7. Wild, Wild Desert and Flying Sand

Eritrea to the Sudan

The Eritreans fought for independence from Ethiopia for thirty years before gaining their independence in 1991. Border conflicts had begun again, however, as early as 1998, keeping the country poor, even by African standards. Eritrea had been made famous in Australia by Fred Hollows, who restored eyesight to many Eritreans with his inexpensive cataract operations, sometimes carried out while patients sat in the open air. We’d read a little of the history, but nothing prepared us for the reality.

As we enter the port of Massawa, once known as ‘the Pearl of the Red Sea’, we stare open-mouthed, Ted on the bow, me at the wheel, at mile after mile of devastated buildings. Obviously once a graceful harbour ringed by elegant palaces, mosques and mansions, the place is now in ruins. As we sail closer we see the roofs and walls have been destroyed by ferocious bombing and are riddled with bullet holes. Villas of a bygone era with high arches covering shady verandahs lie wrecked along the shore. Crowds of large fishing dhows and steel ships lie half-submerged and rusting on the shallow harbour edges.

The sun is scorching as we are instructed by Port Control to dock, and Ted takes the wheel. I stare in consternation at the indicated wharf, meant for supertankers. Tractor tyres line the side of the wharf, suspended perpendicular to, not parallel with, the concrete wall and nearly two metres below the top of the wall. The challenge for the crew is to leap from the yacht onto the one of the tractor tyres, then up onto the wharf, lines in hand and pull the yacht to a standstill. I think of calling, ‘All hands on deck!’ or ‘I’m off-watch now,’ but the skipper clutching the wheel is looking stern and unamused. Suggesting we swap places does not seem an option.

My chest burns and my arms prickle . . . What if the tyres spin as I leap onto them? The answer is obvious. I’ll just spin with them into the water and be crushed to death between Blackwattle and the concrete wall. Even if I make it onto one of the tyres, can I really climb to the high concrete wharf? Our lines are long, but not for this wharf. What if they don’t reach? Trying to look cool and matter-of-fact, I line the Blackwattle’s topside with fenders – and leap.

Well, the tyres don’t spin, and after a flurry of gangling effort I come to rest spread-eagled on the hot concrete wharf in my shorts. Looking back, I can see the tyres have spat out our small fenders and left huge black marks along the side of the boat. I scramble with the beam lines to a remote bollard, and go into squat position to hold the too-short bowline until the skipper can throw an extension. I am sweating from both nerves and the humidity, my hands are covered in tyre black and my knees and chin are gravel-rashed like a six-year-old kid, but we’re here and nothing is broken. Welcome to Eritrea!

Formalities are conducted in the lower storey of a bombed building which has been repaired with corrugated iron and some pale blue paint. The officers are handsome and friendly, with a twinkle in their eye and an easy laugh. Young men and women in desert camouflage gear are everywhere. Compulsory army service is seven years, they tell us.

‘It’s very good here. You will like Massawa – everyone like Massawa,’ they tell us smilingly as we are passed from officer to officer for ‘clearing in’.

They direct us to a large land-enclosed anchorage. The same afternoon we hear on the Red Sea Net radio ‘sched’ that Bill – single-handed Bill on Saltair, whom we met back in India and before then in Christmas Island – has been robbed of all his electronic gear by pirates and is putting into Aden. That’s the second pirate attack. There’s nothing to say, nothing to be done. We have an afternoon siesta, wake for a meal, and then sleep again. The Gulf of Aden is behind us . . . The Gulf of Aden is behind us . . . Between sleeps, it’s like the refrain of a song in my head.

Curiosity overcomes lassitude, and we begin to explore. The people live in the remains of their bombed-out buildings, like mice among the debris. The dress they wear is half traditional, colourful African/Arab swathing, and half chic Western or jungle fatigues. Many buildings have been razed, leaving large areas of rubble and dust. Among this dereliction, the people walk with pride and patience. They meet in streetside cafes, which are little more than groups of white plastic chairs spread around on the gravel roadsides.

We dine on the local fresh seafood, which is simply grilled and excellent but comes without garnish or vegetable of any kind. The local grocery stores are darkened, lacking electric light and refrigeration, and, except for a few mouldy lemons, there are no fresh vegetables. Other supplies are meagre, and mostly unidentifiable. Half the shelves are bare. The shopkeepers greet us hospitably, eagerly. We find some soap, and buy the lemons.

At night we wander the streets, still warm from the unrelenting heat of the sun. We stop, like the locals, at the makeshift bars under the night sky, enjoying the bonhomie and music which defy their poor surroundings. The girls are dressed and made-up elegantly and the boys are looking their macho best. From the giggles, sly glances and rhythmic tapping to the Western music, we know there’s also romance in the warm evening air.

Eritrea, with more important things on its mind, has no formal yacht agents. But that doesn’t mean they’re not needed. Mike is an entrepreneurial Eritrean who has set up his own informal business, caring for yachties’ needs. He is our lifeline to all things – not only fuel and water, but money-changing, laundry and general information. He invites us and another couple home for coffee. We find his family in the faded remains of a grand home, with lofty ceilings and high arched doorways, now crumbling and mildewed. They live, as if camping, with little furniture, their meagre belongings at strange odds with the cavernous spaces around them. Mike is rightly proud of his large and loving family of teenage girls, who appear and disappear while we share coffee; they are full of chatter, dressing for a party.

As we sit, included for a while in the warm embrace of the family, and watching their dynamics – the happy ribaldry, the jokes that swing around the room – I am flooded by recurring images of Oman, so singularly lacking in humour or gaiety.

When we leave to stroll back to the dock in the warm air of sunset, Ted is quiet.

‘What is it?’ I ask.

He grins. Then there’s a long pause before he answers slowly, choosing his words. ‘Look how they live. They have nothing. But, you know, they really have everything, everything in the world that is important.’ A big statement from a former Porsche driver.

As we wander the streets on another evening, we are attracted by the smell of roasting coffee to a big attractive woman of fifty, maybe sixty, sitting on a small timber and plaited-leather stool outside her modest stone house, knees apart, skirt hitched up, bare feet in the dust at the edge of the road. This is a common sight in the town, to see women sitting or squatting on the street outside the houses, chatting.

Around this woman squat some locals, watching. We have happened on a coffee ceremony. She has a very small tapered saucepan with green coffee beans joggling and roasting over coals in a burner. She seems in no hurry as she converses with the watchers. With smiles she beckons us to join them, and we sit on similar tiny stools, quickly provided by her family.

‘How much will it cost?’ We ask this by showing our wallets. She waves the question aside regally, with a smile and toss of her chin.

After a time she heaves her large frame to a standing position, and parades around the circle of watchers, sweeping the saucepan under our noses to enjoy the aroma. She could be a Shakespearean actor or an opera star, such is her performance. Now she produces a pestle and mortar, long and elegant, made of stone. Sinking again to her squatting position, she grinds the roasted coffee beans, chatting all the time in her native Tigrinya with members of her household, who also sit, wait, come and go, as she continues her tasks.

In the meantime water has been heating in an engraved ceramic coffee pot, its shining glamour a sharp contrast to the dilapidated walls and dirt of the street. The freshly ground coffee is dunked into the hot coffee pot – never boiling, she mimes with gestures. Now she waves the pot over the coals, round and round and round. Mesmerised, we watch.

As the coffee threatens to boil, she pours some into another pot to cool, then back again, over and over, for maybe half an hour. The resultant coffee, drunk in tiny handle-less ceramic cups, is sweet and strong, without bitterness.

To obtain our Egyptian visas, in company with other cruisers we make a visit to the elegant city of Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, which, at 8000 feet, gives us a welcome break from the humidity of Massawa. We enjoy the rich Italianate architecture, the cappuccinos and chic black leather jackets of the locals, residue of the Mussolini era. This visit is traditional for yachts transiting the Red Sea, for Egyptian visas have a very limited duration, and must be obtained close to arrival. On return, laden with armfuls of fresh vegetables from Asmara’s markets, we find Blackwattle and the other boats are covered with fine yellow sand from some newly arrived desert wind.

The sand fills the air, turning the sun into a silver disc no brighter than the moon. We rarely see the high plateaux towering above the coastal plain now; they are veiled like the women of Salalah. Brief rain turns the yellow sand to dark yellow mud. We hose with salt water, wash with precious fresh water, carried in jerry cans from the shore. The humidity is one hundred per cent, we sweat freely and our tap water is hot.

———

One morning, while waiting for the local internet cafe to open, I pass the time with a young man who is also sheltering under the small awning, out of the heat of the sun. He is thin and bendy like a reed in the wind, and glances from side to side as he talks, as if watching for someone. He smokes, squatting on the pavement, hunching over his cigarette as though hiding a secret.

‘You are on a sailing boat? Oh, that is exciting. That is how I’m going to leave Eritrea.’

‘Leave? You are leaving?’ I know it is almost impossible for the Eritreans to get visas to other countries.

Conspiratorially, he says, ‘Yes, yes, I have to leave, because they are looking for me. Otherwise I have to do seven years’ army. Only if you are at school can you avoid it. I don’t go to school, so they are looking for me.’

I stare. ‘How old are you? And how will you escape?’

‘I’m twenty-one. My friend on the sailing boat will hide me under one of the bunks. Yes, he is coming back for me – he is my friend, really, my good friend.’

‘But where will you go with no passport?’

‘Oh, the Sudan, or Egypt. I won’t need a passport – they don’t worry about those things there. I went to the Sudan with my uncle once. It’ll be okay, then I can get a job; I can’t get a job here, because they would find me and make me go into the army. Two years would be okay, but not seven years. That’s too long.’

The cafe opens, and we go to our separate internet desks in the hot muggy cafe. No sailor would risk such smuggling. I wonder how many sad stories there are in this newly independent country for which so many have given their lives. We have seen other young men serving their seven years with a smiling pride, and it is easy to condemn someone for dodging their draft obligations. But it is also very easy to understand a young soul who thinks of seven years as an eternity – indeed, it is exactly a third of his life so far.

For some time we have been urging my son Simon to come sailing with us for a few weeks. Recently he has emailed us to say that he could join us for some of the journey up the Red Sea. We decide that we could pick him up in Massawa and drop him off in the Sudan, which would suit the time he has available.

A few days after that email exchange, the satellite phone rings. It’s Simon.

‘Oh my God, how lovely to hear your voice,’ I say. ‘When are you arriving?’

His voice is strange, stress-filled, stilted. ‘Mum,’ he says, ‘I didn’t realise how crazy you are until today.’

‘What? What did you say? The line’s not good. When are you arriving?’

‘I have had a long talk with the travel agent.’

‘Yes, good, and . . . ?’

‘Mum, you should get out of there as soon as possible. How soon can you get out of there?’

‘What are you talking about? We’re sailing. We’re sailing north. Why? Do you want to come to Egypt instead? That would be okay.’

‘Mum, Australians are seriously warned against going to Eritrea and the Sudan. There’s a war going on – atrocities. It’s not safe for foreigners. The Australian government cannot guarantee my safety, they tell me. The travel agent doesn’t want to organise the trip for me. In fact, they have refused. They can’t believe that you are there.’

‘Oh, really, Simon, come on. We’re fine. All that politics has nothing to do with what is actually going on here. There’s just fighting on the border, that’s all. It’s fine, really.’

‘Mum . . .’ He’s lost for words.

After a few minutes of small talk, we exchange messages of love, and hang up.

The day comes when it’s time to be moving on. There’s a bright wind and a pale blue sea. There are birds aplenty – seagulls, boobies, terns, others I can’t identify – and lots of seaweed again: golden, like wheat, clean and floating. I am sorry that Simon is not here to see it.

Nothing can daunt us this morning. The crisp salty smell of the open sea sails with us and I am laughing with the pleasure of it. So many hurdles are behind us, surely nothing can stop us now. We’ve passed a few tests on the way, and though nothing is said, these days Ted never wakes to check on the boat. The thought of this makes me breathless with joy, and I glory in standing behind the wheel, feeling my lively Blackwattle respond to my wishes, swishing through the water, gamely stretching to perform whatever I ask of her. There are more challenges ahead, but now I look forward to meeting them.

The first challange is the wind. During this season, until reaching Massawa, which is about one-third of the way up the Red Sea, the wind has been behind us. From now on, in the 1000 nautical miles between here and the Gulf of Suez, the wind will be on the nose, and the Red Sea is notorious for its short sharp chop.

The second challenge is a labyrinth of coral to negotiate, which is either notoriously inaccurately charted or not charted at all. During daylight hours we must allow two nautical miles for chart inaccuracy, at night five. To see reefs in the water, every landfall must occur between 10 am and 2 pm, when the sun is high in the sky and reflections on the water do not make it impossible to see underwater reefs. This will require some very accurate timing.

And then we must avoid the coast between Eritrea and the Sudan, as it’s true that they are warring there. Getting a stray bullet or two into the hull of the boat is not what we came sailing for.

We decide to sail non-stop for two nights, a jarring, bone-crunching leg in the choppy seas. There will be no fuel until we reach the populated part of northern Egypt, maybe 900 miles away, so we turn on our engine only when conditions are so bad we are going backwards. The dusty yellow haze is back again, any blue in the sky is only visible by peering directly overhead.

Channel 16 on the VHF radio is more entertaining than in a comparatively empty ocean. It blares constantly with communication between unseen transiting ships, most negotiating to pass each other without colliding, or the Coalition warships that drone day and night, interminably challenging the identity of every craft. Most communication is excessively formal, but occasionally there is a lighter side. While munching sandwiches one lunchtime, our attention is drawn to a warning delivered in a very upper-crust English accent.

‘Ship Atlantic Express, at position x, this is Pacific Voyager on your port side. You are on a collision course with us. Which side would you like to pass, sir?’

Pause.

‘Do you read me?’

Pause.

‘Sir, do you read? Repeat, do you read?’

This message is repeated over and over with growing urgency.

Finally, ‘Ship Atlantic Express, this is Pacific Voyager off your port bow, we’re taking emergency action to avoid you, and we’re blowing our emergency horn, do you read me? Please turn your ship, sir!’

Silence for a minute or two, while Ted and I stop our munching to wait for the outcome.

Then, ‘Ship Atlantic Express, do you copy?!’

Finally, a heavily accented dark growl: ‘I read you.’

‘Well, why did you not respond to us? Were you asleep?’

Pause.

‘No sleep.’

‘Well, why didn’t you move?’

‘We move.’

‘You didn’t bloody well move until we blew our horn at you. Where is the captain!?’

Pause.

‘Cap’n he rest now.’

‘Well bloody well go and wake him up! I want to speak to him.’

Long pause.

‘No wake cap’n.’

‘Well, you’re not going to last long sailing like that. You’ll hit someone sooner or later. It’s a big ocean out there, there’s absolutely no need for us to be as close as this. I didn’t ask you to dance.’ (By this stage the crew of Blackwattle are chuckling in delight.)

Then there’s the transmission by Jeddah Port Control. (At places the Red Sea is narrow, and for commercial shipping it is arranged like a freeway, with a median strip called the ‘separation zone’.) Straining to understand the heavy accents, we hear:

‘Ship at poseeshun x, course y, speed z, zis iss Jeddah Control. Sir, you are on zee wrong side of zee separation zone. Do you coppee?’

Ted and I suddenly sit up straight in the cockpit and our eyes meet. This is the maritime version of driving down a freeway on the wrong side. I turn up the radio volume.

The transmission is repeated patiently over and over, until the voice becomes more urgent, and the message peppered with, ‘Do you read me, sir?’ and, ‘All ships, pleez be aware of a ship at poseeshun x on zee wrong side of zee separation zone. If you can see zis ship or read a name, pleez come back.’

Finally a ship returns the call with the ship’s number. Now he is calling:

‘Sheep number 533, zis iss Jeddah Control, do you read?’

After several calls, he gets an answer.

‘Jeddah, Jeddah, vanting sheep nummer fave dree dree, vee iz nummer fave dree dree.’

‘Sir, you are on zee wrong side of zee separation zone. Pleez adjust your course.’

Silence.

‘Sir, do you coppee? Zis is Jeddah Port Control. You are on zee wrong side of zee separation zone, pleez adjust your course. Do you coppee, sir?’

Small voice: ‘Ah, stan by.’

Pause.

‘Ah . . . hrm . . . copee, ve turn.’

Luckily, the separation zone, unlike a median strip in a road, is just flat water and he wouldn’t have busted his sump getting over it.

Gradually we make our way past exotically named islands and gulfs – or marsas, as they are called – Sheik El Abu Island, Difnein Island, Khor Nawarat, Talla Talla Saquir. The desert lands to our left are empty except for the occasional camel herder or military outpost. The left side is the only side that yachts anchor, as the Saudi Arabian authorities on the shore to the right are distinctly unfriendly. We share sundowners and fish we have caught with the other yachties. We walk the beaches, snorkel in the clear waters, stay on the boat in the marsas to watch the anchor when the wind screeches.

We reach the Sudan, though we know this only by our charts. It’s a lazy time with a surreal feel to it, as if we’ve been caught in the action of some exotic movie – we seem to float, rather than walk, the desert sands.

I love the uncertainty and never-ending strangeness of this life but Ted has found this aspect particularly difficult, as he is such a dedicated planner. So I grin happily to myself when I eventually hear him saying, ‘Well, we’re headed north, but we don’t know where we’ll end up.’ I realise he is changing too under the influence of this altered lifestyle, and while he doesn’t articulate it (being visual, not verbal, I have realised over time), his relaxed laugh, beaming eyes and boundless energy tell their own story.

The Red Sea Net on the radio every morning is our lifeline to our fellow humans – to share weather reports, maintenance knowledge and anchorage information. Spare parts and tools are loaned or swapped. A yachtie with a problem can count on five helpers to lend a hand anywhere boats congregate. One yacht is lost on a reef (they had trusted their charts too much) and the crew is rescued by another yacht sailing close by. Another of the boats, our old friend single-hander Bill on Saltair, can’t win a trick. His fiancée still hasn’t joined him, he has been attacked by pirates, and now he announces that his dinghy has become detached and floated away down the Red Sea. He is asking for all yachts behind him to watch out for it.

Then one day we hear, ‘Bill on Saltair, this is Bill on Apollo.’ We had met Apollo back in Darwin, and know the English skipper to be a boatbuilder.

‘Hi, Bill.’

‘Hi, Bill,’ is the reply, and they laugh. ‘We’re coming up the Red Sea behind you, and have been looking out for your dinghy without luck.’

‘Well, thanks for looking.’

‘That’s okay. Look, you’ll get to Abu Tig in Egypt before we do. If you can find some timber and a clear area to work, I’ll make you a new dinghy when we get there.’

Bill from Saltair is almost speechless, but this is typical of the Red Sea Net and, we now know, of the long-range cruising fraternity in general. The bonds have become so strong. We all know there’s no help of any sort except for the assistance of other yachts.

The Sudan’s ‘old town’ of Suakin was an island city built of coral in the harbour of Suakin, but the buildings are now empty crumbling ruins. These make a picturesque sight to the right as we glide into the anchorage. We stare, transfixed, at the curious shapes of the fallen arches and pillars, the half-crumbled towers, all made of coral and stone. It had been a grand city in its day, with impressive town gates and many minarets, mosques and opulent palaces.

Suakin’s past makes an exotic tale. When the Sudan was still a Nubian kingdom Venetian merchants resided at Suakin and Massawa in the fourteenth century. And it is thought that even earlier, in the thirteenth century, Suakin was a centre of Christianity and a departure point for Ethiopian pilgrims to Jerusalem. This ceased when the Ottoman Selim I conquered the port at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Suakin then became the residence of the pasha for the province of Habes¸ until the end of Ottoman rule.

As we round a corner past the crumbled island, to the left on the mainland shore we see colourful fishing boats, people in long robes, camels and donkeys. We can’t wait to go roaming.

Today’s Sudanese have built shacks of stone and animal skins among the debris of the grand old coral buildings, and if we thought Massawa was primitive, it was only because of our ignorance. We seem to have stepped back in time around 2000 years. The scene is biblical – reminiscent of the Sunday school photos of my childhood. One would not be surprised to see Jesus Christ appear around a corner.

Many of the men carry carved sticks or curved daggers at the belt, and a few stride around proudly with elaborately designed swords. The women are dressed in a rainbow of colours, contrasting with their grubby sandalled feet. Unlike Massawa, where we found such openness, the locals here regard us furtively, without a smile.

The street scene is enthralling – adolescent girls giggle behind their hands, women hold their veils sideways across their face as they move against the wind, old men have streetside chats, as old men do everywhere in the world, and small children skitter across the laneways. In the maze of streets there are clay-walled shops selling leather saddlebags, whips, camel harnesses, sandals, colourful fabric and straw coffee-pot holders. There are primitive grocery stalls, and a vegetable market. A lack of running water shows in the grubbiness of the mostly brown, khaki, yellow and white raiments, which flap and float around dusty feet in the breeze. There’s dust in the air, and dust in the nose, our walking sandals have turned ochre. It’s time to move on.

The Egyptian border is only 180 miles to the north. Only 180 miles, but all into the wind on a short sharp chop, and every anchorage must be reached between 10 am and 2 pm.

It is a time of great contrast, covering those 180 miles. Sometimes in the blissful mornings we snorkel, finding a bright kaleidoscope of fish anywhere in the marsa. During many halcyon afternoons we hike deeper and deeper across the old seabed of the desert, far west into the hills, into the silence. Has any human stepped just where I am stepping now?

But there are other times when we are startled and saddened at the state of the uninhabited foreshore. In some of the marsas, or gulfs, depending on the angle of the coastline, the sand is completely covered in half-buried plastic bags, polystyrene and old plastic bottles – thick bags and thin, colourless, bright blue, orange or black, all stuck fast in the sand, filling and covering the whole beach. The only explanation we can find is that the cruise ships and the cargo ships that ply the Red Sea must throw their rubbish overboard and the wind does the rest. I recall how saddened and appalled I was by the detritus on Possession Island, by the garbage strewn off the islands of Indonesia, and now this. I had known for a long time that plastic was a curse to the oceans and coastlines of the world, but these vivid examples are distressing in a way that goes beyond mere intellect. I have for some time been washing and reusing the plastic bags on our boat. Now – pointlessly, given the scale of this global problem – I begin to guard our plastic bags even more assiduously, adding more pegs as I hang them on the guard rail to make sure we don’t lose any overboard as they dry in the sun.

Often, when the wind comes up in anchorages, we have only fitful rest – spasms of sleep at night, sudden awakenings, the sweet hum of the wind generator turning urgently, the wind whining, the boat yawing, veering and leaning away from the blast. Then the mornings come in bleakly, rushing waves, no relief.

Blackwattle becomes covered with sand yet again, and we haven’t enough water to wash it off. The winches are scratchy, the jammers are themselves jammed with sand. Salt and sand mixed with dew has clotted across every level surface, even the stays and lines are caked. The sheets (ropes) are so puffed with salt and mud they hardly fit into the self-tailers.

The fresh vegetables are almost gone, and I start counting. We have four tomatoes and seven tiny capsicums, a cabbage and a little Chinese lettuce. The sprouts grow well – alfalfa and mung beans thrive in the humid air.

Finally, we cross the Sudan–Egypt border and arrive at our first Egyptian marsa, Sharm El Luli. We are desperate to take shelter, as the forecast is for rising wind, but we have been warned that Egypt is very bureaucratic, and we must never go ashore until we reach an official port of entry. This is not one, and earlier boats tell of unfriendly soldiers who tried to force them ashore. They left immediately, sending a warning to other boats. As we motor in cautiously, the mountains to the west look like a mouthful of very uneven teeth, with windblown sand, like blown snow, between the peaks. The deep bay is deserted, except for a few decrepit fishing boats, and a couple of simple huts on the shore.

The anchor is barely down when a well-painted blue, red and white fishing boat approaches. As I am wearing swimmers only, I rush below to don a sarong, and the boat ties up with about twelve people on board, some in desert fatigues, some in civilian clothes, some slovenly, like typical local fishermen. Multiple people board Blackwattle, and everyone is talking at once in Arabic. An English-speaking voice penetrates the babble.

‘Hello, I am Moatssm. There is a big problem you staying here.’

A little play acting may be called for. ‘Problem?’ we chorus, looking horrified.

‘Yes, a problem. You cannot stay in this anchorage. Now, I am a dive instructor, I can help you dive, anything you want.’

‘Er, thanks. But there is a big wind coming. We really want to stay because of the big wind. You want to see our passports?’

‘Yes, passports, papers, yes.’ Now there are about six people on board, and they are all smiling. It’s very confusing. If we have to leave, why are they smiling? None of the soldiers speak English, so the dive instructor, whom we learn is just here to visit family, continues to translate. The soldiers write our details in a dirty child’s exercise book with ragged pages. We wait quietly.

Finally, ‘So would you like to come to the shore to have tea?’

‘Tea? Now?’

‘Yes, now. Come now, for tea.’

‘Then there is no problem for us to stay?’

He looks puzzled. ‘No, no problem. You are very welcome in Egypt, no problem.’

We try to show no amazement at this extraordinary turnaround. We want to watch the anchor for a while, but they are all looking expectant. We jump off Blackwattle to join them on the long fishing boat, squatting comfortably on the piled-up fishing nets. We’re lucky the dive instructor is here to translate – is that what the soldiers wanted with the other cruisers? To offer them tea? The sun shines down hotly, the grubby fishermen grin their mute, gap-toothed offers of friendship. We grin back. Onshore we can see nothing but desert and one small mud hut. Sure enough, when we push up onto the shore, it’s the small hut we are led to.

We are given herbal tea under a palm-leaf-thatched awning in front of the soldiers’ clay hut. They rush to get grubby cushions for the wooden benches they offer us, and the soldiers sit on old carpets on the sand. It’s hot and dry, the desert sand blindingly bright all around us. They laugh and talk, all translated by the diver/guide Moatssm. Soon we exchange presents – some tea seeds for us, and for the soldiers we have cigarettes, which Ted had thoughtfully shoved into his pocket. We are escorted back to the boat by Moatssm and start to restore the boat to ‘anchor’ mode.

Ten minutes later, I hear, ‘Uh-oh!’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘There’s the fishing boat coming back with more military.’

‘Oh no. Maybe they’ve changed their minds.’

I peer at the fishing boat and see a tall muscular gentleman in desert fatigues and high boots standing on the bow.

‘He looks a bit senior,’ says Ted.

‘Good afternoon.’ The officer has impeccable English, and he comes aboard with his hand out. ‘I am Major Maggot – Major Maggot Mohammed – and I am here to welcome you to Egypt.’

‘Nice to meet you, Major – er – Maggot.’ Straight-faced.

He stays to chat, drinking tea in our shady cockpit, telling us proudly of the coastal territory he commands, of his large family, and the history of the local desert. We manage to say his name every time without change of expression.

We feel at home in Egypt already . . .