Mersa Dudu, Eritrea - Red Sea
March 1 - 7, 2008
by KT

March 1 – 2, 2008

The Bab al-Mandab Straits held up to their reputation of being windy, but again it was nothing unmanageable.  We had to once again cross a major shipping channel, but compared to the Singapore channel this was nothing.  It also helped that we now had AIS so could see the ships, their courses, and speeds from over 30 nautical miles out.

Just after crossing the Straits Chris threw out a fishing line and by 10am on our second morning we had a nice Mahi-Mahi.  We were traveling with a few other boats who all threw out fishing lines after we announced we caught something.  Amazingly within minutes three of the four boats had a fish!  Not even a full day into the Red Sea and it was already living up to its reputation for good fishing.

March 3 – 5, 2008

After two nights at sea we arrived at our first Red Sea anchorage, Mersa Dudu.  High volcanic peaks poked out from an otherwise barren landscape.  The wind accelerated through these peaks and into the anchorage, resulting in more wind inside the anchorage than out!  The anchorage was still comfortable, with now real chop, but loud with 25kts whistling through our rigging.

I had read some compare the landscape of Mersa Dudu to the moon.  I didn’t see it.  To me it is the desert plain and simple – isolated, dry, and brown.  Then again I’ve never been to the moon.

Ironically we hadn’t really given much thought to where we were going to be – it was always just “the Red Sea”.  It wasn’t until Mersa Dudu that it dawned on us that we were actually in Africa, the place I’d wanted to visit since I was a kid.  Another continent, another country.  For us this was when we truly realized that the Red Sea would not be some place to speed through but rather a place to explore.  Later we acknowledged that there were two types of cruisers traversing through – those that would just go-go-go, perhaps only considering Egypt as any type of real destination, using the Red Sea merely as a highway, the anchorages as pit stops, and those that saw the Red Sea (and its many anchorages/countries) as a destination in itself.  Who would take the time to see and explore.  The other great thing about our realization was that we finally remembered that we have a Lonely Planet Guide for Africa!  All this time we thought we’d just have to wing it, but all of a sudden Chris looks in our big shelf and says “hey this is where we are!” 

Not that we really need Lonely Planet to tell us that we were currently in “an inhospitable volcanic and rock desert” or that this area was “desolate and harsh in the extreme”.  Still it was fun to learn that we were currently in a region reputed to be one of the hottest places on earth!

We spent three days in Mersa Dudu, mostly waiting for better weather.  Regrettably Chris and I both came down with something (most likely food poisoning) and spent a large portion of our time sick as dogs and unable to go ashore.

Our friends hiked to the top of one of the smaller volcanic peaks, which offered great views over the bays (photo right by Stardust).  On our third day Chris was healthy enough to at least go ashore and do some beach & rock walking.

March 6 - 7 , 2008

What we soon began to learn about the Red Sea as that there is either no wind or a lot of wind.  We departed Dudu on the 6^th for an overnight trip to Port Smythe.  Throughout the day and night we’d either be motoring in about 5 kts or sailing reefed down in about 25 kts.  There was rarely anything in-between.  The good news is that since we were still in the Southern section of the Red Sea we still had southerly winds, so everything came from behind.

We caught two more fish, a gigantic Trevally and a good-sized Spanish Mackerel.  After our fishing draught of Indonesia we were in heaven!

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