Diary entry number sixteen - Red Sea to Suez Position 31.00:81N 32.18:67E
California of London
Allan and Ruth Dooley
Sun 16 Aug 2009 14:33
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On Thursday 6 August we returned to Sharm
El-Sheikh to pick up Colonel Michael Brown (a sailing friend through the Royal
London YC). Mike did some 'boys food' burgers en
route. Sharm was as charming as ever and as inefficient.
We had hoped to depart early Friday morning
but did not get cleared to leave until midday so lost the chance to dive that
day.
Back to Abu Tig for more diving. There
were problems with the compresser filling the bottles so we took a dive boat for
the last day of diving and Mike and Allan had 15 litre tanks (as opposed to the
10 litre ones on board). Three magical dives of over 1 hour each including
a night dive for Mike and me (my first one). Unfortunately a
diver on the boat in one of the other groups got into difficulties (probably a
heart attack) and died on the return trip to the marina.
Mike had to leave four days earlier than planned
on Monday 10 August as his pregnant wife, Marie, had been admitted to
hospital with high blood pressure. Their baby girl was born on Wednesday
and is now in an incubator as she is 2 months premature. Mother and baby
are both doing well and Mike got home to Sweden in time!
Tried to start journey back on Tuesday 11 August
(Allan's birthday) but turned back due to 30 knots of headwinds. Long
lunch then followed...
Did do journey north-west to Suez on Wednesday,
Thursday and Friday. The weather was against us each day with the wind
getting progressively stronger and large seas at times. A combination of
tacking, motor sailing and just motoring into it got us there but they were long
days from dawn to anchoring after dark. The route took us past lots of oil
rigs and the Sinai sunsets were as splendid as ever.
No delay in finding us pilots to go through
the canal and yesterday was wash day which I dried in the main cabin.
Another dawn (5.30am) start this morning. The convoy coming towards
us out of the mist was quite eerie.
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