The Red Sea - Sudan

SUDAN

No life for donkeys or women

Many of our friends were stopping in Eritrea but we decided to give it a miss and go straight to Sudan, hoping that the southerly winds would take us all the way to Suakin. We heard later that many of the boats that went to Eritrea didn’t have a particularly good time there so we had no regrets. We left Aden on Sunday afternoon the 25th of March and sailed towards Bab el Mandeb, known as the ‘Gate of Tears’ because of its precarious navigation. The strait is only 20 miles wide with the island of Perim in the middle dividing it further.

The current through the strait can get quite fierce and timing is important. We shot through like a champagne cork, strong winds and big waves up our backside all the way. We passed half a dozen dead bloated animals floating in the water. They looked like sheep or goats and donkeys or camels. It was very strange and we tried to imagine where they had come from, me dreading seeing a human body amongst them.

Rounding the Hanish Islands in extremely fierce winds that night, we blew out the main sail trying to roll it in. Horrors! Mike tied it up as best he could, wisely deciding not to try and get it down in case it stuck like it did in New Zealand. The wind eased and then died altogether. Mike put the engine on and discovered the batteries weren’t charging. Our precious Sterling regulator wasn’t working, but good old Cap’n Pugwash got stuck in and fixed it. He is becoming very good at fixing everything.

With no mainsail, sailing was tricky and we struggled along with very little wind now as we seemed to have finally lost the precious southerlies. This was very disappointing and it wasn’t long before we hit the dreaded northerlies. Most of the rest of the trip up the Red Sea required beating against the wind – exceedingly difficult without a mainsail. We eventually anchored at a pleasant little island called Harorayeet for a rest and then made it into the historic port of Suakin the next day.

Suakin was first mentioned as a settlement in 969 and rose to prominence in the 15th century when it was a port on the pilgrim route to Mecca with much trade in gold and slaves. It’s last period of prosperity was after 1866 when it became an Egyptian and British military base against the Madhist regime. It was abandoned in 1909 when a railway from the Nile Valley reached what would become Port Sudan in the north and declined remarkably quickly therafter. With its still beautiful ancient coral buildings now in crumbling ruins, and a safe harbour reached after careful navigation around dangerously shifting sand banks, Suakin was a popular stop with yachts.

We caught up with Aliesha, Li and Imagine, and met numerous others including Aldebaran, Pacific Bliss, and Rapture. Check in had to be done via an agent, Mohammed, which made it simple but most certainly not cheap at US$130. We bought $84 worth of diesel and I splurged out and paid $6 to have a large bundle of nasty laundry done. What a pleasure.

The town itself was extremely basic with people living in simple square concrete block dwellings. Some fresh produce was available.

I found Sudan bleak. It looked barren and arid, the people monstrously poor, much more so than in Southern Africa.  Once again the women were covered from head to foot in dark colours – not quite as bad as Aden, but similar sort of thing.  They live in a manner one imagines to be not dissimilar to that of ancient times, with odd exceptions like the ubiquitous mobile phone, and there were some aged buses, one of which took a crowd of us into Port Sudan for a day.  The journey took us past harsh coastal land, more desert than countryside, dotted with tiny shanty type hutments where people apparently lived.  There was the odd goat or donkey tethered outside in the blazing heat and camels roamed forlornly in the dusty background.  It seemed to me a hideous way of life with little purpose beyond staying alive. These rural folk had no apparent outside interests, certainly not as we know it – no educational institutions, no books, libraries, films or television, no sport, community centres, clubs, swimming pools, playing fields, no shops even - but one supposes that it is all they know.  The birth rate is high (not much else to do!) but then so is the mortality rate, of both infants and adults.  If they say that Afghanistan is the country where God goes to weep, then Sudan must be a very close second.  I have decided that my idea of hell is to come back in another life as a donkey in one of these Arabic countries – or a woman for that matter!

Port Sudan was reasonably modern.  We shopped and lunched and emailed and I made a telephone call to my sister Pai as we were planning to meet up with her in Cairo to do a trip down the Nile.  When we returned to Suakin, Mohammed the agent invited us all to attend a local festival that evening – a sort of “thank you” celebration from the people of Suakin to their government and vice versa for all that had been achieved civically in the past 20 years re-building the area.  It was a bit boring for us as it was all in Arabic, but we felt privileged to be invited.  Some of the yachting folk talked loudly throughout which was rather rude.

We managed to get our sail down safely but once again the top half of the inner roller had become detached and fallen down (as had happened in New Zealand) and it had become damaged, we don’t know how. Mohammed kindly offered us a sail, but as it wasn’t roller furling and not in good condition we declined. We rigged, very cleverly we thought, our small genoa with the foot rolled round the boom to keep it straight and even, as a new mainsail. Dick came over and helped by hoisting Mike up the mast and generally giving friendly advice and lending us some sail fabric. Poor Aliesha had enough troubles of their own – the fuel was not pumping through their engine properly and Dick thought the fuel injectors had become clogged. This was beyond anyone’s expertise and he needed a proper mechanic to get it fixed.

Boris, on Li, had a Swedish friend who appeared to be a bit of a boffin regarding the weather and so, on his recommendation, we left after four days in Suakin in company with Li, Pacific Bliss, Aliesha and Aldebaran, heading north to Egypt. To begin with our new sail system worked well, though it wasn’t easy with the wind rather on the nose, and we were pleased with our innovation. I’d hoped to stop at the highly recommended anchorage Khor Shinab but Mike wanted to take advantage of the wind so we kept going. Before nightfall we heard from Boris’ Swedish friend that bad weather was coming in so we anchored at Marsa Umbelia. Our pilot didn’t particularly recommend this spot but it turned out to be very nice indeed – totally isolated and peaceful. As predicted a hard northerly came in that evening and we were glad to be in a good safe anchorage. The next morning the wind had eased, so, ignorant clots, we ignored the weather forecast and decided to go on. The wind built up, blew out the little jury-rigged main sail and we had a fairly nasty time having to motor all night into wind. We limped tiredly the next morning into Port Berenice, our first stop in Egypt, and found our fellow travellers already anchored.