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Published: January 14th 2011
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8th & 9th Jan – Days 99 & 100 – Feluccas
Felucca along the Nile River. Something you don’t get to do everyday, and we got to spend 2 nights on it. Today we left Aswan, but we did get a nice sleep-in. We checked out of our hotel at 10:30am, ready to get on the felucca’s at 11am. We actually had to get on another ‘water taxi’ to where we jumped on the camels the previous night, as Ashraf was the owner of the feluccas. There were 3 feluccas for 22 people, so we got to spread out across, with our felucca only having 6 people on it. The feluccas are the old Egyptian-style sailing boat as you will see by the pics, with one sail attached to a mast, and a big ‘boom’ that swings either side of a separate ‘mast.’ Ours also had instead of seats, slats laid across the seats to make it one big bed really. This bed had mattresses laid over it, and an awning to keep out most sun, so we were all very excited about the few days ahead. All laid out, we set off, with our ‘captain’ sailing, and each boat had
a young ‘apprentice’ who just got yelled at a lot really!!
After setting off, it was a bit breezy, which was fairly normal, but after a while, it really picked up… a lot. And it was against us, so that made it even harder. These boats are nearly exactly how they were made originally, which made it really hard to head up wind, and so after a while all the captains decided to pull up early for lunch. Unfortunately for our captain, our boat had some twisted wires, so it made it nearly impossible to turn left, when we were about to make one more turn to head into shore, the boat just didn’t want to turn. We tried a few times, and it wouldn’t go round, and we were heading straight towards a sand bank. We got stuck, so the young apprentice had to pull the sail down. It was a bit hard work, so Mischa gave a hand which was greatly appreciated, and after a while, we drifted off the bank and headed across the current of the river to where all the other boats were waiting. When we arrived, we found out that one of the other
boats had come up onto shore, and then the second boat had come into bank too fast and run right up the back of the first boat, putting a massive crack in the rudder. This meant that after having lunch, we couldn’t really head anywhere, and the wind picked up even more. So, we got comfy, and stayed there the night. After having the afternoon off, it was soon time for the fancy dress dinner we had all prepared for in Aswan. Mischa got into his nice two-part ‘suit’, and Jess put on her top and joined the party on shore. Everyone looked pretty good, with some opting for less, and others putting a bit of effort into it. There were a few double ups, with Mischa’s being the only perfect duplicate with someone else, but he didn’t keep it on for too long as it was not his sort of thing. There was a nice fire going, and we had dinner round it, enjoying the peacefulness of being on the shore. Soon enough the guys brought out their drums and started singing… some traditional Nubian music and some good old campfire songs like “In the Jungle” and “She’ll by
coming round the mountain”… an interesting night all in all… we went to bed hoping that in the morning the wind would have died down and we would be able to continue! Unfortunately when we woke up the wind was still quite strong. The guys had managed to get another till for the rudder but didn’t put it on until about 10am, by then the wind had died down and we were able to keep going. The morning ended up being beautiful for sailing. Before lunch we sailed further north and under the big bridge. This was a little complicated as the masts were too tall, so they had to be dropped in order to sail under. Here in Egypt the sailors leave everything until the last minute, but we did make it. On the other side we almost collected one of the other feluccas as their sail got caught on our mast…nothing bad resulted though and we continued a little further before pulling over on a small beach on the west bank for a toilet stop and lunch. Unfortunately, after lunch the sun became very still, so we just went with the current… Around 4:30pm we pulled up to
a nice beach our camp for the night. Camping on the feluccas was great, the captain pulled a large blanket all around the sides of the canopy so it was pretty much like a tent, we had a comfy mattress (same as during the day), our sleeping bags (also used during the day) and pillows. The sun set and we shared another beautiful meal and an early night. Tomorrow we planned to start early.
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