Position 29:03.55N 32:38.26E

Wednesday 24^th October 2012 Marsa Thelemet.

The next anchorage was across the shipping channels on the West side of the Gulf of Suez, around 30 Miles away.

It was Deja Vous at 6.45am, I opened the curtains to see if anyone was taking an early morning swim only to discover that there were just two boats left in the anchorage Blue Magic and Sol Maria !

We had a leisurely breakfast and set off sailing in the gentle breeze. The sun is much cooler now and so it is lovely to sit and soak up some rays without burning.

Thank you to Sol Maria for taking some great shots of Blue Magic – can you see Kate Winslet on the bow ?

Before midday it was Deja Vous again when we answered a call on the VHF from Suleika, a steel Bruce Roberts Designed yacht similar to Fai Tira !

Suleika’s engine had overheated and cut out around 5 miles from the anchorage, it would have been very tricky to sail around the reef and into the anchorage with the  wind on the nose so we offered them a tow.

They gratefully accepted and we towed Suleika into the anchorage where Andy climbed on board Suleika to assist, Ian and Melanie stood by to take the tow line, Graham was on hand to manoeuvre the boat if necessary and Lo led the way to a clear spot where we could drop the tow and Suleika could drop their anchor.

A very successful  exercise !

It bought back memories of the Blue Water Rally, towing Fai Tira through the Great Barrier Reef for 300 miles.

International Rescue is back in action in the Red Sea !

We stayed a couple of nights at this anchorage, we had hoped to persuade the soldiers to allow us to have a barbeque on the beach since lots of yachts had caught fish, but they wouldn’t agree.

Next morning we cleaned the barnacles off our bottom and enjoyed some great snorkelling off the reef in the afternoon with Gavin, Rhian, Ian, Melanie, Richard and Max.

Lots of small colourful fish and coral, and some huge blue fish which are called ‘Yellow Tail Tangs’

Thanks for the photos Gavin.

In the evening we enjoyed sun downers with John and Vanessa on Suleika, along with Sol Maria (Gavin & Lica), Jigsaw (Ian & Melanie), Christina (Kay and Graham) and Kerching (Andy & Michelle) – lovely nibbles and drinks to say ‘Thank you’ for helping.

Suleika’s engine was running again after some modifications to the broken heat exchanger to stop the leaks and enable the engine to be cooled entirely with seawater.