15 March 2020 – Suakin Sudan and Northbound
We stopped in Suakin Sudan for only a few days. With the normally strong Northerly winds that blow through down from the Med to the Red Sea, we are finding ourselves following a pattern of “move North when the wind is light or non-existent”. We found ourselves at Port Suakin for exactly 3 days. The first two days, I didn’t even get off the boat. I was occupied with taking on 800L of fuel in jerry cans.
I found the people of Sudan to be polite, warm and open. There is very little English spoken here, or in the signs. Unfortunately, this country has suffered from being labelled by the USA as a country that supports International terrorism. Its a paradox that Saudi Arabia hasn’t been identified in the same manner, particularly when ALL of the hijackers that crashed those two airliners into the World Trade Centre in 2001 and killed nearly 3000 people – were all citizens of Saudi Arabia. Its something to think about.
The shore agent is Mohamed, and he has a solid reputation for supporting cruisers as they pass through Suakin. He supported us, and my only wish was that we could have stuck around longer, to see more of his country. Sadly, our weather window was upon us, and we were hastened to move on. This is a photo of our friend Steve together with Mohamed.
We’re getting less sunlight in the day as we move North, and we also notice its getting colder. In India, we were used to daily temperatures of 32-34C, and in Sudan, its more like 21-28C, due largely to that cool wind blowing from the North. The water temperature is noticeably cooler, and it seems that we’re less enthusiastic about going into the seawater every day. Its quite a bit colder. There is always sand in the wind, and it will take months to get the boat clean.
Our first stop was labelled as the best anchorage in the Red Sea, Khoo Shinab, about 166nm North of Suakin and about 290nm South of Port Ghalib Egypt. The anchorage was large, barren, and nearly devoid of any sign of human existence. This was our view as we entered this deep and well protected anchorage, the site of an ancient riverbed.
On arrival, we saw a couple of bedouins walking on shore, and I think they were fishermen. We also saw camels wandering around, but never seemed to be able to get a good photo. The reefs were amongst the best we’ve ever seen with abundant fish and brilliant corals. There was no internet though, not a whiff.
Since we don’t own a drone, we had to get an “overhead view” the old fashioned way, by walking up the mountain. The views were spectacular!
A few days before leaving, Gabriel discovered that there was an engine coolant leak, that worked out to be about 20 drops per minute. I fretted over this for more than 24 hours, and we had Gabriel and Mariona apply many layers of epoxy putty over the suspect area. The result – it leaks very little when the engine starts cold, but after a few minutes stops leaking altogether. Hopefully, this is an issue that can be examined more closely later on “down the road”.
We motored the next 310nm directly to Port Ghalib Egypt and arrived on 14 March, just two hours before a whopper of a storm!