28 April
We had enough light at 0700 to see our way out of the pass into Elba Reef. We spent the day motor sailing northward, finishing at Shab Abu Fendera (Fendera Reef), just across the border into Egypt, at about 1530 hours. This was after being converged upon by a very large pod of mischievous dolphins. One even splashed me when I was up on the bow watching. Fendera Reef is inadequately charted, but we had good enough light to get in and anchor in 25 meters of water in the lee of the large coral patch. Winds for the day were light and variable, never exceeding 6 knots, and the sea state was slight, making for a fast and relaxed trip.
29 April
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| A lucky shot somewhere in the Red Sea, Egypt. |
At first light we lifted the anchor and followed our track back out of Fendera Reef. Winds were light from the northeast, so we made an 85-mile dash to Dolphin Reef where we planned to relax for a couple of days and do some diving. We made it in just shy of ten hours and had good light for the approach to the reef anchorage. There were four liveaboard dive boats moored on the reef, so we reckoned the diving must have been pretty good. There were also five other cruising yachts at anchor, so we had a bit of company.
30 April
I woke up early in the morning to howling northerly winds, feeling sorry for the boats that were on overnight passage heading north. Although we were sitting out the blow in the comfort of Dolphin Reef, we were also accumulating a fresh coat of red dust. Winds were in the 20’s gusting to 30 in the morning but moderated to around 15 late in the morning. We splashed the dink and headed to the east side of the reef and had a nice dive on a beautiful wall there. The sea life consisted mostly of smaller reef fish, but we did spot a couple of nice sized maori wrasse, a white tipped reef shark cruising along the wall, and a very inquisitive sea turtle. The Red Sea has not disappointed us in its diving. We had all the other yachties around for happy hour(s) on Moonshadow that evening.
1 May
We were weather bound again by a fresh northwester from 15 to 25 knots. The seas crashing on the windward side of the reef were off-putting enough to keep us here for another day or so. Merima passed the time baking and sewing, and I caught up on some writing and photo organizing. It was too windy to do any work outside, and if we touched anything exposed, we would get red dust all over ourselves.
2 May
Weather-bound for a third day! The bar has hit a peak and started dropping, so it looked like the end of the blow was on the radar screen. We had a good long dive on the east wall. It was probably the best dive we’d had in the Red Sea to date. We saw a small school of big dog tooth tuna schooling by, schools of trevally, some huge red snapper in the pukas, lots of lion fish, a couple of large Maori wrasse and a huge moray eel. The wall is just covered with hard and soft coral, sponges, fans, gorgonians and other colorful encrustation.
3 May
After a calm night, it was time to move north again. We got underway as soon as we had enough light to get a visual on the tricky reef at the pass, around 0730. We made it out OK and bashed through a residual swell of about a meter, and light easterlies. After an hour or two, the seas moderated and we had a good fast ride north to Gezirat Wadi Gimal about 48 miles from Dolphin Reef. Because the winds were forecast to be out of the south, we decided to press further north a few miles to Shab Ghadeira, where we would have better protection and an easy exit before good light the next morning for the longer (58 nm) leg to Port Ghalib. We wanted to be in a good position to arrive in Port Ghalib with good light and early enough to get checked in, as there were about 8-10 boats arriving Friday after a weather-bound backlog.
We anchored in 17 meters and the wind absolutely died. The whole scene was surreal, with clouds reflecting off the sea, and the sea and sky blending into infinity in a light mist. The evening’s entertainment was listening to all the goings on on the VHF radio. There’s usually a lot of chatter between ships’ crew in the Red Sea, mostly ethnic slurs that drive us to the point of switching off the radio. But this evening there was a very articulate man with an Arabic accent who had quite a good shtick. He could have been Ali G for his wild sense of humor. He was taking the piss out of the Coalition Warships and various ethnicities. We also heard one of the yachties going stealth as they thought they were being stalked by a couple fishing boats. It seems that some people don’t have enough drama in their lives, so they create it in their imagination.
4 May
We were definitely getting close to civilization. We started seeing more buildings ashore, and a mega resort every couple of miles up the coast. Navigating through the myriad of reefs was easy as they were almost all well marked by dive boats, spilling divers on to over-dived sites. The number of floating plastic bottles we saw was disgusting, and reminded us of the endless sea of rubbish we encountered in Indonesia. And they call this “eco-tourism?” We arrived at Port Ghalib at about 1400 hours. There were 13 other yachts at the Customs dock. Customs were waiting for our arrival before taking all the paperwork to the airport for processing. Some of these frustrated yachties had been waiting since 0600 that morning!
A couple of hours later, with the Egyptian check-in formalities completed, we got tied up and plugged into shore power for the first time in nearly four months. Water - well, that was another story. There was only one outlet, about 100 meters away, so we’d have to form a hose brigade. At least we could get a nice meal out and drinks at the dive resort attached to the marina. Otherwise, Port Ghalib was still pretty much of a construction site and quite lacking in facilities. Its most redeeming quality is that it had the first, last and only proper fuel dock (that we were aware of) with a pump in the Red Sea. After our last fueling experience in Suakin, this was a big draw card for us. We decided that we would get fuel, get provisions, and get out! It was nice to have a good meal out again.
5 May
I spent the first hour and a half of the morning forming the “hose brigade.” That is gathering all the hoses from the side-tied boats and trying to mate the myriad of different connections so that we could get water from the hotel outlet to the last boat, some 300 feet away. Once this was accomplished we all began taking turns washing off many weeks accumulation of dust, salt and “pink stuff” which is a gooey combination of the two. When we finally got the hose that afternoon, we rediscovered that the boat was in fact white and got her really clean again for the first time in months. We enjoyed a great meal at the resort’s buffet that night, and relaxed afterwards in the sheesha garden with a big pipe.
6 May
It was a mostly relaxing day as we made preparations to depart the following day. The marina office assured us paperwork would be ready by that afternoon “100%”. Sure! Merima ordered some fresh provisions through the resort which were very nice, and delivered right to the boat that afternoon. The paperwork didn’t show up but the duty officer in the harbor office said he’d fax it ahead to Abu Tig Marina, our next stop. My confidence level with the Egyptians so far was hovering close to zero.
7 May
We were up at 0500 and headed over to the fuel dock. Filling was fast, clean and easy, but after first getting a pre-approval for our purchase, their Visa card machine wouldn’t work any more. Further, they would not accept Egyptian pounds, only US dollars. I wanted to make a bit of a stink and wait till the credit card machine would work so we didn’t have to use the cash that was earmarked for the Suez Canal transit fees, but we had a long day plan and needed to get moving. We got away by 0730 and made it to the next good anchorage, nearly 80 miles north, by sunset.
8 May
We were up early and made our way further up the Sea in light northerlies. We passed the resort area of Hurghada where there was literally one mega resort next to another for miles along the shoreline. Even more were under construction. It looked as if there were enough rooms available to accommodate half of Europe, Asia and Russia all at the same time. From what we could see from seaward, most of the beaches looked very average and were overcrowded with oversized people wearing undersized bathing suits.
We made the last 58 miles to Abu Tig Marina by early afternoon and were happy to arrive in a “real marina” - i.e., not a construction zone - with all, if not most of the facilities and amenities fully operational. The marina staff at Abu Tig was most welcoming and helpful in getting us into a very tight med-moor slot. After we got tied up, plugged in and the pasarelle installed, we went straight to the travel agency to book our Egyptian land travel. We organized an eight-day inland tour with a nice, helpful travel agent named Tamer Ramzi who managed the Pro Tour office in the marina. The itinerary covered almost everything we wanted to see in Egypt within a realistic time frame, and the price was reasonable.
It was nice to be able to relax and enjoy some of the amenities offered by a first world style marina - shopping, cafes, bars, restaurants, live music, grocery stores, WiFi, etc.
9 May
We spent most of the day tidying up Moonshadow, rinsing down, vacuuming up and wiping off yet another buildup of red dust that had been bestowed upon us, courtesy of the Arabian Desert and the unrelenting northerly winds. At least at the end of a hard day’s work, we enjoyed a stroll around the marina, checking out the mega yachts of Egypt’s rich and famous, and enjoyed a nice meal out and a sheesha and music afterwards.
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| The Arabian Desert encroaching on the boat, Abu Tig Marina. |
12 May to 19 May
We left Moonshadow in the Abu Tig Marina and took an eight day inland tour of Egypt, including a visit to Luxor, a cruise up the Nile to Aswan, a visit to Abu Simbel, an overnight train to Cairo, and a couple of days visiting the sights and museums of Cairo. See “The Wonders of Egypt” in the “Inland Travel Logs” section.
20 May
We spent the morning washing off the huge accumulation of dust and sand, but with more fresh northerlies forecast, we knew it wouldn’t last long. We couldn’t wait to get out of Egypt, the desert, and the endless dust and sand.
23 May
After spending most of the morning cleaning the Arabian Desert off the inside/outside of Moonshadow, we departed Abu Tig Marina and headed northeast to Shab Umm Usk. We were told that there was a pod of very friendly dolphins there that we might be able to swim with. It was great to be on the move again, in clean air and water and away from the dust and noise of the marina. We didn’t spot any dolphins but enjoyed a quiet night on anchor out in the Red Sea reefs.
24 May
We got under way at about 0630, retraced our track through the reef pass, and headed north through the Straits of Gobul into the Gulf of Suez. We crossed the north/south shipping lanes in favor of the east side of the gulf. We were told that winds and seas are generally lighter on the east side, and it would put us on a more direct course towards Port Suez, well clear of the shipping lanes. With very light breezes forecast, we motored and didn’t even bother to pull off the mainsail cover.
The main hazards there were the myriad of oil wells and drilling rigs. In some areas there were more oil platforms per square mile than Starbucks outlets in a big city. Some of the rigs had long diagonal bits with flames burning at the extreme end, resembling giant genie lamps floating on the sea. Off to our starboard side was the Sinai Peninsula with its barren mountains poking out of the sandy desert. It was reminiscent of the awesome beauty of the scenery along the shore of the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.
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| A bit of the Sinai Peninsula. |
A nice southeasterly breeze piped up in the mid-afternoon so we rolled out the genoa, shut down the engine and enjoyed sailing for the first time since we could remember, and made it to the anchorage at Shab el Hasa in time for sundowners.
We were contacted by our Suez Canal agent, Captain Heebi of the Prince of the Red Sea agency, who gave us an update on the weather. He told us that the wind would shift shortly from southeast to northwest. Sure enough, just after sundown, the wind died for a short while and then filled in at 15 knots from the northwest.
25 May
With a fresh northwesterly blowing, we had decided to stay put instead of bashing our way north. Captain Heebi called us at 1000 hours and told us that we should move north immediately or risk being weather bound where we were for 3-4 days, with even higher winds forecast. We got under way within minutes and started bashing through short 2 meter seas and winds up to 21 knots. It was not very comfortable, but we were prepared to put up with a bit of short term pain to avoid being stuck in the middle of nowhere for the rest of the week. After a few hours, the seas gradually began to moderate a bit, and by late in the afternoon we were moving nicely in slight seas and winds of less than 15 knots. We covered about 55 miles before sundown and found a comfortable anchorage off of a resort at Damaran Abu Mieish. This allowed us to escape the zone where the gales were forecast. By the time we settled in for a sundowner, the breeze was less than ten knots.
26 May
We woke up to calm winds, flat waters and a hazy horizon and were under way by 0630 hours, headed for Port Suez. Our course kept us clear of the main shipping channel funneling into and out of the Suez Canal, but through a couple of very large ship anchorages. The approach to Port Suez and the Suez Canal Yacht Club was very easy, and we hugged the right side of the channel to keep clear of the ships queuing up for the morning convoy.
28 May
Transit day!
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