sailing up the red sea

after port sudan we continued north for roughly 300 miles until our port of entry in egypt. we had dead clam seas and also gale force winds. we also saw the most amazing amount of sand floating on the water for miles and miles. it literally looked like the wind had blown all the desert into the sea. while waiting for the winds to settle we stopped at amazing places where the water was so clear that we could see the bottom and even the fish under the boat. sailing these waters has been a beautiful experience and luckily for us, not that hard to sail up north despite the known strong head winds. I guess we got lucky with the winds and only had a few days of really strong winds against, but for the most part the majority of the red sea has been very benign to us!

port sudan

some 40 kilometers from suakin is port sudan. we paid a short visit and eat the world’s worse hamburger for lunch there; but at least, and to compensate; I think it was also the cheapest. for dessert though we had some very good local sweets. we walked around town and went to the market. we were not impressed with this city at all. it was big, loud and ugly. so we went back to the ruins in suakin and enjoyed the best part of this place: the quiet anchorage! we watched movies on board and catch up on our emails while waiting 2 days for the wind to die down a bit and allow us to proceed north towards egypt.

suakin

we thought eritrea was the poorest country we would visit on our voyage until of course we arrived in sudan. we arrived into the port of suakin and anchored in one of the most comfortable and protected anchorages of the trip. our agent mohamed made our stay in this port a very pleasant one. he helped us with diesel, water, internet and propane. he even exchanged our money at the most favorable rate. his entire attitude was so no agent like. we really liked him.










we also met a very interesting group of guys. they were architects and engineers from turkey on a project to restore the ruins of old suakin. in the middle of the port there is an island full of ruins from buildings dating back to the ottoman empire. the remains look very pretty but of course there is not much left standing. turns out the government of turkey is investing on this project and has sent a group of 5 professionals to do the task. they explained to us the details of their project over a delicious dinner in a place where food seems very difficult to find. we eat at their place which was pretty much the only nice building in town.




this town has no water or electricity so the few that have light at night get it from generators. the water is treated from salt water by water makers and then transported by donkeys to the individual homes. this is probably an upgrade from eritrea where it is transported by jerry cans over long stretches in women’s backs.