Destination: Red Sea

Christopher and Jill Chambers join friends for the adventure of a lifetime in the notorious Red Sea, one of the most dangerous stretches of ocean in the world. Christopher tells the story.

"Wake up!" cried Andy, our skipper. "There are two boats approaching fast." It was 3.30am. We were four days out from Salalah, 50 miles south of the Yemeni port of Mukalla at the start of the so-called Pirate Coast.

Full of sleep, we clambered into the cockpit. Meanwhile, Andy had steered away from the approaching boats. We were sailing solo, in radio silence, with no lights showing. Just the radar was on, so that we could see without being seen. The tactic paid off and the boats raced past two miles away and disappeared over the horizon. We resumed our course and another day dawned as the blazing sun rose out of the limpid sea.

Pirate drill
After leaving Salalah, we did our "pirate drill". Our only defence, if attacked, was a Tazar, so this involved a discussion of strategy for minimising harm to ourselves and Intrepid. Tazars are only effective at close range, and we agreed we should only consider using ours against aggressive "visitors". Real "pirates" would be heavily armed, probably with automatic weapons. We have never forgotten the fate of NZ yachtsman Peter Blake, who drew a gun to repel pirates on the Amazon a few years earlier and was shot down. Most US yachts carry weapons and the repelling of the last officially recorded pirate attack in March 2005 by yachts Gandalf and Mahdi is now part of yachting legend. The Yemenis were vastly impressed.

But the Gandalf had rifles aboard and people that knew how to use them. We also felt that weapons such Molotov cocktails would pose a greater risk to ourselves than to any attackers. In the event of threat, we concluded we should first conceal Jill and Nicky below deck; then Andy and I would try to remain cool and as friendly as possible, handing over whatever was asked for – after negotiation – in the hope that they would be satisfied.

North of the shipping lane
Our course took us north of the shipping lane, with tankers and bulk carriers passing by a few miles away. We came to recognise Yemeni fishing boats and how they operate. A large wooden dhow tows three open whalers with outboards to their fishing spot, and then the whalers set and retrieve the nets.

We had stocked up with cigarettes to offer any scroungers and – playing safe Ì we always kept well clear of fishermen; however, none ever paid us any attention.

Every day, schools of dolphins came to visit, darting through the clear waters to take up positions at the bow before becoming bored and disappearing as quickly as they had come. Apart from being watchful, it was a relaxing time. Nicky, not a morning person, did the evening watch, Andy the night watch and Jill and I the dawn watch. With canopy down, we loved the dramatic transition from phosphorescent night through pale glimmer of first light to golden sunrise.

Oman – the frankincense land
As we wafted along, we reflected on our time in Oman, which few yachtspeople explore. Jill and I flew in from Sydney. Then, after exploring the modernised, walled capital, Muscat, and the attractive port town of Muttrah with its white-washed buildings, blue-domed mosque, fish-market and souk, we hired a 4X4 to explore the interior.

Situated under Jebel Akhadar, the "Green Mountain", the city of Nizwa with its fine fort and evocative blue and gold domed mosque, was an excellent base. In the 1950s the city was the domain of a fanatical imam and off-limits to infidels. The Imam whipped up a rebellion against the sultan, who called up support from Britain. For several years fierce battles were fought in the rugged hills until finally the Imam was deposed. Now Jebel Akhadar is a quiet land, high above the heat of the plains, where pomegranates, grape vines, vegetables and rose bushes grow on narrow terraces below small villages that cling to precipitous slopes. In April the air is full of the fragrance of roses, soon to be converted into the finest rose water. New villages are springing up on the plateau as the old mud-brick houses are abandoned to crumble to dust; however, at Al Ma'awi we found a tiny village of cliff dwellers, their stone houses perched on ledges on a sheer cliff face high above lush gardens in the valley below. School children in their crisp white uniforms welcomed us politely and shook our hands as they returned home.

Oman is also full of ancient mud and stone castles. Indeed, one of them near Salalah was the scene of the last medieval-style attack on a fortress in the world Ð in 1977! We were thwarted from crossing the desolate but spectacular Hajar mountains back to Muscat by a landslide. Near the remote hamlet of Bilat Sayt, a tiny oasis by the mouth of a cave with a spring of clear blue water where kids were swimming, the road had been destroyed. After a long detour, we met up with Nicky and Andy in Muscat and continued our travels down the coast to Sur, whence dhows used to sail to Zanzibar returning with cloves, sandalwood and slaves, and into the golden dunes of the Wahiba Sands. There, the bedu still dwell with their camels and Toyota utes.

Fridgeless
Meanwhile, Intrepid's fridge controller packed up. A replacement was ordered, to be couriered to Sana, the capital of Yemen. So our passage to Aden was without a fridge with all that implies in tropical weather.

Wild yet hospitable Yemen
Six days after leaving Salalah, we arrived in Aden. Situated on the scorching flanks of an ancient volcano, it is a place apart from the rest of Yemen. The city has declined since it was a British colony. A container port had been built, but the attacks on the USS Cole and the French tanker, Limberg, drove business away. Consequently unemployment is high and many men sit around all day chewing qat, the leaf of a tree, which is a mild stimulant. More than a few lay sprawled out on the pavements of Crater; yet daily, tradesmen turned up with their tools to sit by the roadside near the market in the hope of being offered work.

While in Aden we read in the Yemen Times about a people-smuggling incident in which three Somali boats had dropped their cargo overboard near the coast some 48 hours before we arrived in the area. We also learned that the flotilla that had left Salalah a couple of days before us had been surrounded by three fast dhows that moved on only when a warship appeared. All the evidence indicates the "pirates" are, in reality, people-smugglers returning to Somalia and taking opportunistic advantage on the way. We were relieved they had not timed their latest operation for two days later.

Raw and wild
Yemen has a raw, wild feel, not surprisingly in that most men outside of Aden wear jambiyas Ð curved daggers Ð the way businessmen wear ties. Yemen is an ancient urban, not bedu, culture, with highly developed architecture. Mud-brick and stone towns dot the landscape. Unfortunately much land is given over to qat growing, to the detriment of food production and family budgets. Some 2000m up in the hills is Sana, seven hours from Aden by bus. The "modern" city sprawls across a high plateau and is a chaos of traffic, unkempt streets and commercial enterprises. Old Sana is an UNESCO-listed gem. One of the world's great historical cities, it comprises about a square kilometre of multi-storey town houses, built of coursed stone and highly decorated with stucco and stained glass windows, tightly packed in a maze of alleyways behind restored mud-brick city walls.

We hired a car with driver to explore the nearby countryside. The village of Shibam and Kawkaban, are twin towns. Shibam, at the foot of sheer cliffs, is the market town for the area, where everything from donkeys and cows to fruit, vegetables, dates and myrrh are for sale. Women covered in brightly coloured cloths mix with men with jambiyas in the hustle and bustle. Kawkaban, its sister village, lines the cliff top Ð the bolthole in the event of attack. There, we found a wedding in progress, where men and boys were dancing and singing in a circle waving their jambiyas, while the groom and his entourage looked on.

Lunch
In nearby Thulla, we were intercepted in the back streets by a lad, who led us to a house where a young girl took us inside. A flight of stone steps led to the living area floor, where mama was cooking lunch over a wood-fired stone and mud stove. After introducing us, we were taken to the next room and sat down on the floor on mats, where mama brought us fresh flat bread, green vegetable fool and bananas.

Shortly, the men arrived home from the mosque and joined us on the mats as mama brought in broiled chicken and sWe ended the day at the imam's palace, another of Yemen's treasures. Situated on a vertical-sided rock in Wadi Dhahr, it towers over the gardens and mud-brick houses around it. Several stories high, it contains deep wells, ancient burial caves and all the facilities required by an Imam and his four wives for a comfortable life.

Back in Aden, repairs and provisioning complete, we set sail for Eritrea to take advantage of a continuing weather window of light to moderate southerly winds.

In the Bab el Mandeb, the narrow entry to the Red Sea where winds can tear through at over 40 knots, it was dead calm.

Before arriving at Aden, we realised a rat had come aboard while fuelling up in Salalah. A trap, purchased in Aden, was set and the next night we had it. More chewed bananas indicated the presence of a second creature, so the trap was set again.

Struggle in Eritrea
As the sun set, we motored into port to be greeted by the lady controller: "Welcome to my port." That night, the second and last rat was trapped.

Many yachts don't stop in Massawa. The town was a battleground during the War of Independence from Ethiopia. Much of the historic heart had been destroyed, including the Imperial Palace that had been Emperor Haile Selasse's winter retreat. For the main port of the nation, Massawa was singularly languid, reflective of the state of the economy. A container ship was expected in a few weeks but no one was sure when. In simple cafés in the cool arched colonnade of the Italian colonial buildings behind the wharf, locals sat quietly out of the heat downing bottles of water. This was our first surprise. A young man named Benjamin asked us if we would like coffee. We said we would, and he led us off through the dusty backstreets to a ramshackle house with a staircase that seemed about to collapse. There a young woman ground beans and brewed coffee in a clay pot on a charcoal brazier, with excellent results. All young men have to perform military service, mostly near the Ethiopian border. Army pay is so low they cannot support their families. Performing coffee ceremonies is one way the women make some money. Sadly, another is a bit of casual prostitution.

Asmara
Next day we took a bus to Asmara, high in the hills. Possibly the coolest city in Africa, Asmara has more the feel of an Italian provincial town than an African capital. Sidewalk cafes, with market umbrellas, selling pastries, coffee and gelati mix with pizza restaurants that challenge Italian quality and leather goods shops selling locally-made Italian style at a quarter of the price. Only skin colour reminds you this is Africa. We took a drive to Keren, three hours away. Along the way are the rusting remains of Ethiopian tanks. Round houses with thatched roofs dot the arid hillsides and every village has its Martyrs' Memorial. Lush and fertile, Keren is the main town for miles around, with a lively livestock market where herders haggle over the prices of camels, oxen, cattle and goats. In the centre of town is the market, a maze of narrow streets bustling with white-robed Muslim herders, Christian men in western attire and brightly robed women. Memories of the War are deWe set sail northwards for Harat Island, but not before a check of Intrepid for stowaways. There we enjoyed our first snorkelling in the Red Sea. We farewelled Eritrea at Difnein Island and sailed on into Sudanese waters.

Sudan: where time stands still
Far from the Dharfur disaster, the Sudan coast is a desolate desert shore indented by numerous marsas (inlets) with an outlying maze of unexploited coral reefs. Apart from two towns, along its length are only small, impoverished fishing communities and remote military outposts. Marked channels wend their way through the reefs. These were established as an inshore route for coastal steamers to avoid the wild winds and seas that plague the Red Sea in winter. Numerous wrecks high and dry on outer reefs testify to their ferocity. Many yachts take the route up the centre of the Red Sea. Those we came across universally bemoaned the harsh conditions of wind and sea. Following the inshore route, we experienced only benign conditions: nor'westerly breezes in the early morning, turning northerly and dropping before the afternoon nor'easterly seabreeze kicked in.

At Khor Nawarat, a maze of channels around reefs and sand islands, we snorkelled with technicolour fish in their thousands, and a small turtle allowed me to touch his shell before paddling off. At Long Island, flamingos strutted in the limpid waters, then flew off into the mayonnaise sunset. At Marsa Inkafeil, spoonbills snuffled in mangrove-fringed lagoons. Deep in haunting Khor Shinab, surrounded by stony plains and eroded mountains, the wind whispered Eternity. Then there was Suakin. Until 1922, it had been a compact town of Arabic and Ottoman buildings situated on an island in the harbour. Then the British decided to build Port Sudan. The inhabitants left and the old coral brick town started to crumble.

Now it's a pile of rubble and the remaining population lives in timber and fabric shanties. Simple shops and a market serve the surrounding area. Men come down from the hills on their camels, which they leave hobbled on the edge of town. The only transportation within town is by donkey cart. We met a local man, a paramedic, who invited us to his home for coffee one evening. After dark he took us first to the Medical Centre, staffed by conscientious Sudanese doing their best with what little resources they had, in hot, grubby facilities.

A different side of Egypt
Egypt is renowned for the magnificence of its antiquities. It is less known for its quantity of abandoned resort developments. Shells of developers' dreams stud the Red Sea coast. We checked into Egypt at Port Ghalib, an unfinished mega-development. One day it will be a magnificent resort. In May 2007, it was of interest to yachts as the easiest port of entry, with friendly, helpful, and incorruptible staff – even tips were declined. Good sailing wafted us, via a beach barbecue at a German dive resort, to Hurghada, a major resort town and dive centre. We left Intrepid in the brand new marina and, while Nicky and Andy took themselves off to Luxor and Aswan, we ferried across to Sinai to enjoy languid Dahab and the biblical atmosphere of Mt Sinai and St Katherine's Monastery.

We were now on our last leg, to the Suez Canal. The Gulf of Suez is a narrow shipping channel, cluttered with oil rigs and notorious for strong headwinds. Conditions were excellent, however, and we enjoyed good sailing which proved considerably less hazardous than in Sydney Harbour on a weekend. Only on our last night did the headwind get up Ð to 35 knots. It was quickly decided to run back to a nearby anchorage for the night. With the wind on the nose, we motored the rest of the way to Suez, passing by ships at anchor waiting to enter the Canal.

All yachts have to stop at the Suez Yacht Club. While Andy arranged our Canal passage with a local agent, we explored Suez's bustling markets. We were obliged to wait a day while a US warship passed through the Canal then, with pilot aboard, we slotted into the convoy and spent the day watching the changing scenes. The rusting remains of war were everywhere, as were visible preparations against future attack. At the Great Bitter Lake, the north and south convoys meet and pass. These and the many small fishing boats in or near the shipping lanes made for an interesting time. Late in the day, we arrived at the Ismaeliya Yacht Club and celebrated the end of our voyage with French sparkling wine. It had been nothing less than a dream run.

AUTHORS BIO.
Christopher and Jill Chambers sailed with Nicky and Andy Gibb on their Westerly Oceanlord 41, Intrepid of Dover, on this the penultimate leg of the Gibbs' circumnavigation, as well as through French Polynesia in 2005. When not travelling, Christopher and Jill live in Sydney.