18:38.281N   39:43.217E

Wednesday evening and Thursday

We motored-sailed over night to the Passage of Sorrow, the narrow entrance to the Red Sea between Yemen and Eritrea 11nm across.

The morning brought a freshening wind and the alarm was raised by Jake and Simon as they  thought they might have seen a suspected pirate boats! Fortunately it was just some fishing boats. 

We had a lovely days sailing with fresh to moderate wind and thought all would be good for the night with 1 reef in and the No 4 poled out. Little did we know what was to come. 

Around 7:30 the wind built and was soon 30  knts off the port stern-with a large following sea 3 to 4m waves. Giving us a helter skelter ride dodging the breaking waves Jake broke Clare’s speed record recording 16.9 knots surfing down a wave.  This continued till the morning giving us a very uncomfortable night with little or no sleep, Especially as it was complicated by looking out for islands and reefs. 

Friday

We patiently waited for the sun rise to come and eventually it did along with calmer winds. We still decided to put another reef and drop the No 4. We were still sailing at 7 knots in a rough sea state. The wind did drop a little so we were able to catch up on some sleep and have fairly peaceful 24 hours.

In the evening after passing some very sinister looking rocks and Jake and Simon saw 3 small boats a long way out off the coast of Eritrea. They were fishermen.

We also found out it was going to cost SAR6K to go to Jeddah and fortunately the crew were very understanding and agreed to miss Jeddah and go to Port Ghalib, the entry port into in Egypt, and extra 300 miles.

Saturday 

Everyone was very much rested and we had a comfortable days sailing with the main and 1 reef and the storm jib 

Doug spent the morning working on a water leak in the engine exhaust that had meant a lot of bailing - fingers crossed all ok

In the afternoon the breeze was lighter and we changed the jib for the No 2.

Water leak repaired and engine charging batteries!  All good.

Barrelling through the Red Sea with a great crew!

Team Diablo