Red Sea Part 1

Sea Fever Journal

Yemen, Eritrea, and Sudan

By Wendy Catlin                                    

16 April 1999

As we approach the Port of Aden on 3 April, we see to our starboard, rugged dry sharp peaked mountains contrasted with the blues of the sea and sky. All three of us share a feeling of excitement to be entering a culture and country which none of us have ever experienced before.

After making our way to the port and anchorage at Steamer’s Point, we go ashore to check in. On our way, we have our first experience of seeing women dressed in black , only the eyes visible and men in Arabic dress, some carrying daggers in their belts. I must dress accordingly wearing a long sleeved shirt, long skirt and use a sarong to cover my head. Rob and Bob have to wear long pants.

On the veranda of the customs office, there is a group of men chewing some sort of leaf. It seems this is the late afternoon thing to do. Everyone has huge wads of leaf in their cheeks and feeling quite jolly.

After checking in, we are met by "our guide", who (as it turns out) will be helping us and Anja K family throughout our stay here. In contrast to other places we have been, the guides take turns, so there is no swarm for us to deal with. As far as we are concerned, this is a good system. His name is Hussain and we immediately take a liking to him. He has a clapped out car for our transportation, is 56 years old, has umpteen grandchildren and knows where to get anything we could want and the fair price to pay for it.

Our second day, Hussain takes us out for a sight seeing tour and to the market. We visit a fishing fleet harbour, a water reservoir system which is so old, no one remembers who made it and a beautiful mosque. The market was fantastic! Busy and very colorful with so many fruits and vegetables it was hard to choose. We got all our fresh provisions here for our next leg up the Red Sea.

The town center has a bombed out look, old buildings, not much charm. However, the people are very friendly and helpful. Many of the older men have put henna in their hair, so it is orange. Many of the women and children have henna tattoos on their hands and feet.

While here in Aden, we get fuel. There is plenty of it here and very "fresh". It comes from the fields, to the refinery to our fuel tanks…nothing in between.

On 6 April, we depart Aden to head for the Straits of Bab el Mandeb which is the entrance to the Red Sea.

Our timing put us at this narrow channel at midnight. We are out there with the big boys, all the freighter traffic coming and going through the Suez canal pass through these straits. We must keep an extra sharp watch to make sure we are not in anyone’s way! We have a wind and a current which pushes us through nicely without too much drama. The sea widens and we begin to breathe a little easier.

The Red Sea is a geologist’s dream and a meteorologist’s nightmare. Our ocean atlas tells us that this is an embryonic ocean . It is being created by the splitting of the African and Arabian plates. In 200 million years, the Red Sea will be as large as the Atlantic Ocean.

The land is raw, open and dry. The winds are local for its length of 1200 miles, mostly determined by the temperature of the land. We are heading north west so winds from the north east or south east are desirable for our journey. We are psychologically prepared for a hard slog north, expecting days of north west winds (on our nose). Some days we will just stay at anchor, waiting for the winds to change or ease rather than beat ourselves and the boat to make just a few miles in a day.

I bought some henna in Aden, so Bob and I decided to have red hair for the Red Sea. Mine came out just a hint of red and Bob’s came out very orange!

We arrive 9 April at the port of Misawa, Eritrea. This is a quiet town in a war torn country. There are thirteen other yachts here waiting for a weather window to head north once again.

The town has much evidence of war with bombed out buildings, a noticeable absence of young men and women. Despite all this, we found people looking well fed, happy and very gracious. Despite the rubble and worn buildings, Misawa has a definite charm about it and very clean. Locals sit in street cafes chatting, drinking coffee, feeding pigeons. The desert light makes a perfect scene for photography.

The weather turns good for heading north, and we depart Misawa for Sudan on 11 April about midday.

We have a good mixture of sailing and motor sailing for the next day and night making good time.

The Red Sea is one of the best dive spots in the world and we want to get a taste of it. We anchor at the island of Talla Talla Sequir (Sudan) for a snorkel to take our first look. The visibility is at least 100 feet, we can see the bottom of the sea easily 50 feet below us. The water and exercise felt wonderful and refreshing, refueling us once again.

We then head due west for a fantastic sail (the winds are perfect) to the Shubuk Channel, off the coast of Sudan where we will anchor in the protection of a large reef system.

We arrive at Long Island, total altitude approximately four feet. We meet five other yachts here and decide to invite everyone over for a BBQ. We had at least fifteen people on board for this great gathering. The conversation is quite animated with everyone giving advice, talking of adventures and passing on news of other yachts.

Long Island is partially covered with salt bush and is a haven for Osprey, egrets, four flamingos, and many small birds which we could not identify (no book for this area). It is an extremely low island, and osprey nests are built on the ground. We had a very close, intimate look at a fledging osprey in the nest, constantly calling for its parents to come and feed it. The parents are perched about 50 yards away watching and waiting for this oversized offspring to take off to find its own food.

Great to see flamingos in the wild! So graceful in the water and in flight.

Lots of wind here, so Bob and Rob get the windsurfer going. They were whoopin’ and hollerin’ - having a great time as they passed by the boat.

After two nights anchorage here, we decide to continue north. Our depth sounder has gone berserk, so Anja K will go ahead of us through the inside channel to warn us of any shallow areas we may not see. All goes well, anchoring one night along the coast in a "marse" or anchorage within a coastal (fringing) reef.

Continue on to Sudan, leaving Anja K visiting with another yacht Zen.

Entering the port of Suwakin, Sudan is like nothing else we have ever seen or experienced. After passing the commercial area, we continue through a narrow channel bordered by ancient ruins. It seems like a surrealistic movie set with perfect lighting…but very real.

There is one other boat in the anchorage so we are able to learn the check in procedure. The officials will come to the boat, so we just wait.

It is evening and I look through binoculars to see the shore. People are going about their business bathing in the sea, goats getting washed, children playing, donkey carts carrying water, people and goods for trade.

This is a place of neutral color. The only bright colors I see are women in flowing fabrics of red, orange or yellow artfully wrapped around their bodies.

We are officially checked in the next morning and now allowed to go ashore.

We find here a town of friendly people amid rubble houses and buildings. Walking in the town and in the market is like stepping back one thousand years. Men wearing long white robes and turbans, with daggers and swords in their belts. Donkeys pulling carts, coffee being cooked on an open fire in clay pots. Very few women are present.

In the market, we find swords being made, camels for sale, tobacco, coffee, rubber tire shoes, camel accessories, water, grains and many things I do not know what they are. This experience is a sight that seems ancient to me. It excites us to find ourselves in such a time and place so far removed from the western culture from which we come.

We notice different tribes of people as we pick out distinct features of faces, hair and clothing. Most are nomadic, travelling in a territory of six hundred miles. I buy pants from the Gulf from a Bedouin woman who is dressed in applique clothing of red and black, her face half covered with fabric held by a silver chinstrap. The women put intricate beadwork pieces around my neck, hoping I will buy one. I find out later, that this tribe has come from Saudi Arabia 300 years ago still carrying on with the same traditions of that time.

This port is dated to 10 BC, which means that this part of the world has been settled for at least 10,000 years…. it really has not changed a great deal!

Many other yachts come into the harbour till we number once again fourteen. We are glad we had some time to ourselves here and are now ready to go on ahead north. While running the engine to get the refrigerators cold the engine once again makes its terrible noise. After inspection we find the pulley is shattered. It is very serious and cannot be fixed here. I have never seen Rob so angry as we have been going so well and having such a fine voyage.

Rob decides we will leave anyway…we will sail north to Egypt, a good 500 miles, without an engine. Once in Egypt, we can have the engine rebuilt or do whatever else is necessary. Sudan just does not have the resources we need. We hope the winds the Red Sea is famous for will give us a swift voyage north. This will not be easy, but the three of us will do it. It will certainly be an adventure!

We have the other boats help us out of the harbor, pushing us out the channel by dingy, others standing by. Once out of the channel we are fine and head out to sea and then north. All is well until the winds completely die out on the second day. We are becalmed for twenty-four hours. There is nothing we can do except float, read, swim and bath in the sea.

Third day, we get good winds and find we have traveled 120 miles to the north.

I figure the trip will take a minimum of 10 to 15 days, hopefully not longer than that. We have plenty of fresh water and food so this is not a problem.

We notice the barn swallows are doing their annual migration (10,000 miles) from northern Australia to the UK. We were fortunate enough to have one stop over for the night, making itself quite comfortable on a cushion perch in the saloon. Anything we can do to help! The next morning at light, it was on its way north once again. Such a journey for such a small and delicate bird!

We made our journey to the port of Safaga, Egypt in ten days time. What a sailing adventure it was. We experienced everything from becalming to thirty-five knot + winds and short seas as high as ten to fifteen feet. While the other yachts were in coastal marsas waiting for "weather windows" we were out there doing it!!! Taking all the wind had to offer us..we tacked all the way north, sometimes coming within thirty miles of the Saudi Arabian Coast then back to Egypt again. In all, we travelled almost one thousand miles to make five hundred north (an average of 100 miles per day).

The three of us felt quite proud of our accomplishment and had many acknowledgements from the yachts we left behind.

Needless to say, we were all very tired and happy to drop the hook (anchor). Again we patted ourselves on the back for all we had been through!!! YES!!!!

I finish this part of my journal in Safaga, Egypt

19° 07 N   37° 20' E