Saturday 26^th June

Usual air of slight confusion right from the start as Hassan needed the bigger boats to leave first as their anchors and chains straddled a lot of the smaller boats anchors, however as is the way of these things, the small boat skippers were summoned to collect their exit visas and boat papers first....

Eventually things got underway and by 9.30 am most of the boats were off the quay with their anchors safely stowed, milling around inside the small naval dock waiting to be led back up the Suez Canal by the pilots and out in to the Med. We finally moved out nominally in a single file, but there are some boats (not all French) that take a perverse delight in doing anything other than what they have been asked and so the impressive line of boats was punctuated by random yachts speeding up the outside in a second ad hoc line! Progress was then disrupted when ‘Escapade’ got a rope around their prop in the middle of the Suez Canal, but they soon took a dip and freed themselves.

We cleared the canal and right on cue the wind picked up and in no time at all the entire fleet was flying along displaying a wonderful array of coloured downwind sails and various other configurations. The fishing boats seemed almost bemused by this sight, but soon got back into the rhythm of trawling across our paths which added to the fun. Poor Lesley had now joined Trevor in the sick bay and so we elected to take things a bit gently and we set our twin headsails as a single genoa and set a course for Israel. As the wind picked up to 12 knots we found ourselves buzzing along at 6 knots which attracted the attentions of two large dolphins who proceeded to play under and alongside our bows for the next three quarters of an hour, until in fact ‘Savana’, (Hanse 54 ft) flew past us with her cruising chute billowing, at around 9 knots. This sadly proved to be a more attractive option to the dolphins and they left us for their new friends!

As the wind began to head us, we set the cutter rig and were soon making 7 knots in just 11 knots of true wind which had us eating up the miles and leaving some boats flying chutes in our wake. Unfortunately by mid afternoon, Sarah had also succumbed to the devil that is diarrhoea and I suppose the term gyppy tummy probably originated from Egypt. In due course the wind began to drop after dark and at 11.00 pm we put on the engine to help us maintain a reasonable speed. Sarah was now in a very poor state and Lesley was little better, but Trevor at least felt capable of standing his watch. The net result was that I did mine and Sarah’s individual three hour watches back to back and then got a three hour break while Trevor stood in, before I was back on again. Not ideal but the best option probably under the circumstances.