bob el mandeb

this has to be the place where we encountered the strongest winds of our entire trip (so far at least) and luckily they were from behind. It was blowing so strong that we were cruising at 8 knots with hardly any sail out. we now never know the actual speed since our wind indicator broke a while ago and as we find it not indispensable at this time of or trip we decided to continue sailing without it. So for a while we have not know the speed of the wind. It either blows to little in which case we motor, or just about enough to have all sails out or too much that we have to reef… here it was definitely too much, to the point we had to be with almost no sails out. we enjoyed this windy conditions for a change. We have had far too many days of light winds for the last months….


going through this strait meant we officially entered into the red sea leaving the pirates behind!! Good. We accomplished what seemed to be almost impossible back at the anchorage in the maldives, and we had done it in one piece! This was an important moment of our trip and where we definitely felt a weight being lifted of our shoulders. We finally stopped looking around for pirates on every vessel we saw… it was a good welcome back to our old sailing style which we have grown to like so much!

aden

Aden used to be this busy port strategically positioned in the gulf of aden where most ships going through the indian ocean to the red sea or the other way around would stop. What we saw however was completely different. mostly because the effect of the pirates and partly because of the unstable situation of yemen, the port had only half of the traffic it used to have and the facilities looked a bit dilapidated. the city itself had closed streets with barricades and leftovers of debris and rocks probably from manifestations that had taken place not too many days or even hours ago. just across the anchorage was a famous bar and one of the only 5 establishments in the city that sold alcohol. apparently it was a cool place where locals would hang around. unfortunately for us the place was burned down a couple of days before we arrived along with the other four hotel and bars that sold alcohol. We asked and were told that a group of fundamentalist muslims had done the job.


despite the once again heavy atmosphere and sense of turmoil, the people were extremely friendly and we felt welcomed. they even apologized for the crisis their country was going through. we had planned to fly to sana, the beautiful capital of yemen but were strongly advised not to go. We of course took the local’s advise and sadly gave it a miss. so we stayed near the port and did our usual chores such as getting water, diesel, food, change oil, filters, belts, etc… we also had a celebration for having left the most dangerous pirate area behind. So once again we had a good time, rested and relaxed and prepared to move on and finally out of the indian ocean into the red sea.

al mukallah

in salalah a few other boats joined the convoy and we were now 9 boats sailing together towards yemen. under strict convoy formation everyone tends to need to rest more frequent so it was decided that we would stop in al mukallah, half way to aden. a few days later we arrived in the middle of a street riot. from the anchorage it looked pretty vibrant and chaotic with strong men screaming very forcefully. For our own security (as we were told by the local authorities) we were asked to move to the inner port where we would be better protected.

indeed we moved and for the entire next day we were not allowed to go ashore, again supposedly for our own safety. so we spent the entire day in the harbor watching how a ship full of cattle was being unloaded and I guess being loaded with goats. It was quite the scene.





at night we were allowed to get out of the port gates to have dinner. We liked seeing the town even though it was dark and only for a short while. being so many tourists (a total of 22 crew in the 9 boats) we were transported in two mini buses with police and were escorted to dinner…we felt like tourists for the first time since we left home, but i guess that was part of the convoy plan we signed up for; so we went along and actually had a very good night in this place supposedly in the verge of collapsing into some sort of turmoil. the atmosphere was definitely heavy and although we were not to informed of the current politics in the country, we did feel it was not the place to be wondering around. So the next day we continued our journey towards aden.