8. Angel Gabriel and a Sting in the Tail

Egypt and the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean

Moving fast now, ever northwards, we reach more populated Egyptian waters. We start to see many dive boats in the distance, zipping across the flat sea, pausing, zipping on again, like mechanical white mice on a flat blue land. We stop for a few days in the new, half-finished Port Ghalib, which is planned to soon become an official port of entry to Egypt. Some cruisers have taken unofficial shelter against a wharf due to the kindness of those building a marina there, and we join them, enjoying the respite and their easy company for a while. Yet we’re impatient to leave. We’ve stretched out our stay in the Red Sea longer than most yachties. It’s not far to Hurghada, our first official port of entry, poised at the entrance to the Gulf of Suez, so if the northerly wind isn’t too strong, we can do it in one overnight sail.

———

At dawn on Anzac Day, 2004, I am on early-morning watch. The seas are bumpy but Blackwattle rides the waves well. I have the engine going, to help us point higher, and I’m anticipating reaching Hurghada with growing excitement. Maybe they’ll have cappuccinos!

I do the 7 am log, wake Ted, and return to the wheel to wait for him. His sleepy head appears in the companionway, and we chat about small things. But then he pauses mid-sentence, and I watch his eyes widen as he focuses on something behind me.

There’s a very soft: ‘Oh shit.’

A rush of adrenaline sends a nasty thrill through my arms and diaphragm. There must be something very wrong for Ted to speak so quietly! I turn, expecting to see a ship or yacht in trouble in the sea behind.

There’s no other craft, but there’s something crazy-looking about the stern of the boat. It takes an interminable second to make sense of the scene.

The davits – those trusty stainless-steel structures which hold up the dinghy and also act as a support for our many aerials, solar panels and wind generator – have collapsed in a tangle of twisted metal. The wind generator, normally so proud and tall, has fallen back towards the sea, and is bouncing violently with each heaving wave. The dinghy is swinging free, holding straps gone, held only by the lifting lines. The twisted mess is hanging by a thread, it seems, and is on the point of parting from the back of the boat and disappearing into the deep Red Sea.

We say nothing. Ted gets on his harness slowly, never taking his eyes off the confused snarl of bouncing metal rods. I take the wheel again and slow the boat down to try to quieten the wildness of the bouncing.

Ted clambers down to the stern.

‘We have to get the dinghy up onto the deck,’ he shouts against the wind.

I am aghast at the seeming impossibility of it. The seas are short and choppy, about two metres. The deck is heaving now that I have slowed the boat, worse without much forward motion.

‘Okay,’ I say, getting my harness and gloves on.

‘Oh shit.’ There it is again, that quiet voice which is more alarming than his worst shouting.

‘What? What?’

‘The danbuoy – we’ve lost the danbuoy.’ I look astern and see our emergency ‘man overboard’ gear, a flash of orange floating far downwind, hidden sometimes by the waves. The strobe light is flashing.

My response is immediate. ‘Forget it!’ I say. ‘Let’s look after this.’

‘No, f&%@ it! We’ll get it. Turn the boat around.’

‘God, Ted!’ but I do as he says and turn the boat, which increases both our motion and the exaggerated motion of the tangled web of stainless steel behind us.

I understand his reasoning. Contact with the water has made the strobe flash; if a ship came across it, it could trigger a false emergency alarm.

I aim Blackwattle for the danbuoy, Ted goes for the boat hook.

It’s not so easy – there is a line tying two bits of the danbuoy together, and I am scared of wrapping it around the propeller. I aim for the orange flash in the water . . . Not too close, don’t run over it, but not so far away that he can’t get it . . . Think, Nancy, think . . . aim, Nancy, aim. Now or never.

The sea tosses Blackwattle this way and that, sometimes putting her dangerously close to running down the danbuoy. Twice I swing by it and Ted reaches for it unsuccessfully, and each time I circle I am sweating more and hardly breathing due to panic. I can’t do it – he’ll never be able to get hold of it in this sea. On the third try, Ted claws up the danbuoy successfully with the boat hook. We flash each other a grin. Now we turn our attention to the broken mangle of shiny metal still slapping the dinghy into the waves. No word is spoken, but we know we must detach the dinghy from the mass of steel and get it onto the foredeck.

I try to let the boat lie a-hull by letting all the sails off, but the mainsheet catches and Blackwattle sails herself calmly at about one knot just off the wind. It works excellently for us. Ted drops the dinghy first into the water, dragging it and tying it to the side of the boat. It is half full of seawater. It’s normally very heavy for us to drag up at the best of times – how will we ever do it full of water? The boat is lunging with each wave, making it more difficult, but strength comes from somewhere for both of us. The weight is so great that the sectioned floor of the dinghy comes apart during the lift. However, she’s on the deck. We turn her over and secure her.

Back at the stern of the boat, we now see that all that is stopping the davits and their load of electronic gear from disappearing into the Red Sea are the electrical cables themselves; the stainless-steel poles have completely snapped off. Ted ties lines to calm the bouncing, but the angles are wrong and the ugly yawing movement continues. As it bounces, the sharp edge of the broken davit pole presses against the cables. How long before they snap?

We grab the charts. We are thirty nautical miles from the coast, where there is an anchorage called Ras Abu Soma, just north of Port Safaga, with a half-built marina. It’s worth a try, even though we aren’t officially checked into the country. Thirty miles – at five knots that’s at least six hours. Will it hold together long enough? We turn and head carefully for shore, hand-steering to try to smooth Blackwattle’s injured way. We are delighted to find that the GPS is still working, even though its aerial is bouncing like a mad pendulum off the stern.

It is a long seven hours, motoring gingerly to reach the anchorage, but the sturdy electrical cables hold. They are tough, and we too are tougher now. We have witnessed so many problems on other boats that were solved in previously unimaginable ways. Two yachts have been attacked by pirates and had everything of value stolen from their boats, but they survived. We have ourselves survived Day 244. I remember from the last Red Sea Net radio ‘sched’ that a yacht has just been lost on a reef. By comparison, this is not serious. We will manage this. We will. Somehow.

On arrival in the port we cannot raise anyone by VHF radio, so we dock without permission at the half-finished marina, and hug each other in relief. One solar panel is smashed beyond any hope of repair, the other is faithfully, amazingly, still putting in power. Looking around, the marina is just a shell – none of the buildings are finished, there’s no water or electricity, no human in sight, and beyond is desert to the horizon. We have no idea what to do next, so we put the kettle on and have a cup of tea.

A cup of tea solves many ills. Soon Egyptian dive boats empty of tourists begin to arrive in ones and twos. The crews amble along the dock, curious but shy, to see this alien wounded craft. We don’t share a language, but after much pointing and shaking of heads, a beer and some cake are brought, a silent offering of sympathy or welcome, we are not sure which. In the meantime, they are talking in rapid Arabic. They are seamen all, and no words are necessary for them to understand our calamity.

In our view, a miracle has allowed us to reach the shore, damaged but intact. Over the next two days, another miracle takes place. Three dive boat crews, led by a captain called Gabriel, ingeniously carve wooden splints, lift the davits back into place and splint them like a broken leg. We dub the captain ‘Angel Gabriel’, and explain to his crew by miming wings on his back, and praying to God.

Once they understand they laugh uproariously. ‘Ah, Gabriel, Gabriel!’ They nod energetically and slap his back. When the time comes they refuse any payment, so we find presents of souvenirs and cigarettes, and they accept these diffidently.

After smiles and hugs all round (I’d never seen Ted gleefully hugging a man before), we set off for Hurghada with our faith in human nature at an all-time high. It’s a day-sail, and by nightfall, after the check-in procedures at Hurghada, we are securely tied up in the glamorous Abu Tig Marina, an official port of entry at last!

Arrival here is a high point for us, and not because of the elegant village that surrounds the marina with its soft luxuries which include a French bread shop, an array of coffeehouses, fine waterfront restaurants with candles and music, and boutiques and hair salons. No, it’s a high point because the Red Sea, with its contrary wind, coral reefs and war-torn countries, has been so kind to us. We’re through one of our greatest challenges, largely unscathed.

I am sitting, towel wrapped over swimmers, at the Ocean Bar of the Abu Tig Marina. Salt water from my swim in the pool drips onto my feet and into the warm sand. The hot Egyptian sun does not reach in here, beneath the coconut-palm roof. I can see past my cold Stella beer to the pastel colours of the marina, its sprouting masts glistening and tinkling in the sunlight. The boutiques are doing a good trade this morning, full of German tourists from nearby hotels. On the other side is the buoyed marina entrance, leading to the haze of the horizon – always an alluring invitation to leave, to leave . . . 

So long away from ‘civilisation’, I am fascinated by the sights around me. Close beside us here at the bar is an Egyptian, dark shining skin, Gucci shirt, forking up a Caesar salad and speaking Arabic fast on a mobile phone. He’s a little overweight and he’s wheezing slightly. Brain fast, body slow. A pale German girl behind the bar is conducting conversations in English, German and Arabic according to need. A mother and pre-teen daughter are having an argument in rapid French about whether the daughter should swim again or not.

Later, we’ll coast back around the marina on our bikes, probably stopping a few times to chat with fellow yachties, including the two Bills, who can be seen in the sunshine every day, busy in the construction of a new wooden dinghy for Saltair. There’s the French baguette to collect from the patisserie on the way, and maybe a stop at the internet cafe to check emails – Simon is busy working again, and cannot spare the time to visit. My connection with Kassandra and Simon is by email only, and it’s our vital link with the family. We have the sat phone, but calls are super expensive, and it’s to be used only in emergencies. I joke, ‘As long as that phone’s not ringing, I know my kids are okay.’ But truth lies behind the laughter, and I constantly check to make sure it’s plugged in and turned on.

Tonight, we’ll probably eat at one of these outdoor restaurants with some local teachers we’ve met, or some yachties, or maybe both. We’ll drift home later in the warm night air having solved the world’s problems, and it starts all over again tomorrow. There’s a decadence to the rhythm of the days, and a hedonism floating like a cloud around us.

We’ve discovered that Abu Tig Marina Village, designed by Italian architect Alfredo Freda, is only one of a pastel-shaded resort called El Gouna, an artificial tourist town built in the middle of raw Egyptian desert. It has its own power stations, water treatment plants, many international hotel chains, golf course, airport, hospital, school and shops, all catering to the European holidaymaker. In the marina itself there are four boutique hotels, a raft of restaurants, chic cafes, all-night bars, glamorous shops. After the primitive experiences of the last few months, its sheer luxury is a shock to the senses.

It is not until our last moments before drifting off to sleep one night that I reflect on how far we’ve come.

‘Ted?’

‘Mmm . . .’

‘We’re almost to the Mediterranean.’

‘What?’

‘The Mediterranean. We’re only a couple of hundred miles from the Med.’

‘Geez, Nance, the boat’s broken in half and we’ve got to get up the Gulf of Suez and through the canal yet.’

‘Well, we’re nearly there.’

There’s a pause. ‘Go to sleep, Nance, or I’ll thump you.’

Our enquiries about repairing Blackwattle on arrival at Abu Tig were met with discouraging responses. Egypt does not have expertise in stainless steel, the nearest location being Israel. But to get there we must sail the Gulf of Suez next, reputedly the worst patch of water in the Red Sea, then across the southern Mediterranean. So Ted goes through the pain of repairing the davits using Egyptian skills, together with the expertise of a cruising yachtie who used to be a structural engineer. The result is stronger and better-constructed davits, though they’re ugly and roughly finished – tell someone who cares!

In the meantime, we enjoy the modern facilities of Abu Tig, and the camaraderie of the other cruisers, all survivors of the Red Sea. Among them are labourers and musicians, doctors and university professors, carpenters, hoteliers and biochemists. Some are super rich, some can hardly afford a cup of coffee, some didn’t finish school, and others are world leaders in their professions. The thing that gives me the most pleasure is that we’ve all gone through the looking glass into a world where jealousy and competitiveness, status and position have been left behind, and a warm collaborative love seems to pervade. And together we enjoy this unexpected touch of luxury that Abu Tig offers.

But Abu Tig is not Egypt. Just outside the huge artificial settlement, sand whistles across the desert, wild dogs roam and are shot by hunters. The nearby Egyptian towns are squalid and impoverished. Soon enough, the artificial pleasures of the marina begin to wear thin, and the proximity of the other boats begins to seem claustrophobic. I have begun to love the solitude, and resultant feeling of connection with the living world. On, on, it’s time to move on. Thinking of the Mediterranean, I find I have a small yearning to see a natural green tree, the lushness of vegetation.

When the davits are finished we say our farewells to some of the cruisers we have shared such intense experiences with. We hug, a little too tightly, smile, but with a catch in the breath. It is a tradition for cruisers never to say ‘goodbye’, just ‘see you on the water’, because we all understand that our peripatetic lifestyles mean we may never see each other again – or maybe it could be next week.

Then it’s away into the exhilaration of the open seas. We’re sailing well together now. Hardly a word is spoken as we go about our tasks to gybe or adjust sails. Even decisions are often mute ones as there’s an obviousness to the wind and the sky that dictates the next move. After a couple of days the Gulf of Suez starts to narrow before us, and we have hazy mountains just visible through the salt mist on each side.

Pressing northwards up the gulf, we begin to come across the weird shapes of hundreds of oil rigs. Some are like giant stick insects, frozen in position, others are more like dragons, breathing fire at the sky. None are pretty, function being all and form obviously nothing in this expensive grab for oil. Their multicoloured box-shaped bodies are splashes of red and yellow and pale blue, high in the air, and they balance on impossibly tall legs, arms splayed out as if calling for help, belching fire at the fingertips. Others are unlit dead bodies, cut off at the knees, black skeletons, left to rot and rust after their oil has run out. They have something miserably Orwellian about them, grotesque and threatening.

Looking at the sea here, I can tell that something isn’t right. It’s a short choppy sea, and the swell is increasing. This swell is too high for the current wind and contrary to the forecast. Was it wrong again? Soon Blackwattle is rocking forwards like a toy boat in a bathtub. Our twenty tons of yacht is behaving like a plastic tugboat. One minute we are heading for the sky, the next minute plunging down into the sea.

And now the wind begins to rise to match the seas. Yes, the forecast was wrong and it’s getting dark. It will be a radar night tonight. I start breathing shallowly, and feel the coursing of an adrenaline flow. We cross the shipping lane to try to find a lee shore. Ships are rocketing down the lane regularly, and we must judge our crossing accurately. We head for the tail of one ship and, motor pounding, race behind him across the three miles of the southbound lane to the other side, while the next ship bears down. We don’t breathe a lot in transit – if our motor fails we would not be confident of making it clear of the oncoming ship.

Other boats have put into anchorages because of the rising weather, but we’re past one anchorage, and won’t get to the other before dark. We put a second reef in the main to reduce sail, and press on.

As night falls like a dark cloak around us, the oil rigs become brightly flaring monsters. But it’s the unlit corpses we know are in the vicinity that are the danger. On my watch I prowl the cockpit, never ceasing my constant perusal of the inky waters, searching for black hulks. The wind is up to around twenty-five knots now, and with each wave Blackwattle seems to stop dead in her tracks. It’s hard work as we make very short tacks into and out of the shipping lane. We know there will be no unmarked oil rigs in the shipping lane, but cannot venture too far into the way of the ships. This waterway cares nothing for small yachts.

In addition to the sweaty work of tacking, the autopilot can’t cope. Each time the boat is thwacked off course by a vertical wall of water, it struggles to get back on course, but before it succeeds, there’s another vertical wall of water and we are thrown off again. We have to hand-steer, so we’ll probably not get much sleep tonight. There are just too many simultaneous tasks – hand-steering, watching the chart, the radar and the real world for ships and oil rigs, which are more and more plentiful. Visibility is not good. It’s getting cold, and we each end up scurrying into lockers to find warmer and warmer gear.

The wind continues to rise. First to thirty, thirty-five, then forty knots, and every third or fourth wave is cascading green water right over the top of the dodger. Thank heaven for the cockpit cover, or we’d be getting a face full of salt water with every wave. After each green wave the air is full of flying salt mist. The ‘clears’ – the see-through plastic that surround the cockpit and normally keep out rain – are not lowered, as we need to see out the side easily, so the water sprays, splashes and drips down into the cockpit drenching all surfaces. This is a bit of a shock – we’ve never had a wet cockpit before on this trip. With the motor roaring and all sails flying we’re still only making about three knots. The seas get worse. One must stand to steer, feet wide apart for stability, with a solid grip on the wheel. The boat makes a crazy rush at the heavens, and I’m seeing stars through the salty windscreen, there’s a millisecond pause at the top, a weightless feeling, then a plunge down and down until we spear into the wave ahead. But Blackwattle’s a beauty. She comes up every time, as smoothly as she’s meant to, obedient to the wheel, riding the rush of the waves like the good sea boat she is. My heart is in my mouth for only one reason. Should anything break . . . Should the motor stop . . . We keep each other going with cups of coffee and tea. Whoever is not steering dozes in the cockpit, but it’s hard to doze and balance at the same time, especially when the world is spraying salt water all over you. Anyway, our adrenaline is up, and neither of us feels tired.

The night ends eventually without incident, and when day dawns, we find we are passing dozens of anchored ships, in lines, waiting for their turn to transit the great canal. There’s another sight we haven’t seen for fourteen months: it’s a grey miserable day, just like Sydney can produce. Dull clouds, a bleak daylight, nothing like the blue and white heavens we’ve had for so long. It’s a true sign that we’re nearly in the Med, and back to the possibility of cold nights and storms, of wintry days.

So the Red Sea that we had thought we had survived unscathed had a sting in the tail for us after all.

There’s no time to reflect on this ‘sting in the tail’. We’re here. The yachts we left Hurghada with are waiting in anchorages up and down the coast of the Gulf of Suez, and are not to arrive for many days yet. Suez is a flurry of activity, and the arrival process is something I never get used to. Arriving after a sea voyage, one wants to share a celebratory drink, tidy the boat, and then, only then, ready oneself for whatever the new shore is to bring. Even more so this morning, as neither of us has had any sleep. But no. We are directed immediately to the fuel wharf situated on a most dangerous-looking stone wall full of jutting rocks. Filling the tanks is a comedy of spilled diesel (because the nozzles have been designed for supertankers) and detergent everywhere, strange blokes tramping all over the deck, shouted negotiations about prices and quantities. Our agent – known as the son of ‘Prince of the Red Sea’ – arrives on the other side in a dinghy: ‘Hello, I’m the son of the Prince of the Red Sea, your agent for the Suez Canal crossing.’ Should one curtsy?

There’s not room for many boats here, so the measuring process which determines our fee for transit will be fast. Ridiculously, we are charged according to the amount of cargo we can carry. We’re to go through the measuring process, sleep overnight, and transit the canal tomorrow. I am transfixed by the wonder of actually being here. First conceived of 3500 years ago (but to join the Nile, not the Med), the Suez Canal has had a tumultuous recent history. Ferdinand de Lesseps built it, President Nasser closed it, Israel attacked over it, Britain and France were humiliated because of it.

After the morning’s northbound convoy has entered, we slower craft begin our transit in a tiny convoy of five yachts. Because of our relative slowness, we must stay overnight at a half-way point, Ismailia, then complete the passage on the second day. Each yacht in our group of five has a compulsory pilot, provided by the Canal Authority, to guide us along the canal.

By ten fifteen we’re away. My excitement was for the idea of this passage, and it doesn’t last long – it’s nothing but a big ditch in the sand. To the west there’s the edge of the Nile Delta – palm trees and vegetation – and to the east the Sinai Desert – undulating sands of yellow, ochre and burnished red. Every hundred metres or so there are military posts on the western side, and lounging soldiers wave in a bored fashion as we pass. We also pass three ‘temporary’ military bridges. The Egyptians can deploy them, send traffic across and have the canal operational again in two hours.

Our pilot is a quiet, well-dressed man who joins us for tea, Cokes and lunch. I lay out the food buffet style, with quite an array of meats, fish and salads. He quizzes us about whether there is any pork present. We bring him magazines to read in case he’s bored and replacements for the failing batteries for his small radio. All day he seems pleasant, if reserved, until we arrive at the midpoint, Ismailia, on the shores of the Great Bitter Lake, at 6 pm. When we berth at the dock his job is finished, and he is to return to his post half-way back along the canal. We will have another pilot for the next leg to Port Said.

On the advice of our Suez Canal agent, we offer a $10 tip (or baksheesh) and Ted also hands over three packets of cigarettes. Without any warning, the man becomes angry. He wants double.

‘You must pay for my taxi back to my base!’ he whines.

‘No,’ says Ted. ‘We were specifically told the company already pays that for you. We have paid everything for the transit, and this money is just to say thank you.’

Harsh words follow on both sides until finally Ted, so understanding and conciliatory with everyone we’ve met on this trip, does his block.

‘Get off my boat or I’ll thump you,’ he says.

I gape – is this Ted I am hearing?

Thankfully the word ‘thump’ is not in this man’s vocabulary, as he continues complaining that we must pay for his taxi. Ted, no doubt worried that he will thump him, gets off Blackwattle himself and walks away down the dock.

The pilot now tries to shake my hand, but I refuse, having already learned that this is the most awful insult in Egypt.

‘I am your friend,’ he says.

‘No, you are not my friend,’ I reply. ‘You give Egypt a bad name.’

He is off the boat now, leaning towards me, his hand obstinately out. ‘Yes, I tell you, I am your friend.’ We do this several times, like a couple of children squabbling in the schoolyard – ‘No, you are not my friend.’ ‘Yes, I am your friend.’ ‘No, you are not.’ – until the funny side of the situation strikes me, and I have to stifle a giggle.

He walks away, still calling over his shoulder, ‘Yes, I am your friend.’

When we go biking through the town of Ismailia, we are so entranced that we decide to spend an extra day here. This is where it all started – the modern Suez Canal. There had been traces of canals found in the region dating back thousands of years, and Napoleon Bonaparte had the dream of constructing a canal that would join the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. But it was Ferdinand de Lesseps, a well-educated French diplomat, who was given the concession by his close friend Said Pasha, viceroy of Egypt, to form a company to construct a canal open to the ships of all nations. During the construction, Lesseps lived here in Ismailia, and his house is a prominent landmark. Reminders of this French past are evident in the town’s architecture, which is both grand and graceful.

Ismailia is not a tourist resort, and hence lacks the usual supply of touts or jaded hospitality workers. We wander the markets, which are churning with people. Like the English, the locals seem to queue for everything. We find the longest queue and join it laughingly without knowing what we are queuing for. Soon our noses tell us: bread, hot off the coals. Our mouths are watering by the time it comes wrapped in brown paper, too hot to touch with the bare hand. As we continue to shop we are mobbed by locals wanting to help – there’s no English, so purchasing the fresh-from-the-farm vegetables is a comedy, with lots of goodwill on both sides.

The next day, we find our pilot for the second half of the journey, Mohammed, very different from the first. He has a warmth and frankness in his eyes and is a delight to have on board. The day is full of interest – more incredible bridges, one resembling an oversized Anzac Bridge, looping high enough for any ship to sail underneath, another on a giant swivel. We see dolphins riding the waves behind the great ships, and Mohammed proves an excellent tour guide, as well as being a funny and warm-hearted companion. He manages to tell us great chunks of his family history to while away the long day. Port Said appears – a wide commercial harbour lined with dirty and decrepit buildings among a few modern skyscrapers, and crisscrossed by ships in all directions.

So it’s the end of the wild and charming Red Sea. Goodbye, flying sand, goodbye, baksheesh, goodbye, warm underwater wonder world, coloured desert sands, ferocious seas and exquisite remoteness.

Fourteen months ago, we let go the mooring lines of our former life, without knowing what the future would hold. So far we have become familiar only with unfamiliarity. I have seen a tolerance in Third World countries, a love for each other and the world, that I have never known. I have a curious reluctance to cross that dotted line which has us re-entering the ‘Western world’ of the Mediterranean. No doubt there will be English newspapers and radio broadcasts, and we will no longer be so far removed from the madnesses of the twenty-first century. There will be noise, tension, crowding, discord, pollution, the horrid polemic of nations and our politicians, as well as all those aspects of our previous life that I now find tedious. I fall asleep wishing just a little that we could turn around and go back down the lovely untamed Red Sea to the sweetness of our dear Indian Ocean.

But there is more to be said on the subject of the Red Sea, and that relates to the other yachts with whom we travelled.

There were no coastguards to call for help, no mechanics, no towing services, no spare-parts shops. The charts are highly inaccurate, the passages between coral outcrops dangerously narrow. The winds, when they come, are high and always in the wrong direction, and the waves are a short sharp chop which jolts and strains the boat incessantly. While the snorkelling and diving were breathtaking, and the desert scenes extraordinarily beautiful, many boats had engine problems, breakdowns, electrical problems, sail problems, needed parts, needed expertise. The rest of the yachties always assisted in astonishingly generous ways one rarely meets in everyday life. If a spare part couldn’t be located, then a jury rig was invented. The daily morning ‘sched’ and roll-call was a valuable lifeline to assistance – from towing to medical (from the few doctors and nurses on the various boats), from escaped dinghies to engineering and electrical; not to mention the weather and anchorage, customs and formality advice that the forward boats were able to offer to boats coming behind. The concern for the single-handers, in particular, who mostly had no HF radios, was always high. Without the Red Sea Net, it would have been a much tougher passage for almost everyone.

For the record, I am documenting here the boats from a wide range of countries (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Croatia, France, Britain, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands) that formed our large caring family. We shall remember the parties, the incidents, the jokes, the camaraderie, the characters and the cruising children, in particular, and be grateful, forever: Acrobat, Adriatica, Aplysia, Apollo, Axe Calibre, Batheda, Blue Dawn, Britt, Capritaur, Caspar, Checkmate, China Moon, Contessa, Danza, Destiny, Dune, Early Dart, Erasmus, Fancy Free, Fantasy I, Free Radical, Galateia, Honeymoon, Hurai, Idemo, Jubilation, Klondike, Karimba, Notre Dame, Libelle, Malik, Marionette IV, Marita Shan, Meander, Papagena, Papoose, Quest, Ranganui, Revision II, Saltair, Sea Raven, Silver Girl, Sliver, Solara, Summer Tale, Tarpin, Tehani Li, Trinity, Vahana, Virgo’s Child, Volovent, Voyager, Woodwind, Xenia.