This is the route taken by Long
Passages through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Overall we had a good
passage with mostly southerly winds or light northerly winds.
Long
Passages'
Route
and Stops through the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea
Destination |
Country |
Position*
See note below |
#
Overnights from previous stop |
Comments |
Salalah
Harbor |
Oman |
16�56.27N
54�00.28E |
12 |
Arrived from Uligan, Maldives
after a mostly light air passage. Secure ,but small anchorage in
a commercial port. |
Aden Harbor |
Yemen |
12�47.49N
44�58.79E |
2-3 |
We traveled very slowly to
time our arrival on the edge of the dangerous piracy zone at dusk so
that we could go thru that area at night. Secure anchorage
in commercial port. |
Small Strait - Bab El Mandeb |
Yemen |
|
1 |
Small strait between Perim
Island and Yemen coast no problems this year. We did confirm that
it was OK to transit this strait with the Aden Harbour master before departing Aden. |
Assab Harbor |
Eritrea |
13�00.17N
42�44.68E |
|
Deserted small port.
Reasonable shelter behind a breakwater. |
Ras Terma |
Eritrea |
13�11.65N
42�29.26E |
|
OK shelter but very gusty next
to a small rock island with a large and noisy gannet colony. |
Mersa Dudo |
Eritrea |
13�51.89N
41�54.34E |
|
Secure anchorage and very good holding in 35-40+
kts. of wind. Anchor as close to the beach as you are comfortable
with. Small huts on shore. Not very picturesque. |
Shumma Island (Port Smythe) |
Eritrea |
|
2 |
This is truly a desert island
with no trees and virtually no inhabitants. Small reef anchorage. We
did not stop here, but included this because most other boats did
stop. |
Massawa
Harbor |
Eritrea |
15�36.00N
39�27.70E |
|
Very good shelter in an
anchorage at the back of the commerical port. People and officials
very friendly. |
Eagle Island |
Sudan |
18�43.93N
37�40.99E |
2 |
Reasonable shelter from either
Northerlies or Southerlies. Very small island - protected by reefs
and Sudan mainland. |
Long Island |
Sudan |
18�46.51N
37�39.44E |
|
Beautiful island with
flamingos - protected by reefs. |
Shubuk Channel |
Sudan |
|
|
Shortcut channel, mainly
behind reefs, to Suakin. Can be challenging if strong northerly
winds. We had 20-25 northerlies, but motor-sailed through it
OK. Must be very careful with waypoints, using eyeball navigation. |
Marsa Esh Sheikh Ibraham |
Sudan |
18�52.81N
37�.24.83E |
|
Lovely protected anchorage
behind a large reef. We anchored close to the mangroves. |
Suakin Harbor |
Sudan |
19�06.48N
37�20.24E |
|
Very sheltered picturesque, if
somewhat small, anchorage at the back of the small commerical
port. Wonderful ruins and "bibical" village. |
Port Sudan |
Sudan |
19�36.50N
37�13.35E |
|
Large, dirty commerical
port. Small anchorage for yachts at the back next to the container
ship dock. |
Marsa Fijab |
Sudan |
20�01.99N
37�11.56E |
|
Beautiful,
reef-protected anchorage with nesting ospreys, flamingos and other
birds. |
Khor Shinab |
Sudan |
21�20.97N
37�00.62E |
2 |
Fabulous anchorage
approximately 2 nm at the end of the khor. Do climb the
hill in late afternoon to view the changing colors of the desert
landscape. |
Sharm Luli |
Egypt |
24�34.3N
35�17.1E |
2 |
Nice marsa anchorage with good
protection and holding. You will be visited by the Egyptian
military, but they said we could stay as long as we wanted. No
facilities, but there are people you can get fuel and provisions for
you. They will usually visit you boat and are very nice. |
Safaga (Ras Abu Soma) |
Egypt |
26�49.82N
33�57.16E |
|
We by- passed Safaga in favor
of anchoring at Ras Abu Soma because we were planning to check in at
Hurghada. Lots of coral but good protection and holding. |
Hurghada |
Egypt |
27�13.7N
33�50.7E |
|
Horrible anchorage with bad
holding near the fishing and ferry docks. But you must anchor here
to check in. Try to get there early so that you have time to
travel up to Abu Tig Marina or onto one of the anchorages in the Gulf of
Suez. We arrived late in the day, so had to spend the night
here. Luckily the wind was light and we had no problems. Fantasia agents of
minimal use, but difficult to check in on your own. After
contacting them, you must go in and pick up the agent to bring out to
your boat. |
El Gouna - Abu Tig Marina |
Egypt |
27�24.44N
33�40.54E |
|
First class marina and a
welcome stop after the sandstorms and rough passage up the Red Sea.
Go stern or bow-to seawall and tail to moorings. The marina staff
will come in dingys to help you get tied up. |
Port Suez |
Egypt |
29�56.8N
32�34.4E |
1 |
You must tie up between 2
moorings, so have bow and stern lines ready. Interesting anchorage as
you watch the convoys of ships move north and south in the Suez Canal. |
Ismailia |
Egypt |
30�35.1N
32�16.3E |
|
Lovely place with good water,
fuel available and good provisioning within walking distance of the
marina in "western" like supermarket. Also internet places
around town. Tie stern to the quay with line to mooring float. There can
be some violent motion at the quay due to tugs and pilot boats moving in
the area. Also it may be best to drop an anchor since the mooring floats
are not anchored very securely. |
Port Said |
Egypt |
31�15.4N
32�18.9E |
|
Horrible "marina" at
exorbitant price, but may be unavoidable if you decide to do your
checkout of Egypt here. It is possible to checkout of Egypt in Port Suez
but you will not be allowed to leave the yacht club grounds in Ismailia.
Even if you just tie up to checkout, you will be charged for a night�s
berthage. If you do decide to tie up, you tie stern to between the 2
rusted, concrete finger piers, dropping an anchor. The trick is to stay
far enough away from the piers, but still allow access ashore. The
holding for the anchor is good. Lots of motion due to pilot boats, tugs
and fishing boats. |
*CAUTION:
These positions are where we ANCHORED or MOORED
- NOT the position of the entrance to the area. Please
consult the Red Sea Pilot for those waypoint positions. This information
is NOT to be used for navigation.
Guidebooks:
- Be sure you have the latest edition of the Red Sea
Pilot from Imray. Also pick up the Turkey Pilot and Greek Pilot before leaving
Thailand as it is nearly impossible to find them in Turkey.
- f would also be a good idea to pick up Lonely Planet
or
similar guides for the Middle East, Egypt and Turkey as, again, it is
impossible to find them in English after Thailand if you find them at all.
|
Radio Nets:
We were part of an informal radio net called "The
Red Sea Net" on USB 8173. It was started initially by a boat called Skive
and at it's peak had approximately 20 yachts heading north in the Red Sea
participating. The most important part of the net was the weather information
reported by boats ahead of us. So it is very important to start a radio
net and then try to keep it going up through the Suez Canal so that information
can be shared by all boats, especially those ahead and behind you.
Motoring:
There is a lot of motoring involved in the trip up the
Red Sea. You will be lucky if you get any southerly winds north of Massawa,
Eritrea. So you must be prepared to motor into light northerly winds or sail in
any strong southerly winds that make their way up from Bab el Mandeb. Several
boats had engine and transmission problems so be sure that both of these items
are in good working order. It is very difficult to get competent mechanical work
done or the appropriate parts once you leave Thailand.
Weather Info:
The Buoyweather service supplied weather forecast
emails "free of charge" to one boat in this net who volunteered to
receive them and broadcast this info to the other boats participating in the
net. We subscribed to Buoyweather before leaving Thailand and received fairly
accurate email forecasts from this service. The direction of the wind was not
always 100% accurate, but the strength was usually correct. Email us if you want
to know how to do this because the commands for receiving Red Sea weather are not
stated on their webpage.
Buoyweather was not as accurate in the Gulf of Suez. The
winds were usually 15-20 knots higher than predicted and were always from the
northerly quantrant. We continually checked weatheronline (www.weatheronline.co.uk)
and Mediterranean weather (www.mediterraneanweather.com) at an internet
cafe in order to find a weather window for travelling up the Gulf.
We looked for a low pressure in the Med over the entrance to the Suez
Canal. This usually meant very light winds, but you must be prepared to
move quickly as the "window" usually closed after 1 to 3 days.
If these conditions are predicted to last a few days, we usually waited 1 day to
see if the prediction was correct and to give us time to check out. Then
we made an overnight sprint up the Gulf to Port Suez and made it there in about
30 hours. We had light winds for most of the way until the last 5 hours when we
had 25 knots of headwinds - uncomfortable, but we were able to slowly motor-tack
into these winds. In many cases the winds were higher in Hurghada then
they were once you were in the Gulf.
The major milestones on this passage were:
|
- 12 May 2003 - Reached Abu Tig Marina - El Gouna
Resort Hurghada, Egypt
|
|
|
Giving a Helping Hand
- Click here to see our suggestions on how to help those you will
meet along the way. |