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previous trips <draft: no photo’s>
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email dated Departure Preparations went well and relatively relaxed Departure planned for
Sunday morning in the end, (2/10) and on Saturday morning we heard from Ellie
that she was coming along. This was in time to adapt provisioning to 3
persons instead of 2. Ellie by the way is a friend of mine who planned/hoped
earlier to join as well, left for Australia, and happened to be back in
Muscat when we arrived. One small oversight of the empty gas bottle (together
with letting Wobbe pick it up which turned a 15 minute job into more than 2
hours; he's nearly an Arab himself!!) delayed departure until the evening.
Relaxed and no problems checking out, though the entire process still takes
about 1.5 hours. Had dinner in the port, and left around Wobbe and Ellie doing
one shift together, I do the other; six hours each. On day 4 we changed to
6/6 at night and Motored for 18 hours or so in the calm, until the wind picked up again. Nearly dead downwind, so the spinnaker was called for.... and it stood for 18 hours averaging around 7 knots for us. We took it in when the wind had increased to nearly 20 knots (8.5 knots boat speed) which made the risk to the light-weight spinnaker a bit too big for us and we went straight back to the genoa #3. Mainly downwind, beautiful sailing, 6, 7, 8 knots and comfortable!! The menu still consists of a lot of fruit, and delicious meals prepared by Wobbe and Ellie. I've yet to go into the galley, apart from minor plumbing and repairs. My time is spent with installation of the wind-generator, attempts (so far unsuccessful) to fix the main log, clearing & re-storing spares, charts & stuff, just the normal things. Catch 22 (the book) was interesting for the first half, but is now rather good at making me nod off after (and sometimes during...) watches. Meanwhile approaching
Salalah, traffic increasing a little and wind dopping just hours before
planned arrival. Less than one week out so far! After nearly one week here we seem to have done most things: customs challenges (including extending my visa for a week and getting the correct gate passes), sight-seeing (Wobbe and Ellie made a day's tour in the interior), laundry (last batch to collect tomorrow minutes before we go through customs), Souk (nearly bought all sorts of things), fuel & water (fuel was easily arranged via a friend of a friend of Ellie's here, water still to arrive inshallah: that seems to be a more difficult one though everyone says it's mafi mushkalah i.e. no problem); and finally the main battery bank gave up the ghost. Actually only one battery is thoroughly dead but since they're 4x6Volts in series there's no alternative but to replace all. Amazingly enough, more
or less the right batteries were available in Anyway, tomorrow Back to sea again, yesss! Contacted our
anti-piracy focal point who assures us risks are very small if we behave the
way we plan to, who will keep an eye on us from their somalia base, and gave
us a "code word" i.e. the name of someone high up in their former
organisation who apparently is on the right side of the law now.. if this all
seems confusing to you it is to us as well. Just hope it works and all the
signs are good so far. We'll stay well offshore and send position/route
updates to the Apologies for the phone being off/on at random times recently, all to do with us either being out or the batteries being disconnected for one reason or other. Once on the way we'll at least be here to switch on the phone and fax!!!Before she was Siobhan…. email dated We take the spinnaker down for a gybe and to check all sheets and halyards for chafe. Two small reterminations, re-packing the spinnaker in woolen threads and up she goes again. What a sail!!! We get a visit from a few dolphins every day, whales a couple of days ago, and a few swallows as well. One of them stayed aboard for a day until he died, his mate had left already by then. Blessings & a seaman's grave over sundowners. After our discussions with "Funtastic" we've decided to target Bur Safaga or Hurghada instead of Sharm Al Sheik for reasons of cost. No special consequences either way though, only 65 miles earlier. Crew still amazingly happy, food excellent and varied, fruit and vegetables holding out well, and haven't missed a sundowner yet! (Though we missed a few sunsets...) 18/11 Safely through the gulf of Aden, no spinnaker, but a strong wind from the rear gives us continuous 9-10 knots through Bab Al Mandeb, which we pass at 02:00 as you do. After a few hours the speed drops a bit but we do not go below 8 knots till next day. No time to read or relax, but amazing sailing!!! This is the Passed a few islands, cross from east to west and back again. We're following the wind, and creating maximum comfort in the following seas. The spinnaker goes up as the wind drops a bit again, and our excitement came from a crossing with a dhow which got us all up and guns loaded and cocked. However, he was more interested in fishing so we went back to our cuppa tea... Routine maintenance, small repairs and general improvements fill the days easily. 20/11 ??? Caught a
barracuda today!! Delicious lunch from the barbecue, though we don't quite
finish the 5 kilo's straight away!!! The white wine I found while
re-inventorizing the booze cabinet yesterday is cold by now, what a
coincidence (or is it providence?) In the evening we haul in a tuna of maybe
6kg, which makes it to the fridge in no time as we retrieve the fishing line.
Enough for now!! My attempted repair of one of the wind-instruments today
actually made matters worse. Thanks for the fish. Beautiful creatures, as the swim inches below the water near the bow. We're now 650 miles from
Safaga, 850 from Progress. Do not expect this to continue though, now that the "standard" tailwinds are at an end. from 21/11 ?: As I stick my head into the cockpit this afternoon, a loud bang followed by the swaying of the mizzen mast tells us something's amiss: a stay, well known for snapping on the way up from Durban (S.A.) has snapped again. This time I know why: the (same) rigger has mixed different lays of wire in one stay, causing the thing to twist slightly under load and therefore fatigue rapidly: criminal negligence! Anyway, our mizzen mast with all our aerials is swaying dangerously in the swell, so we quickly run one halyard to support it a little. Next step: I go up the mast to a halfway point to rig up the next support line, so that I can then go up the mast further to rig up the support line we really need. I seriously bang a lot of body bits swirling around the mast, but succeed: with three extra rope stays and minus one stainless steel one, we continue: no mizzen sail for us anymore till next stop but the rest is saved! As a precaution for another piece of worn gear, we replace the genoa halyard (the line that pulls up the genoa) with a new one "we happened to have". Though the 14mm line is slightly thicker than 14mm and therefore has difficulty running up and down I hope that'll stretch. 22/11 Next morning we discover the new line has chafed totally through the outer sheath, somewhere inside the top of the mast!! In only 6 hours!!!! We cut off a couple of meters and reterminate. We've got 6 hours to come up with a solution before the same happens again. This means rope-to-wire splicing. Never done it before, but one of the many books I have describes more or less how it's done. The fact that the book describes twisted core rope rather than braided rope turns out to be a minor issue; I improvise a bit and nearly 5 hours later it's ready. Man, this steel wire
stuff is hard work! The rope halyard comes down, indeed chafed through again,
and is replaced. One down for good. I spot a few tears in the genoa-3 as she
goes up, so we take it down again and into my cabin for repairs. Up goes the
#4, on goes the engine, and we're going for a quiet night of motoring and
catching up on sleep. We'd kind of ended up near 23/11: We start repairs on the #3, which takes longer than expected. Three bits appear to have chafed through while it was tied down on the deck!! But nearly ready (and usable) by nightfall, and we have our sundowners in the first electric light glow of Jeddah, just before we tack across again. The wind keeps up most of the night, and shifts in the right direction: just as the sun rises we're exactly on track, though the progress is now down to 2 knots in very little wind. 24/11: At first light I spot a tear in the Genoa-1 medium: chafed through by a sharpish part of the lifelines. Very light but favourable winds, so I put up the G1-light and wash the G1-med to prepare for sewing, it'll need quite a large patch. The wind drops further and when our speed gets below 1.3 knot I start the motor. After an hour or two Ellie notices water up to the floorboards in the cabin! Shut down engine, close inlet seacock, start pumping! The water is warm, so must be a leak in the engine cooling system after the motor; at least the engine didn't overheat as well! The main batteries are also under water, so we rig up an extra electric pump to the engine batteries located slightly higher up to help. Good, the water level drops while we loll around in the calm sea. Quite some search shows a drain nut of one of the water cooling pipes to have shot off (all signs indicate a wrong size one installed in the first place). I cannot locate the old one, but manage to source a replacement in one of the spares boxes.....if you ever ever ever see anything lying on the ground somewhere made of some kind of metal with a screw-thread on it, save it! Saved once again by one of the old parts boxes!! We fire her up once again and all's appears fine... though we keep a close eye for the first few hours. Generally sunrises are
more spectacular every day, one achieves mention in the log, and another gets
the crew out of bed at We arrive in Safaga just
before Extremely friendly & interesting people, and they donate a CD of their music to the ship's stock which ends up getting more playing time than any other we've got. Wobbe's birthday passes with a meal out with loads of (boring) old Germans and a few beers, we have a few minor run-ins with people who want to get on board or see our passports or whatever, which we do not allow without proper identification, which ends up turning most of them away. Funnily enough the most scruffy looking ones in borrowed boats are actually coast-guard of some sort... Departure for The gearbox turns out to have a serious problem, and I remove it and open it up to see a set of loose bolts inside. Wouter manages to bring the parts from NL a few days later and we set to repairing.... (if he does indeed arrive this afternoon...!!) email dated SAFAGA to Departure for (12 degrees at night?)
The engine literally screams it out just on the last starting before Arrived! This escorting business is one of many things we are to encounter which have as sole purpose to get money from boats. When we go to the water jetty the next day to wash down in preparation for varnishing, the gearbox sounds strange. It sounds like it has a serious problem (a mechanic called in for the purpose agrees), and I take it out and open it up to see a set of loose bolts inside. This is actually good news, and I make up a parts list which with the assistance of a couple of brothers in NL ends up in the luggage of Wouter coming in from Holland with Nikkel, a (traveling) friend. Meanwhile Ellie decides
to leave Siobhan and us for the For some reason there
seems to be a reluctance of the crew (and myself) to get off the boat and
visit the town, and though we make a few short visits in the evening it takes
the arrival of Wouter and Nikkel to be dragged into town in time to enjoy the
rammadan break-fast at Wouter has indeed managed to bring the parts from NL and we set to putting the gearbox (and a few other bits) back together again for our Saturday departure.... However our agent does not agree. Several reasons for the
delay from his part surface, but since most of them are obviously bullsh* and
some of the others probably as well, we assume he slipped up. Meanwhile the THE CANAL and ONWARDS So we pay and go. Not before Leendert and Marcherie have paid us a surprise visit though, which is really special even though I fail in the attempt to get them along with us up the canal. The first pilot is nice in a funny kind of way, and once he starts demanding his "gift" we know why. The first one ends up a hair's breadth from having his "gift" taken back by me, but he shuts up just in time. We obviously needed to bribe a few canal checkpoints to be allowed to continue "after dark" surprise surprise, but after a call to our agent at least the context is clarified though the money + cigarettes still need to be paid. Someone at the yacht club at the half-way point tries us for mooring fees, but once I explain that he can get the manager first, and that I will anchor off the jetty then, but will never pay, he disappears. The bar of the club was closed, and the rest was still under construction... Second part of the canal starts off in a slight mist, and when Wobbe finds out we do need a lot of bilge pumping we've once again popped our cooling system and anchor off next to the canal (and nearly in front of the house of the prime minister as we find out later). 15 minutes later we're
under way again, and we make It doesn't take long for
the wind to pick up, and before long we've got 30-35 kts of wind on the nose,
Nikkel collapses below and the rest settle down for a long battle. The others
seem ok, even when woken up early next morning to the bang and flogging of a
torn mainsail..... and we put in an extra reef to cover the tear and
continue. We are not doing too bad direction and speed wise, but a major
concern is Nikkel not being able to hold any liquids down. Then in the
evening when Wobbe decides not to cook it's clear to me that all is not well.
I cook a bit which improves some of the crew, but the decision to head for Formalities prove it: efficient, friendly and helpful. No hassle, they just
know what to do. People are extremely friendly, really this time: not the
fake Egypt/Arab friendly way. We investigate our chances of continuing to Greece, monitor weather, prepare boat, but cannot find a reliable weather window so we head for Larnaca, Cyprus, just 40 miles down the coast, to haul Siobhan out for the winter. I spend a few days seriously under the weather, for the first time since over a year, miss out on some serious roast lamb and stuffed chicken x-mas meals but survive. Meanwhile Wobbe has left
to EPILOGUE That leaves me, captain Erik, in the main cabin, 2.5m above the asphalt, wet and dark outside, dry with oil lamps and sweet Cypriot wine inside, on the penultimate day of the year 2000, writing this to you all. My year has been wild. I left Shell exactly one year ago and since then have worked harder than ever before in my life. All my plans have been uprooted, shuffled, and adapted beyond recognition. Some friends have ended up out of touch, but more have been added. Experiences galore, some
good, some not so good, but all interesting and special. After 4.5 years I
have finally left I have good hopes for 2001, closing off a chapter that as been dragging on (marriage), and finding a personal life again. And work. And relaxing a bit in between. We'll see how it goes, I've learned not to publicize my plans anymore. I sincerely wish for
all, that your coming year will be better than you dare hope. And some peace
for the world would be nice. For the Palestinians a home and the Turks out of
And you all out there: lots of love and happiness! |
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