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!