O Y S TER NEWS
Esper dusted off her decks, spread her sails, breathed in the fresh winds, and danced in the bluest, blue waters of the Gulf of Suez. T is part of our voyage was a fairytale come true for us in-the-blood sailors. T ose three metre waves and Beaufort 7, gusting 8, winds hurled us towards Hurghada over a week long sailing frenzy. Heading southwards down the Red Sea is great at the northern end because you have winds behind you for most of the way. As you sally from one anchorage to the next you can’t help but gasp at the dramatic coastline. T e spectacular mountains of the Sinai desert appear on your beam as you roller coaster over the waves reaching undreamed of speeds.
Egypt off ered a mixed bag of sights and experiences for us, but like all the countries we have visited it was the people who gave us most insight into its culture. Sure, the constant haggling and pressing for presents was at times frustrating, but on the whole we found the stigma of the ‘baksheesh’ culture a little unfair. T ere were plenty of exceptionally friendly and helpful people who asked for nothing. T ey were happy to meet us: school children shouted “Welcome!” as we walked down the street; the man on the check-out till chatted with us in fl uent English about living on a yacht; men (and even women) greedily posed for photographs; just like home, taxi drivers told us their life histories and discussed politics. Egypt is a loud, dusty, over-crowded living museum, but taking time to mix with the locals should not be overlooked when traipsing from one jaw-dropping ancient site to another.
One of the reasons for joining the Vasco da Gama Rally for us had been the unregimented approach of its organizer and leader, Lo Brust. T ere is no spoon-feeding, he expects skippers to take responsibility for their own safety, even the schedule is a movable feast. If asked, however, he will happily dish out advice for fi rst time coral-reef sailors. He takes the burden of the bureaucracy away from participants and provides lists of suggested waypoints and stopovers between each leg. He is available at any time for his brains to be picked about anything from charts, waypoints, customs and cultures, prices of taxis, availability of fuel and anything else a confused ‘yachty’ can come up with. T is allows each crew the freedom to visit the places they want to see, while remaining part of a ‘loose’ rally. Another big plus point for us was the comfort of traveling along third world country coastlines in company with others; if there should be any problems the hope was that we would be able to work together to solve them.
T is theory was tested aſt er leaving Port Ghalib in mid January when we headed down the coast to our fi rst really tight coral-reef anchorage. It had been a long day, with little wind and much motoring. By the time we reached Sharm Luli (24º 36’ 53N, 035º 06’ 93E) night had fallen. As the fl eet made its way into this protected cove a few boats came a cropper; three of them hit rocks. To our intense relief, and as a result of Jamie’s honed navigational skills helped by cached images from Google Earth, we anchored safely. T e following morning two boats nursed their badly damaged egos, but the third yacht discovered a crippling hole in its rudder. T e initial shock was soon replaced by boats volunteering their help by radio around the small bay, and in the true spirit of our adventure all boats rallied round with off ers of stainless steel, tools and advice. By chance we had a qualifi ed welder amongst us who had brought along his equipment; we also had a dive master and plenty of qualifi ed divers to assist him. What could be simpler than repairing a rudder whilst at anchor in Sudan, where you are not allowed to bring your dinghy within 20 metres of the shore and where there is no sign of habitation in any direction? Add to that a slightly hostile military presence that made it clear they wanted us to move on. Lo successfully smoothed it over with the military, who allowed us to stay while the repair was made. Within a week the job was fi nished. Using two teams of divers and an underwater camera the ex welder among us was able to fashion a new piece and supervise its assembly.
T at stay in Sharm Luli brought together an already cohesive group of boats into a real fl eet of friends. We had weathered the fi rst setback together. T ere would be others.
Sudan is a very diff erent kettle
of fi sh to Egypt. If you are reading this, please go to the Red Sea and please stay in Sudan for as long as you possibly can. It has to be said, of course, that Sudan is an enormous country and has deep socio- economic and political troubles of its own; we can only talk about the country from our experience, but we fell in love with the place and the people.
T e coastline is arresting and unspoilt. It has beaches, which rival the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, T ailand and Sri Lanka. New for us were the many creeks, known as ‘marsas’, which litter the coast. Marsas are natural bays that oſt en stretch a long way into the desert, are fringed with coral reefs and are found behind a headland or promontory at either side of the entrance. Don’t miss Marob, or Inkeifel, or Shinab, or Khor Nawarat, or Trinkitat, or Marsa Fijab; those
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