Egypt
Posted at 3:48 PM, Jun. 27, 2010
It is now Friday 25th June and we are in Port Said which is all closed up for the Muslim Sabbath. We returned last night from a two day tour to Cairo which was well worth while and I will cover that shortly.
Following Balder a Norwegian rally yacht down the Suez Canal.
We had a good sail from Ashkelon to Port Said and covered what was around a 135 mile passage in 19 hours having sailed most of the way. We left Ashkelon on Monday morning with the final group of larger boats and were soon battling with Australian yacht Koza as Jim is fiercely competitive and has been out to show us that he has a faster boat. On a two sail reach in around 10 knots we slowly pulled ahead trailed for a while by an Israeli gunboat who called us up on the radio as were passing an offshore oil or gas platform – they were very friendly though. As the wind veered we were able to get the A sail up and then it was bye bye Koza and the other boats from Group 6. I think Jim has finally accepted we are a quicker boat. We carried the A sail for some hours and then as the wind lightened and we being headed we dropped that and resorted to motor sailing for a couple of hours as we needed to ensure we hit the correct arrival time for entry into the Suez Canal. Managed to head up wind and slow the boat down sufficiently for a swim before dusk and then as the wind built we were able to two sail reach at 7.5 to 8 knots all the way to the designated anchorage off Port Said where we dropped anchor at around 0400 hrs. Around that time a 30 knot SW developed and that meant a windward bash for the boats that had not yet arrived. During the night we passed close to a huge offshore gas platform that was well lit but was apparently secured by four unlit steel mooring buoys. We spotted the buoys on the radar and passed within 100 metres of one but a Halberg Rassy 44 “Walkabout Two” managed to hit one square on - the result was that the bottom of the stemhead was pushed right through the bow and they were well and truly holed but at least it was above the waterline. After passing the platform we passed through dozens of fishing boats that were either stationary or fishing and displaying a large variety of completely illegal lights. But all the fleet managed to successfully manoeuvre and dodge them during the night – this is when radar comes into its own. This leg is a long one for the smaller boats as effectively over about 5 days there is 280 miles of sailing all to spend two days in Cairo. The small boats are a lot slower and can easily spend several hours more on a passage than us and mostly are crewed by just husband and wife – you have to admire them.
Container ship in Suez Canal
The other bit of rally news is that Bruce off Kiwi Volant who fell and broke his arm just before the start of the rally has now had the plaster off but one of the pins is very close to the surface – the advice has been wait until it breaks the skin and then pull it out with a pair of clean pliers! Or the alternative - go to hospital and have it reset but he is a tough guy from the Hawkes Bay so they sailed on to Port Said with the rally. One of the boats (Manca – and you can guess what that rhymes with!) with reportedly a paying crew on board (against rally rules) have had a few defections as crew peeled off to find spare berths on other boats. His style of sailing is intriguing to many as he never puts up his mainsail! The final piece of rally news is that Jackie off UK boat Arwen (a Hanse 411) was lighting the oven the other evening and a gas flare back resulted in her blouse catching fire but fortunately the resulting burns while painful were not serious.
The last night at Ashkelon was yet another formal dinner with plenty of speeches and a couple of girls providing entertainment as Brazilian dancers i.e. not wearing much . Great for the guys, not so sure about the wives. The kiwi contingent led by Chris, Pam and me also performed the haka which we had been practicing for some weeks – that seemed to be a hugh success particularly with the French. There are some photographs which are being emailed to me so I can post one here once it has passed the appropriate scrutiny and received any necessary photoshop work.
Entering the Suez Canal proved to be a complex process that took several hours but eventually the whole fleet was in line and we entered the canal as several large ships stood by off Port Said. The place was bedlam as the fishing boats that we had passed through overnight all started streaming back into port and in some case were still towing nets up the canal while we were trying to dodge ships, ocean going tugs, cross canal ferries and the numerous other vessels of all shapes and sizes that were moving around. Eventually we managed to get into the berthing area known as the Arsenal Basin which is a security controlled area and very dirty and dusty. It is quite surreal to sit on board and watch huge container ships pass by – although no transiting is permitted at night. The canal is 122 k’s long, 25 metres deep and up to 400 metres wide and built in 1864.
The principal reason for coming to Port Said was not to visit the fastest growing port in the world but to visit the second largest city in the world - after Mexico. Cairo at 22 million people is vast and around 250 k’s from Port Said. So we piled into three buses (with an armed guard on each bus) and proceeded towards Cairo preceded by an armed police escort with all side streets and traffic lights shut off to let us pass through. We could only assume that this high level of protection was a response to the terrorist attack on some tourists some years ago at the pyramids.
The Giza pyramids
So our convey of buses and accompanying guards drove along the edge of the Suez Canal for a while and it is quite a sight to see huge container ships gliding by 100 metres or so away with the Sinai Desert on the other side The area here is very poor and the housing looks dreadful but noticeable because of the presence of cylindrical shaped pigeon houses that stand several metres high. Our guide said they are bred for eating – not sure whether they are part of a restaurant supply line or whether they are bred for home consumption.
Where the locals breed their pigeons
The Nile is the only river in Egypt and they appear to be taking one awful lot of water from it with numerous man-made draw offs including pumping water in a tunnel under the Suez Canal to the Simai region. I wonder how long this can be sustained?
First stop in Cairo was the Egyptian Museum that amongst many other antiquities houses finds from Tutankhamen’s tomb. There are 1,700 items on display including the incredible death mask made of solid gold. This guy was a ruler from the age of 9 in 1327 BC for nine years until he died at the age of 18. The jewellery in his tomb consisted of many valuables including 11 kilograms of gold jewellery. He was a relatively insignificant ruler and the discovery of his tomb in 1926 is important as it was in its original state and not looted. Imagine what the tombs of Ramses must have contained – reputedly ¾ of a ton of gold jewellery!!. The museum also has the Royal Mummy Room where the actual mummies of 11 of Egypt’s rulers are on display. The museum contains hundreds and hundreds of huge exhibits from many archaeological sites and apparently only 25% of what has been found is on display.
The museum was followed by a visit to yet another mosque ( the Mohammed Ali Mosque) which was impressive as they all are. Like all religious groups the Muslims seem intent on building huge mosques as before them the Christians built huge cathedrals. I think we have done enough mosques this trip! After this it was a trip to the local Souk where Pam finally bought a houka pipe which she has been looking to do for weeks. So now we have yet another bag to carry back to NZ complete with all the right bits! Maybe one of the more expensive houka pipes sold in the souk that day.
The Mohammed Ali Mosque in Cairo
From here we drove through the outskirts of Cairo to our hotel for the night near the Giza pyramids – and as we got nearer we could see them in the distance between various of the high rise buildings. The first sighting was pretty exciting as the scale of them is beyond belief and even more so as they are built on an elevated plateau. On the other side of the pyramids is the desert but the suburbs of Cairo are virtually right to them. We were told there are 107 pyramids in Egypt but these ones are the only surviving wonder of the Ancient World and were built more than 4,000 years ago. The area is surrounded by touts selling any and everything and they have all the tricks known to mankind! We reckoned this was akin to an asset stripping operation i.e. we have the cash and they take it. They (the pyramids not the touts) were covered marble originally but most of that was removed over 100 years ago to be used in buildings in Cairo – what a tragedy.
Just a couple of hundred metres away from the pyramids is the Spinx carved from one huge piece of limestone. No one appears to know the reason for it being carved but it is also around 4,000 years old and very impressive.
Posing for the Spinx with a Pyramid looking on.
After a few hours wandering around the pyramids and the Spinx (and being relieved of some Euro’s) and also riding camels we headed back to Port Said by bus with our armed ecorts. We stopped on the way back at the Ismailia Yacht Club where they provided us with a free beer (non-alcoholic). This yacht club is situated on a lake about half way down the Suez Canal which is now opened to the canal and it is possible to moor there for a night of longer It used to be a fresh water lake with crocodiles among its residents. A couple of 100ft multihulls stopped while we were there one of them being Ellen Mcarthur’s old B & Q which she sailed single-handed around the world in record time a few years ago.
We have one day of relaxation left in Port Said, another formal dinner and then on Saturday morning we exit the canal and have a 140 mile sail to Herzliya in Israel – this is a major marina just out of Tel Aviv.
Cheers
Keith