Monday 6^th August - Rhodes

So, after nearly two weeks cruising around the beautiful Turquoise Coast – so many bays, too many to name here, but Wall Bay, with its climbable cliffs, Gerbekse Cove and the deserted remains of the Byzantine trading village, and Kucek Kuyruk deserve special mention, even if the arcane Turkish check-in/out procedure doesn’t – it was time to start on the long, long journey south to Suez and points beyond. So there was a day of provisioning in Rhodes, stocking up on boatie bits and fuel and gathering the crew together:

Erik the intrepid Swede as skipper, Carl arriving via an adventurous trip to Bodrum, and the two French boys Nicolas and Jeremy, impossibly young looking yet seasoned veterans of this journey, with some tough deliveries under their metaphorical belts. Starting to look a bit like an ‘A’ team, this.

With luck and yes, a following wind, we aim to be off tomorrow, locked and loaded, gennaker flying, hopefully to make Suez in two or three days. Silence from the blog for a while, then, and time to start brushing up on the Arabic, Insha’Allah.

Monday 13^th August - Ismailia

What a lovely sail across the Med! Left Rhodes and picked up a 12 knot on the port quarter, then it held for nearly three days! So it was a relaxing cruise at 6 knots under the gennaker all the way, no work for the crew, no sail changes (well, until the gennaker halyard went on us just short of Port Said, but losing less than a metre of rope not such a hardship) Then it was moor up in the Suez Canal Yacht Club (sounds rather grand, hmmm…) expecting to get clearance down in 2/3 days. Unheard of, we were off the next morning down the Canal. And of course, it was too good to be true for long. This is from the half way point, Ismailia, where we are boat-bound waiting while a Yankee submarine hogs the whole canal, which means nothing else moves for a day. At least, that’s the story we were given….