Hi all.
Writing this as we start our transit of the Suez Canal. The Red Sea, the worst 1,000 miles we've seen is finally behind us. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
We left you in the aptly named Foul Bay, just south of Egypt hoping for a favorable wind shift. Nah, of course not. Our weather window gone, limping along with one engine and a torn jib into 25 knot headwinds, we were making about 1-1.5 knots which turned our 3 day trip into 4 1/2 and required the ever popular night entry into a new strange port--there was no way we were going to spend another night out after being beaten up so long. Fortunately, we had a previously used "track" on the chart plotter and the port control guys were helpful giving us additional directions, so we tied up at the customs dock in Port Ghalib (PG) at about 8:30 PM. The guys work 24 hours so someone came down and took some of our paperwork, and we left it that we would spend the night on their dock and finish in the morning. What a relief. As an indicator of how rotten the passage up was, when we arrived we looked, and there was Charlie on the dock. This is the same Charlie who has never, ever been off the boat, even with other cats around on the dock in other marinas!!!!
The next morning we finished check-in with the usual payments, and the marina helped us over to a Med-moor spot. PG is relatively new so it was a bit of a travail to get water hooked up, but by mid day we had power, water and the all important wifi, although the latter was better used at one of the free sites at the restaurants. We also got SIM cards, and arranged for a mechanic to look at the continuing oil leak. The marina is mainly a dive resort and the entire area is still under construction as well as a "town", but it really is simply an oasis out in the desert with nothing else around. In the marina complex were several hotels and condos as well as a Pizza Hut and TGIF and a few other restaurants. Beer, outside of happy hour 2 fers, was ridiculous and spirits prohibitively expensive, but at least you could get a drink in a Muslim country.
Older and much wiser, we wanted to wait for a good weather window for the 110 mile trip to Hurghada, but the engine problem forced us to miss the one over that weekend. We did have a few days, however, to catch up with some old friends who had been ahead of us, and a new crowd came in from the south on the same window that the others left on. It took about another week for the weather to be okay and we enjoyed just lolling around. The guy supposedly fixed the engine and I ran it for 4 hours with no apparent loss of oil. Yahoo!!! Egypt has the same fuel deal as all the other Arab countries--one price for locals and one for outsiders. But, we heard the price in Hurghada was even higher, so we bit the bullet, fueled up at US$.88/liter and left PG 10 days after arrival at about 9 AM. While the weather wasn't awful, neither was it suitable for an easy sail up to Hurghada, so we happily pulled into the very well protected harbor at 9 the next morning. Once again there were several people we know, but they come and go based on their own schedules--some pressured by having to meet people in the Med somewhere--and we enjoyed catching up with a whole new crowd from past travels.
Hurghada is at the foot of the Gulf of Suez about 180 miles from the canal. It is the Egyptian Riviera, and hotels stretch for miles along the coast both north and south. Once again, the desert pretty much comes right up to the water. The marina is right in the center of it all with the usual tourist traps/souvenir shops, etc. I have to admit, however, there are some good deals. I bought a really nice soft sheepskin backpack for about $35 and the replica watches seem to be better and cheaper that the others we've seen. This was another Med-moor but the height and configuration of the dock as well as the future moorings in the Med convinced us a paserelle was in order--that's gangplank for you landlubbers. A real paserelle would be about $2,000, so I bought an aluminum ladder and rigged up a proper footing for it for about $75. Not beautiful, but it works pretty well. How stupid not to have thought of it in Thailand and had a nice one made for cents on the dollar.
We had planned to visit Cairo, the pyramids and Luxor from here but were convinced by others to wait for Cairo 'til we got to Ismailia which is much closer. We did book an awesome 4 day 3 night Nile River cruise starting in Luxor and ending in Aswan. Unlike our Mekong River cruise at triple the cost, this one exceeded our expectations in every respect except the cost of drinks on the ship which was ridiculous. In Luxor, highlights were the Temple of Kharnak and the Valley of the Kings where Tut's and about 61 other pharaohs' tombs are--blazing hot but worth the experience. Stopped at several other temples on the way to Aswan and saw the totally unimpressive Aswan High dam the Russians built. Some other guys went farther south to Abu Simbel where, I'm sure you will recall, they dismantled and reassembled some famous temples, etc. that the lake created by the dam would have flooded and covered. The cabins were very large, really like hotel rooms, and the food was quite good, although all buffet. With our Hurghada purchased wifi card we could even do email and a bit of weather surfing. I now have about ten of these things because every country we visit claims their wifi stick will work everywhere else. "Just put in a new SIM card", they say. Right. It's just like a locked cell phone. Fortunately, these days, in most place it's very cheap for a new one and SIM cards are a dime a dozen. We were surprised at how narrow the Nile, one of the world's great rivers, really was. Overall, we give the cruise a 10 although the 8 hour drive back to Hurghada was tiresome. We left Charlie with a nice Swiss/Italian woman who boards animals out in the desert. It was a nice spot but he's been very affectionate since then. He had his own private apartment, fairly spacious, but we guess he didn't like speaking Arabic or something. Our tour of Cairo, etc. will be fairly short term so we're thinking of leaving him on board for that.
You all know the Egyptians love their coffee, so when our percolators crapped out one would think it would be no problem getting a stovetop percolator or French press--appliances here are 220 and the boat is 110 volt. We spent considerable effort looking but no dice. Hoping to find something in Cairo, but have ordered an electric one from home as well for later delivery. Speaking of deliveries, FedEx has done it again. Prior to arrival in Hurghada, I asked the marina about duty free importation. Most countries allow that if you are a "yacht in transit", which we are. The manager told me as long as the package was marked that way it shouldn't be a problem, so I ordered some essentials like the new VHF antenna and a new halyard as well as some other stuff--about $650 in all. So first of all, in comes my mail from Lizzie--no hold up there, but FedEx just accepted customs $100 duty assessment even though it was only mail and a few boxes of candy worth maybe $50 at the outside. In the meantime, the marina then told me that to get the stuff duty free I would need an agent to the tune of $150-200 so I opted to let the West Marine stuff come in as regular stuff. After all, it's total value was less than the imputed value of Lizzie's. So the boat stuff first got held up for 10 days in London due to the volcano but finally arrived Cairo on the 22nd. To make this story tolerably short, suffice it to say that FedEx basically did nothing to clear it and I still don't have it and they won't give me a refund. I'll get it in Ismailia, I guess, but half the problem is FedEx just sat on it and didn't call me, and the other half, I surmise, is customs is used to getting packages cleared by an agent who is willing to pay baksheesh, and I didn't have one so they kept coming up with excuses to delay clearance. Fortunately, from here on out I will have an in at FedEx as Lizzie has just gotten a job there with a big raise and 75% discount. Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!! And speaking of kids, Joey is temporarily gainfully employed delivering a yacht to Hong Kong. Up in the air after that.
Not wanting to delay departure to Suez any longer and with a favorable weather pattern, we left Hurghada sans FedEx, on Friday. Stopped about 25 miles out for the night at one of the nicest anchorages we've had in the Red Sea and sailed through the following night to arrive Suez yesterday, Sunday. We had already arranged an agent who got us measured (need that to figure the fees) and cleared so here we are Monday midday about halfway through. We'll be stopping shortly and do our remaining touring before finishing the canal and heading over to Israel. And, oh yes, the oil leak is still there. It'll have to wait for Israel. Think I'll give a third country's mechanics a shot at fixing it!!!
Writing this as we start our transit of the Suez Canal. The Red Sea, the worst 1,000 miles we've seen is finally behind us. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
We left you in the aptly named Foul Bay, just south of Egypt hoping for a favorable wind shift. Nah, of course not. Our weather window gone, limping along with one engine and a torn jib into 25 knot headwinds, we were making about 1-1.5 knots which turned our 3 day trip into 4 1/2 and required the ever popular night entry into a new strange port--there was no way we were going to spend another night out after being beaten up so long. Fortunately, we had a previously used "track" on the chart plotter and the port control guys were helpful giving us additional directions, so we tied up at the customs dock in Port Ghalib (PG) at about 8:30 PM. The guys work 24 hours so someone came down and took some of our paperwork, and we left it that we would spend the night on their dock and finish in the morning. What a relief. As an indicator of how rotten the passage up was, when we arrived we looked, and there was Charlie on the dock. This is the same Charlie who has never, ever been off the boat, even with other cats around on the dock in other marinas!!!!
The next morning we finished check-in with the usual payments, and the marina helped us over to a Med-moor spot. PG is relatively new so it was a bit of a travail to get water hooked up, but by mid day we had power, water and the all important wifi, although the latter was better used at one of the free sites at the restaurants. We also got SIM cards, and arranged for a mechanic to look at the continuing oil leak. The marina is mainly a dive resort and the entire area is still under construction as well as a "town", but it really is simply an oasis out in the desert with nothing else around. In the marina complex were several hotels and condos as well as a Pizza Hut and TGIF and a few other restaurants. Beer, outside of happy hour 2 fers, was ridiculous and spirits prohibitively expensive, but at least you could get a drink in a Muslim country.
Older and much wiser, we wanted to wait for a good weather window for the 110 mile trip to Hurghada, but the engine problem forced us to miss the one over that weekend. We did have a few days, however, to catch up with some old friends who had been ahead of us, and a new crowd came in from the south on the same window that the others left on. It took about another week for the weather to be okay and we enjoyed just lolling around. The guy supposedly fixed the engine and I ran it for 4 hours with no apparent loss of oil. Yahoo!!! Egypt has the same fuel deal as all the other Arab countries--one price for locals and one for outsiders. But, we heard the price in Hurghada was even higher, so we bit the bullet, fueled up at US$.88/liter and left PG 10 days after arrival at about 9 AM. While the weather wasn't awful, neither was it suitable for an easy sail up to Hurghada, so we happily pulled into the very well protected harbor at 9 the next morning. Once again there were several people we know, but they come and go based on their own schedules--some pressured by having to meet people in the Med somewhere--and we enjoyed catching up with a whole new crowd from past travels.
Hurghada is at the foot of the Gulf of Suez about 180 miles from the canal. It is the Egyptian Riviera, and hotels stretch for miles along the coast both north and south. Once again, the desert pretty much comes right up to the water. The marina is right in the center of it all with the usual tourist traps/souvenir shops, etc. I have to admit, however, there are some good deals. I bought a really nice soft sheepskin backpack for about $35 and the replica watches seem to be better and cheaper that the others we've seen. This was another Med-moor but the height and configuration of the dock as well as the future moorings in the Med convinced us a paserelle was in order--that's gangplank for you landlubbers. A real paserelle would be about $2,000, so I bought an aluminum ladder and rigged up a proper footing for it for about $75. Not beautiful, but it works pretty well. How stupid not to have thought of it in Thailand and had a nice one made for cents on the dollar.
We had planned to visit Cairo, the pyramids and Luxor from here but were convinced by others to wait for Cairo 'til we got to Ismailia which is much closer. We did book an awesome 4 day 3 night Nile River cruise starting in Luxor and ending in Aswan. Unlike our Mekong River cruise at triple the cost, this one exceeded our expectations in every respect except the cost of drinks on the ship which was ridiculous. In Luxor, highlights were the Temple of Kharnak and the Valley of the Kings where Tut's and about 61 other pharaohs' tombs are--blazing hot but worth the experience. Stopped at several other temples on the way to Aswan and saw the totally unimpressive Aswan High dam the Russians built. Some other guys went farther south to Abu Simbel where, I'm sure you will recall, they dismantled and reassembled some famous temples, etc. that the lake created by the dam would have flooded and covered. The cabins were very large, really like hotel rooms, and the food was quite good, although all buffet. With our Hurghada purchased wifi card we could even do email and a bit of weather surfing. I now have about ten of these things because every country we visit claims their wifi stick will work everywhere else. "Just put in a new SIM card", they say. Right. It's just like a locked cell phone. Fortunately, these days, in most place it's very cheap for a new one and SIM cards are a dime a dozen. We were surprised at how narrow the Nile, one of the world's great rivers, really was. Overall, we give the cruise a 10 although the 8 hour drive back to Hurghada was tiresome. We left Charlie with a nice Swiss/Italian woman who boards animals out in the desert. It was a nice spot but he's been very affectionate since then. He had his own private apartment, fairly spacious, but we guess he didn't like speaking Arabic or something. Our tour of Cairo, etc. will be fairly short term so we're thinking of leaving him on board for that.
You all know the Egyptians love their coffee, so when our percolators crapped out one would think it would be no problem getting a stovetop percolator or French press--appliances here are 220 and the boat is 110 volt. We spent considerable effort looking but no dice. Hoping to find something in Cairo, but have ordered an electric one from home as well for later delivery. Speaking of deliveries, FedEx has done it again. Prior to arrival in Hurghada, I asked the marina about duty free importation. Most countries allow that if you are a "yacht in transit", which we are. The manager told me as long as the package was marked that way it shouldn't be a problem, so I ordered some essentials like the new VHF antenna and a new halyard as well as some other stuff--about $650 in all. So first of all, in comes my mail from Lizzie--no hold up there, but FedEx just accepted customs $100 duty assessment even though it was only mail and a few boxes of candy worth maybe $50 at the outside. In the meantime, the marina then told me that to get the stuff duty free I would need an agent to the tune of $150-200 so I opted to let the West Marine stuff come in as regular stuff. After all, it's total value was less than the imputed value of Lizzie's. So the boat stuff first got held up for 10 days in London due to the volcano but finally arrived Cairo on the 22nd. To make this story tolerably short, suffice it to say that FedEx basically did nothing to clear it and I still don't have it and they won't give me a refund. I'll get it in Ismailia, I guess, but half the problem is FedEx just sat on it and didn't call me, and the other half, I surmise, is customs is used to getting packages cleared by an agent who is willing to pay baksheesh, and I didn't have one so they kept coming up with excuses to delay clearance. Fortunately, from here on out I will have an in at FedEx as Lizzie has just gotten a job there with a big raise and 75% discount. Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!! And speaking of kids, Joey is temporarily gainfully employed delivering a yacht to Hong Kong. Up in the air after that.
Not wanting to delay departure to Suez any longer and with a favorable weather pattern, we left Hurghada sans FedEx, on Friday. Stopped about 25 miles out for the night at one of the nicest anchorages we've had in the Red Sea and sailed through the following night to arrive Suez yesterday, Sunday. We had already arranged an agent who got us measured (need that to figure the fees) and cleared so here we are Monday midday about halfway through. We'll be stopping shortly and do our remaining touring before finishing the canal and heading over to Israel. And, oh yes, the oil leak is still there. It'll have to wait for Israel. Think I'll give a third country's mechanics a shot at fixing it!!!
Okay, enough for now. Please be tantalized as our next instalment will describe our trip up the canal to Ismailia and our vist to Cairo and the Pyramids. Totally cool, fer sure dudes and dudettes. We're leaving tomorrow for Ashkelon, Israel.
Cheers
Tim & Rose
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