we first arrived. They did not have a boat at their disposal, so they had had to go to the other side of the island and commandeer a fishing boat to come and interview us. The fishermen handled their seaworthy craft in a very expert fashion. After the meeting they were “landed” on the shore and the fishing boat motored off back from whence it came.

 

But a respite came on the night of the fifth day.

 

The wind dropped to 20 to 25 knots, so we hauled up the anchors and set off into the night. The Yemen Army on the shore tried to see if we were still there, with searchlights, but to no avail. We were “gone”.

 

We had a very trying night with a return of strong winds from the south, but we punched our way through it and eventually got to the Bab el Mandeb which is the anal passage that serves as the southern straits of the Red Sea. Tony steered us past prohibited areas which squeezed us against the shipping lanes which were crowded with ships from the convoy system that is used to minimise piracy risks.

 

At last we are in the Gulf of Aden on the way to Aden to refuel and reequip for the next leg of our voyage.

 

We are all happy to be out of the Red Sea at last…. An experience, but not one that I would look forward to doing again!

 

The sadness that exists in Aden is something that I shall write about next time.

Rainbows in the Sea Spray

At last we are ready to leave Kamaran Island.

 

Abdul was as good as his word. He went to the mainland for us, then travelled 60 miles south on the bus to get to a fishing port where he thought he could get the various engine filters for us. It took him all day, and when he arrived back at the boat he had also managed to get some of the supplies that Marlene had asked for, which included fresh bread and vegetables.

 

The next morning we fitted the new filters and gave the engines a trial run, and then restored the normal boat fuel supply system to service as it was now purged of foreign matter and dirt. We had emptied the main tank, filtered all the fuel from drum to drum, and then put the fuel back into the tank.

 

The engines sounded “sweet” and not laboured. Ian fitted a new cooking gas tank which was a Yemen specification, and did not fit the boat attachments. This meant using a Yemeni gas regulator, which looked a bit suspect, but we had no choice. Ian sprayed the whole arrangement with soapy water to check for leaks and all seemed to be secure. We felt ready to go, so as soon as we had our passports back from the local Policeman we raised the anchor, called the mainland port control, and we were on our way with both engines working and with a light breeze from the south.

 

As we cleared the port entrance the Yemeni Coast Guard roared up with their impressive interceptor launch and waved us goodbye. They were very friendly to us when we spoke to them in the Kamaran Harbour. Perhaps being the first boat to visit in years has its compensations?

 

Tony was on watch and steered us into the night, past a fuel tanker that was unloading fuel into an offshore pipeline. It turned on a bright searchlight to see who we were. People around here are suspicious about small boats, particularly at night. This is one of the advantages of the “pirate situation”: ships treat small boats with caution and keep a sharp lookout for them. Perhaps a few Somali pirates in the English Channel would cause the same effect, to make ships there to keep a more vigilant lookout for small boats?

 

As the night progressed the wind became stronger and stronger from the south. The boat was beginning to pitch about like a stallion being attacked by wasps. Our groundspeed was deteriorating due to the steep contrary swells, so we tried various sail and engine combinations to try and make to windward without pounding ourselves to death.

 

By this time we had passed our first diversion anchorage at Jazirat al Mujamilan Island, so I set course for Jabal Zuquar Island. We had to steer to avoid a couple of ships that were in the restricted shipping channels that pass close to the island on the eastward side. What a relief to get into the lee of the island and into smoother water.  It was early afternoon, so we had good light to select an anchor point between the coral reefs, using the depth finder to give us another reference.

 

We lay back on the anchor in about 25 knots of wind. The holding seemed secure. Three people on a sand spit to windward whistled and beckoned to us. It seems as though they are like “strandlopers” who are existing at a primitive level on this volcanic island on fish, wind and imagination.

 

We discovered that the bucking and bouncing of the boat during the night had loosened the clamps that held the outboard motor to the transom of the inflatable dinghy, and the boat motion had thrown the motor into the sea. We also found that the Yemeni gas regulator had not withstood the rough seaborne treatment and had leaked the entire contents of the gas tank overboard. Cooking is now reduced to the microwave using the inverter and the BBQ on the transom of the boat, which is a bit tricky in this high wind.

 

The following morning we saw that the anchor was beginning to drag, as the wind had increased to 30 knots, occasionally gusting to 35 and that the wave action was more pronounced. We raised the anchor and secured a Danforth anchor in tandem with the CQR and deployed them in the same place as before. This worked well, with the anchors at five metres depth and the chain lying back to the boat at ten metres depth on its bridle.

 

It was as well we did this because the wind continued to increase during the night to 40 knots, gusting to 45. The direction of the wind was stable which helped a lot. It the morning as we were having breakfast, Marlene said that it was the first time that she had seen rainbows in the sea spray. The wind was so strong that it was whipping the tops of the waves into spray and the low angle of the sun refracted the colours over the water.

 

At the moment we are prisoners in this anchorage, and we have time to contemplate the strength of the sea and its weather. I am intrigued that this force of wind can exist and be so persistent this close to the equator, with no influence from tropical revolving storms. As we all know, this strength of wind is usually associated with frontal activity in higher latitudes, or with pressure patterns combined with mountain ranges also at higher latitudes.

 

So we rest here at the moment, secure, and hoping for a lull in the weather so that we can pass through the straits at the south end of the Red Sea. It is only 90 nautical miles to go and so far we have covered over 1500 miles, with our tacking back and forth against the winds. But this 90 miles to go may well be more difficult than all the distance that we have already covered.

 

Our wind generator is speeding through more than a thousand air miles a day.

 

Our ground speed remains at zero!

Departure from Suakin.

We raised anchor at 0730 and waved ‘farewell’ to Captain Jack who wished us a Bon Voyage.

 

I was able to get a couple of pictures of the Ospreys nesting on the remaining structures of the Ruined City. This is a very good site for them as it is protected from the public by the military and it has good access to the sea.

 

We followed the route that was pioneered by the Royal Navy that leads South through the complex maze of reefs and shoals.  The sea was very rough and confused and we spent a noisy and uncomfortable day and night. Each wave slammed the bridge between the two hulls with a sound like a canon firing and the whole hull shuddered as though it had been dropped on to concrete.

 

I spent part of the night contemplating the strength of fibreglass and if the constant jarring would damage the hull. It was rather like being in a plastic box being dragged over rocky ground and being attacked by hooligans with baseball bats. There are some sailing angles where the catamaran excels itself, but this was not one of them.

 

The one compensation was that Tony caught a Kingfish, which is very good eating. We decided to route further out to sea where we could get a better sea motion rather than the mixed up mess that existed over the shoals. Near the edge of the reef I saw, in the early hours of the morning, a ship next to a fishing trawler. They seemed to be exchanging cargo. I switched off all lights and chugged towards them. They must have noticed us on radar as they disengaged and the ship took off to the north at high speed. I imagine that they thought we were a Sudanese patrol boat in the dark, and that we were about to trap them illegally fishing and taking fish. Probably it was an Israeli ship, as they are known to pirate these waters. It is sad that we now suffer piracy in this part of the world from the very people who were only trying to protect their fishing rights in the first place, and who were ignored by the “world”.

 

The port engine stopped due to a fuel filter blockage, so we cleaned it out and it went back to operating normally. Now we had a strong Easterly wind which gave us an acceptable angle to make towards the south, with about 400 miles to go to Aden. We caught a King Mackerel, which is a beautiful fish with smooth firm flesh. I was very impressed, having only seen the small Mackerel of the English Channel.

 

The wind changed to the South. We had been told that the wind changes with the New Moon, and it had, but not to our advantage. Now the wind was very strong and we needed engine assistance to “make” against the wind. People claim that catamarans sail close to the wind, but the reality is that they can “point” high, but the leeward drift is alarmingly high as well, so the windward vector is poor, particularly when there is a sea running.

 

The swells were now at about seven metres with breakers coaming off the tops of the waves, and the steepness of the swells was so extreme it seemed impossible that the boat could ride over each one, but it did.

 

The sea reminded me of the sea state that I had witnessed when passing the southern tip of Africa at “Danger Point Lighthouse”, in my old wooden boat Zanj. I shall write more about Zanj later. There in the Southern Ocean the gales conflict with the sea currents and the result is a steep violent formation of swells, usually with breakers cascading down the slopes. These waves sometimes combine together to create monster waves and you need a good bit of luck to avoid those!

 

We now had a double engine failure, with dirty fuel clogging the filters. We knew that we had several filters of different sorts on board, but when we searched for them we realised that the Thief of El Tig Marina had stolen them all as well.

 

This put us into a very dangerous situation.

 

Tony spent hours cleaning our dirty filters in difficult seas, first with petrol and then diesel, trying to get them clear without damaging the integrity of the filters.

 

My problem was to find somewhere to go where we would not be dashed onto a reef, or get in the way of the shipping in the central part of the Red Sea. We had no sleep with all the noise of the thumping and shuddering of the boat, and only intermittent use of one engine or the other before it would fail again due to the dirty fuel.

 

This dirty fuel was the uplift that we did at Hurghada before our departure there. It seemed that the Egyptian influence over slaves and ‘others’ had not yet finally let us go, after all.

 

I have the feeling that God knew what he was doing when he sealed the Red Sea off at the north end. It was Man who created the Suez Canal and the idea that the Red Sea was both “navigable” as well as “crossable”, as it appears it was back in Moses’s day. These are all concepts that are difficult to put into practice. Ian said that his son, who had sailed up the Red Sea some years ago in a luxury superyacht, had warned him that the Red Sea was not to be trifled with, and now we believed him.

 

Now with both engines out of commission we were sailing towards the Eritrean Coast where we knew that the military were not friendly to yachtsmen and that the fishermen had announced a desire to increase pirate activity.

 

It seemed like a good idea to tack back across the sea!

 

I had a problem to choose a place where we could anchor in a strong wind from the south and at the same time get to without the use of engines, and also to have an escape plan in the event that the wind changed, or some other problem arose. There was only one choice that was possible, and that was a small island called “Al Badi” which is in the Yemeni group of islands near their northern border with Saudi Arabia.

 

The Red Sea Pilot book warned of poor reception by Yemen of yachts, but there was nowhere else to go, including back up the Red Sea, where we would again meet adverse winds from the north and still have no safe place to go.

 

We sailed through the day through huge swells and gusting winds. The wind direction held and we arrived at the anchorage as the sun set, which was what I hoped for, as it would give us a chance to “rest” before we were “discovered”. The north side of the island had many small fishing boats anchored there, and we saw that they were all engaged in night fishing with lights. During the day they go close to the shore where the sea movement is less, and they sleep.

 

We found out later that they go off in these small skiffs for a week of work and then they have a few days off before returning for another tour of duty. There is no social security for these fellows. They work or die.

 

I wonder how popular this work and life style would be for Europeans who are accustomed to the state being responsible for giving them a reasonable standard of living, even  if they don’t work?

 

We managed to get one last sputter out of one engine before dropping the anchor in an ideal place. The next day, after a good night’s sleep, we worked on cleaning fuel lines and filters and trying to get the engines reliable enough to get us to the island of Kamaran in Yemen, which was our only chance of getting fuel and spare parts to replace the parts that were stolen in Egypt.

 

We were approached by one fishing boat whose crew asked for alcohol. We told them that we had no alcohol and no cigarettes but we gave them some Bulgar Wheat and a tin of sweetcorn. They offered us a dogfish, which is a small shark. Tony was insulted that they thought we would accept this, and Ian told us that the fast food restaurants in the US and Canada use dogfish in all their so called “fish fingers”!

 

Another boat approached us with one fisherman suffering from conjunctivitis, so Ian administered first aid with eye drops. They were friendly and curious, and very poor.

 

The next day we had to move the boat because of a change of wind direction and we managed to move a mile with only a few engine failures. We still had work to do!

 

The following day the wind had dropped, and we thought that we had achieved better engine reliability, so we “went” for the twelve mile trip upwind to the island of Kamaran. I steered while Ian and Tony monitored each engine with bleed spanners at the ready, to bleed the final remnants of air out of the systems. Slowly the engines settled to an even throbbing sound although I steered along the ten metre depth contour, ready to drop the anchor at a moment’s notice, because a total engine failure here would have meant drifting downwind onto a reef, with little chance of escape by sail.

 

It worked. We arrived in the Harbour of Kamaran Island and we were the only boat there. Before we dropped the anchor, a small skiff came out with three eager people on board.

 

One was called Abdul.

 

It turned out that he had worked on an Italian Cruise Ship for several years and was multilingual. He was a Godsend for us. He organised the Police, the Military and the Coast Guard. I chatted to the Port Control which is situated across the bay at the Salt Terminal.

 

Everyone was welcoming and charming as I repeatedly told them how happy we were to be there and what a beautiful place it was, with the sunshine and the wonderful fishing fleet.

 

“No Problem” they repeated to us, over and over, as we explained our dire circumstances. Abdul volunteered to go fifty miles to another port town where he thought he could find the right filters for us. We were not allowed to leave the boat, without going through painful formalities and red tape, so Abdul’s offer of assistance was more valuable than we could imagine.

 

Of course I will have to make it “worthwhile” for Abdul and his friends when we leave, but what a much better experience for us it was than having all sorts of pseudo charges levied for nothing but aggravation, as we experienced in Egypt.

 

I hope we will get the filters and other spare parts this afternoon, and that we will be ready to leave tomorrow, if the wind has moderated.

 

Each day the wind is against us, the chances are better statistically that it will change direction and strength for us. We are supposed to get 25 percent favourable winds here, and fifty percent contrary winds. So far we have had 100 percent contrary winds in this part of the Red Sea.

 

But as you know, the “Weather” has never read the book of our statistics, and even if it had, it wouldn’t respect our man made laws.

 

 

 

Ali Baba and his forty thieves have competition.

Ali Baba was from Baghdad, we all know that, but he has competition.

 

His competition is the Thief of El Gouna, or specifically the Thief of El Tig Marina.

 

We thought that his theft from the boat was only a Leatherman multi tool, the keys for the fuel and water tanks and the navigation chip from the Raytheon Navigation system containing all the charts for our route. We thought that he had stolen some bedding and maybe some food supplies, but none of the stored stores of alcohol, nor any clothing. It wouldn’t do perhaps, for him to steal clothing that had been used by pig eaters like us?

 

What he did steal as well as the above items was to have a profound impact on our voyage and was to endanger our lives to a serious degree, but more of that later. We did an inventory of what we thought he might have stolen, but he out-foxed us.

 

Now that we are safely away from Egypt I am able to record what really happened when I reported this theft.

 

Tony wanted me to ‘leave it’, but I wanted to report the theft because the safety implications of stealing charts from a system that might only be discovered when it was too late. This was particularly important in such a dangerous navigational area, and could be of danger to others who might be less vigilant.

 

Tony had decided to leave the key of the boat with the Harbourmaster before our departure last August, which is a normal procedure for an unoccupied boat in a secure trustworthy place.

 

Of course we had checked the navigation instruments and equipment as part of recommissioning the boat after a layoff period, but it was only when we were planning our departure that we saw all the fine detail charts had been stolen.

 

I organised a meeting with the marina manager, and he called the Harbourmaster, who is also the Head of Security, to attend. This Head of Security had found that we had organised a driver to buy some fuel for the boat. This is a normal procedure at all the other ports on Egypt and one that we had used in Port Said and in Port Suez. The only other way to get fuel at El Tig marina is to order a bowser from thirty kilometres away to deliver it, and that they are not eager to do, for an amount of 100 litres.

 

So the Security Chief had confiscated our fuel and drums, and had closed the marina because of “wind” for three days. This was an undisguised attempt to stop us from leaving, as we were the only boat in the marina that was a cruising yacht. All the others boats there are owned as Tax Havens or as money laundering organisations posing as charter operators.

 

Meeting the Harbourmaster for the first time Face to Face, I realised that HE held all the cards and that I had to be very careful. He seemed to me to be a thug, and he made me think that he had probably been fired from the Egyptian military for killing too many civilians. I was very conciliatory with the marina manager and I said that I was only recording the theft of the navigation chip because of the safety considerations.

 

We were allowed to leave the next day, and I recorded some of the difficulties we encountered in the previous blog.

 

We did manage to get the Crossbows from the Customs on our departure from Hurghada as reported before, and we set course down the southern departure route, through the coral reefs and then out to sea.

 

What a relief to get away from land.

 

Our destination was the port of Suakin which is a little bay about thirty nautical miles south of Port Sudan on the Western coast of the Red Sea.

 

The reason for choosing Suakin was that were told that we would be able to buy ‘arms’ there, for defence against pirate attack threats in the Gulf of Aden.

 

Once out at sea we had a beautiful following wind and cruised with the genoa while we sorted out and raised the spinnaker. This was a period of tranquillity for us to settle in and get used to the boat and its motion. Marlene felt a little bit queasy with the motion and from working in the galley with stooping into cupboards to retrieve things, but this soon passed.

 

 

We sailed through the night with the spinnaker up, which is not a normal procedure for me because if you have to ‘drop it’ during the night it means being on the foredeck in the dark, and the risk of falling overboard is greater, and the chance of finding someone who has fallen overboard at night is slim. But the conditions were so stable that I decided to risk it, and it turned out okay.

 

The next day Tony was delighted to catch two small Yellow Fin Tuna, which he filleted with skill and divided into ‘meals for four’ containers and then BBQ’ed the remainder, including the Heads, which he says has the best meat of all.

 

 

Tony BBQing the fish

The next day we had to drop the spinnaker and start beating to windward as the wind had changed to come from the South. Eventually the wind dropped altogether, so we motored on with one engine. We were visited by a few fine-looking dolphins that were coloured with three shades of grey. They looked so colour co-ordinated that I feel tempted to respray my sports car when I get home, as it is sprayed in a metallic sliver grey colour which looks dull in comparison to these beautiful creatures.

 

We were also visited by a Hoepoe, which is a pretty russet coloured bird with black and white markings and an impressive crest. What it was doing out at sea and out of sight of land is a mystery. We also had a little insect eating bird that flew into the saloon and ate the last of the Egyptian flies, which was a service that we appreciated very much.

 

The wind returned from the north, but was light, so we raised the spinnaker again. The spinnaker did a curious thing in the light wind; it got caught in an eddy behind the mainsail and wrapped itself around the forestay several times, very neatly. We had to start the engines and turn the boat around five times to un-twist the spinnaker, so I have resolved not to fly the spinnaker again with the mainsail raised in light winds.

 

We arrived at Suakin and Ian steered the boat into the port, past the ferry quay and to the anchorage for yachts which is south of a small island that is the site of the ‘Ruined City’. This is where the British based some naval ships long ago, before relocating and creating a base at what is now Port Sudan, to the north. The reason for this was because of the complications of the coral reefs off shore and the dangers to shipping that these reefs pose for navigation. Today, with GPS navigation, everything is so much easier, although the accuracy of the charts is sometimes suspect as some of the chart survey areas are over a hundred years old. The coast of the Red Sea is one of the most unexplored in the world. The big ships have no interest in it as they steam up and down the centre of the Sea, and the recreational use by cruising yachts is minimal. A great deal of the survey done by Captain Carless at the beginning of the 1900’s was lost due to the negligence of the bureaus in India where the information was stored.

 

There was only one other boat in the anchorage at Suakin, and the owner, Captain Jack, was shocked to see us.

 

“You are the first boat I have seen here in four years!” he told us.

 

Captain Jack is what I would call the “Ultimate Cruising Sailor”. He has been visiting this port for a dozen years during the northern winter months, and then he sails back to the Mediterranean to be with his family in France during the northern summer months. He seems totally content with his own company, and yet engages with everyone around and is a mine of information regarding weather patterns and local safety issues. His family from France fly out to visit him from time to time, so that they can go diving on the local reefs and to stay with “Grand Papa Bateau”. His boat, which he has owned for thirty years, is an example of a cared for and personally modified cruising boat. He laments that in the past, when cruising in the Red Sea was more popular, the people who cruised up the Red Sea were “so urgent” on their schedules that they did not appreciate the Life that they were living.

 

We are also “urgent” to get to the south, and I know that he is right. We are missing the inner peace that comes from “taking time to travel”. My excuse is that we have to catch the winds in the Northern Indian Ocean before they fade and reverse, if we are to get to the Seychelles before mid April.

 

Our agent at Suakin was Mohamed Abubaker. He is a tall elegant Sudanese who Tony said must have a Royal Blood connection. He was organised and efficient and we had clearances from the port control and fuel delivered to the boat in double quick time.

 

We invited Captain Jack over for an evening meal, which was an opportunity for us to learn about cruising in the Red Sea and the history of the yachtsmen who had passed through. He told us about one who got shot while diving on a reef in Eritrea near Massawa, but why he was shot was not clear. Perhaps the military there was merely protecting the country resources?

 

The port at Suakin, also sometimes called Sawakin, is an important embarkation point for Muslims who are going to Mecca for the Hajj. The problem, it was revealed, is that they are not allowed to take their sacrificial animals with them on the ferry. Apparently several million animals are sacrificed each year, mainly goats, but some camels too, and they have to be transported by the faithful. So another port is being constructed south of Suakin to transport the animals. How they all recognise each other on the “other side” at Jeddah is a mystery, rather like how the Emperor Penguins recognise each other in the Antarctic after months of separation.

 

It must be tough to be a faithful goat when your master is driven by a desire to sacrifice you.