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 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
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
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
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