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Published: October 23rd 2009
Early on 21 October the ship rose early, took on board the pilot and extra crew, and took its place in the southbound convoy for the Suez canal. It took us the whole day to transit and with this and the northbound convoy we must have seen 40 big ships using the amazingly narrow strip of water. Strange to see completely barren flat desert on the Sinai side and relatively lush oasis on the Nile side. Through the canal the boats are separated by 5 minutes but at the Bitter Lakes the southbound let the northbound convoy pass and we got to see them all. Some massive container ships. We passed under the centre of the Peace Bridge with 1.5m to spare above our main mast. The Star Clipper led the convoy out of the southern section, perhaps because our draft is less and the tide was flooding. The canal merges with the Gulf without fanfare and the rest of the convoy passed us over the next hours. Rugged barren mountains straight into the sea beautiful as we sailed down the African coast. The wind picked up in the evening and all the next day. During the night a sail ripped
which put paid to Cath and my sleep on deck. Luckily the wind continued from the stern (up to 30kts) so we just cruised under one or two squares. The seas got to about 2.5m I reckon. The skipper decided to make more easterly before sunset which led onto some stern quarter action. Some people spilt their drinks! We basically hung around (hove-to) all night and entered the port of Sharm El- Sheikh just after dawn. South Sinai has stark sand- coloured, high rugged mtns to the water with no vegetation at all. We opted to dive today in the Gulf of Aqaba rather than see St. Catherine's monastery built where Moses saw the burning bush (tough call!). This was a great call as the snorkeling was amongst the best Greg had done - rivaling Lady Musgrave lagoon! We snorkeled at three bays (including Marsa Gzlani and Bireka), along with other snorkelers and divers of course. The water was warm, crystal clear and inky blue, with schools of bright coloured fish. The reef healthy and with very little litter despite a heavy tourist presence. The last spot had a reef wall, or drop-off with divers, reef and fish of many
sizes and colours visible perhaps 30m down and no wacky currents. Excellent day!
Tonight we sail to Safaga and take the excursion to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. We lose about half of the passengers at this point leaving about 75 passengers for the crossing.
Without going into the details at this stage we are comfortable that Star Clipper is well prepared to discourage piratical advances.
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