Chapter 17 EXODUS - the escape from Egypt
I'm writing this in Northern Greece at the beginning of July, 2008. So you know we and ALIESHA made it! In fact, we've been away from Egypt for three months now, learning to relax and to enjoy the cruising lifestyle again. But before I tell you how it went, let me take you back a year, to the time that Pam and I flew back to England on 21st June 2007.
We had been away for over a year and so we were really looking forward to seeing our family and friends again. We had a new grandson, Luca, to meet, born on April 6th and so already ten weeks old. After so many months in desert lands it was wonderful to travel through the lush green English countryside as we drove a rented car down to our daughter's home near Lymington. Pam even remarked that "it would be nice to see a drop of rain"! The heavens duly obliged and it hardly stopped until the middle of August, but we don't really think we were to blame for that dismal spell of weather.
But, weather apart, two black clouds overshadowed everything. One was the plight of poor ALIESHA, laid up in Hurghada on the Red Sea coast of Egypt and needing a new engine. The other was my health. During our time in Port Ghalib, some time in early May of 2007, I began to experience chest pains which seemed likely to be angina. I had decided to press on with our efforts to get ALIESHA though the Suez Canal but the pains got worse and in the end this was a major factor in our decision to return home for a spell.
There was also the small matter of where we might live. Our flat in Marlow was rented until mid October, Luca's arrival meant there was no spare room in our daughter's place and we firmly believe with Benjamin Franklin that "guests, like fish, stink after three days".
Our good friends Sally and Martin solved the immediate accommodation problem by offering us the use of their home in Boldre, just outside Lymington, for the month of July while they were away sailing. We then rented a little house just off Lymington High Street and bought an old car to enable us to get around.
The medical profession were soon on my case and on August 3rd I had a badly blocked artery cleared by an angioplasty procedure and was instantly returned to normal fitness.
All of this allowed us to concentrate on sourcing a new engine and making sure that we would be able to import it into Egypt free of duty as a "replacement part for a vessel in transit". More on this shortly.
Sourcing the new engine
We had no wish to change manufacturer and Volvo Penta had a suitable engine, the D2-55 which, they assured us, would fit the existing engine mounts, an important consideration. They referred us to DB Marine, a dealer based in Cookham, who sell and ship a lot of engines around the globe. The staff there were most helpful and answered our many questions unhesitatingly. As for the formalities, they promised us there would be no problems. They used a shipping agent who had a partner in Egypt and would know exactly the correct process to follow.
We had considered sourcing the new engine from the Volvo Penta distributor in Cairo. The overall costs, delivered to the dockside in Hurghada, were surprisingly close. However, the contacts we had there were always slow to respond to questions, making us think they had little or no experience with this size of engine. The final clincher came when I asked for a categoric, written assurance that the price I had been quoted was the final amount and that no further sums would be required. I never received a reply!
So, early in August, we placed an order on DB Marine for a new engine to be delivered to ALIESHA in Hurghada on or about 28th September. I stressed, both verbally and in writing, the paramount need for the shipping agents to get the process right. I was told not to worry.
At this point I should explain that there is an international agreement to which most countries subscribe that a vessel in transit through the waters of a foreign country may bring replacement parts into that country without paying duty. We had made use of this protocol in Egypt earlier to bring in parts. Our only question was whether a much more expensive item such as an engine had special conditions attached. Normally an Agent is needed to handle the clearance of the goods from Customs and the transportation to the vessel. A Customs official will accompany the parts to the vessel, will witness them being placed on board and will require various forms to be completed. Some fees arise from all of this, but mostly these are lower than the duty which would otherwise be payable and that was certainly the case with an engine.
The shipping agents used by DB Marine asked us to write a letter explaining why we wanted to bring a new engine into Egypt. This we did and it was passed to the Egyptian shipping agent, who said it was just what was needed. DB Marine then had it stamped by the local Chamber of Commerce and then sent to the Egyptian Embassy in London who also stamped it. This, we were told, was all the paperwork that would be needed apart from the commercial invoice for the goods themselves.
So we confirmed our return flights to Cairo and on to Hurghada for the 21st September, to give us time to do the necessary preparatory work. A good friend, Steve Baguley offered to fly out to help and we gladly accepted for his mechanical skills are greater than mine. We figured that if he arrived on the 26th September, we could lift the old engine on the 27th, take delivery of the new one on the 28th and fit it in the next three days. He was able to get a cheap charter flight directly to Hurghada, allowing us a week to complete the job.
Importing the engine
The day before we were due to fly out I received a rather panicky call from DB Marine asking me to call the UK shipping agents to discuss additional documentation to go with the engine. I did so reluctantly, since it blurred the lines of responsibility through the supply chain but was prevailed upon to do so in order to speed up the process.
It seemed that the Egyptian Agent, Nile Globe by name, now said they would need our passports, the ship's papers, the document from Hurghada Customs which showed we had complied with all requirements in entering Egypt and that particular port and the receipt to prove we had paid the necessary dues. Photo-copies were not acceptable. Only originals would do. I was furious and demanded to know why this had only just become known. There was no answer. I also asked how we were supposed to send the originals of these documents when we ourselves were about to travel and needed the passports in order to do so. I was asked to call Nile Globe in Egypt to talk the matter through.
Ahmed at Nile Globe had quite good English but could only repeat that he had to have the originals of the documents, plus another letter from us explaining our reasons for wanting to import an engine without paying duty. This letter would need to be stamped by the British Embassy in Cairo.
We agreed to meet in Cairo at our hotel the following morning to try to make sense of it all.
After that meeting we were convinced that Ahmed had totally failed to do his homework and still did not really understand the process to be followed. Against that we felt he genuinely wanted to help sort out the mess and was our best hope of a good outcome. We agreed to complete our journey to Hurghada, where we could obtain the originals of the Customs document he needed and an "original" receipt (we did not have one). We said we were willing to return to Cairo with our passports and the other documents. He promised to keep on trying to simplify the process and told us not to worry!. He also suggested the engine remained in the UK so as to avoid storage charges in the Customs shed at Cairo airport.
Back to Hurghada
It felt surprisingly good to be back in Hurghada. The
marina staff gave us a warm welcome. ALIESHA was in great condition, her
decks and hull showing the signs of regular and enthusiastic washing down (even
if the deck broom had lost its head) Stall holders remembered Pam, and the
guys in the welding shop who had made the outboard bracket were pleased to see
us back again. A crane was organised for the engine lifting. We moved to a
berth at the top of the marina where we would not suffer the wash of passing
boats and I was able to remove the Webasto hot air heating system and the
water-maker from above the old engine without much trouble and generally make
all ready to take the old engine out. Our friend Steve arrived and with
his help and a skilled mobile crane driver we removed the broken engine in
half a day.
Now all we needed was the new engine. We had bought an Egyptian SIM card for our mobile phone and with calls, SMS messages and emails had frequent contact with Ahmed at Nile Globe. He proudly told us that there was no need for an extra letter, stamped by the British Embassy. The next day we sent him our passports and all the other originals by courier, fervently hoping we would see them again.
Still the new engine stayed in Heathrow.
We re-lined the engine room insulation with heavy duty aluminium foil, glued on with contact adhesive. We cleaned away all traces of dirt and grease from the engine room and fixed everything on the ship's job list. Still no engine.
By now it was clear that Steve would either have to prolong his visit or return home without helping to fit the new engine. Happily he agreed to stay another week and we bought him a single ticket home since his charter flight was not moveable. And then, progress. Ahmed phoned to say that we would have to post a bond of some #15000 Egyptian Pounds, about #1500 sterling. This would be returned some five days after the engine had been fitted. If we agreed, he would instruct the UK to ship the engine and we should have it in two or three days.
We did agree and I emailed our bank to ask them to make the necessary transfer.
The following day Ahmed called us early. Posting the bond was not a good idea, he said. He was concerned that we would have great difficulty recovering all of it. Also it might still take several days to get the engine to Hurghada. He wished to propose an alternative way to proceed. If I would send him just 4000 Egyptian Pounds (about #400 sterling) he would arrange that the engine arrived 48 hours later. The only thing was that I would not get a receipt and I wouldn't get any of the money back.
I didn't care. This was Egypt. This is how business is done out there. I got his bank details, cancelled the transfer from the UK which luckily had not yet gone through and went into town to deposit the necessary in the local branch of Ahmed's bank. True to his word, the engine arrived two days later, sealed in the back of a small truck and accompanied by a Customs officer from Cairo and a representative of Nile Globe. A posse of four local Customs men also arrived in a separate car. We were in business!
Well, not quite. For us to take delivery of the engine the Customs officers had to cut the wire which sealed the doors. They had nothing which would do the job. So out came our bolt cutters and there it was, sitting in its crate and so nearly ours...........
First, though, I was asked what I was going to do with the old engine. "Leave it here" I started to say but the Marina management said "Take it with you". So I said I would take it with me, which caused all the officials to jump back in their vehicles and disappear along with our engine in order to change some of the paperwork. Were we frustrated!
One and a half hours later the team returned with our engine and new paperwork. I signed several forms, without having much idea what they contained. The engine was manhandled into the bucket of a tractor shovel and deposited gently on the quay. Baksheesh in the form of several packs of cigarettes was distributed and there we were, only a week late and several bad moments to look back on.
The engine and all its bits were fine and we had it ready to install by the end of that afternoon. The crane turned up the following morning only an hour after we had requested it and quickly and skillfully lowered the engine onto the new mountings. As Volvo Penta had said, the footprint matched that of the old engine. However, the height of the front mountings was quite different and there was no way we could get a nut on top of the mounting bolts.
A hasty call and the crane was summoned back. Out came the engine and was put back on its pallet. We needed a way to raise the front engine mountings by 20 mm. Hisham, the Assistant Marina Manager agreed to see what his contacts could do and returned that night with two plates of the required thickness, with holes for the bolts that secured the engine mounts. These had been crudely hacked from a slab of mild steel with a flame torch and not even shown a grinder but they did fit and we had some galvanising paint so after a quick spray in they went. The next morning, back came the crane, in went the engine (we were all getting quite good at this by now) and to our delight Steve could line up the coupling and bolt the engine down. We were back in business.
Except that when Steve pressed the starter button, nothing happened, barring the click of the starter solenoid. The engine start battery had failed and would not hold a charge.
Last September was Ramadan, the month-long festival of the Muslim faith. It was drawing to its end and that means a five day holiday with people closing businesses, travelling to see family and friends, just like Christmas in Christian countries. I set off on the equivalent of Christmas Eve morning to try to find a battery that would deliver the necessary starting current AND would fit our built-in battery box. Since my Arabic is limited I enlisted the help of Mohammed, the eighteen year-old son of a shopkeeper whose store we had used quite a bit. Mohammed spoke good English, understood what was needed and took me on a tour of battery sellers in Hurghada. Most had already shut up shop but my young guide used his mobile phone to call a couple and asked them to come and open up in order to help. By this means we were able to find the battery we needed and the vendor even drove me back to the boat and helped lift the battery on board. Thank you, guys, you saved the day.
My turn to press the starter. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Not even a click. What now? We seemed jinxed.
Then Steve volunteered that while I had been out sourcing the new battery he had dismantled and cleaned all the connections in the starting circuit. Maybe he had left one disconnected. He had. Now it was Pam's turn.
She pressed the button. The engine started and ran sweetly. Now we and ALIESHA were truly back in business once again.
Steve returned home the next day. Thank you, Steve, for your generous help and your good humour which helped us through many black moments. He left me detailed instructions for checking the tightness of couplings and mountings and we started some test running while tied alongside. After a couple of hours all seemed well so we went to sea, motoring twenty five miles up to Endeavour Harbour, a desert island in the literal sense. All went well. The next day we motor sailed back to our old berth in the marina in Hurghada and arranged to leave ALIESHA there for the rest of the winter since it was getting late in the season to make Turkey.
The dash to Suez
It was nice to spend a few months back "home" and especially good to squeeze our small family into our Marlow flat (now free of tenants) for Christmas. Then we booked our return tickets to Hurghada and started planning for the coming season in the Aegean.
Back in Hurghada on 21st March, we found ALIESHA with well-washed decks but otherwise covered in a thick layer of dust, some from the building site around the marina and some from the desert. Once again we were warmly welcomed by the Marina staff, who seemed to have taken to us in our plight the previous year. There were about fifteen yachts on the pontoons as a number of Med sailors had come down for the winter and they, like us, were getting ready to return north.
For two weeks we cleaned and polished and re-rove halyards and sheets and bent on sails, keeping a sharp eye all the while on the weather forecasts. Around the 27th March we spotted a weather window, about 36 hours with light winds starting on the 29th. We loaded supplies, including bacon and pork chops from the newly opened Hurghada pork butcher, stowed quantities of beer (Muslim countries are quite tolerant of such things when you know where to go) and then said some quite emotional farewells to Sherif, Manager of the Marina, to Hisham and Mohammed, his two deputies and to several of the marina staff. "We can't believe you are really leaving us" said one. "Come back and see us again" said another. About 1100 we cast off our lines and motored out into the channel.
The wind was kind and true to the forecast, coming mostly from the South East and blowing at about 12 knots, a gentle sailing breeze. It held until about 0200 the following morning, by which time we were well along our track to Port Suez, some 200 miles to the north of Hurghada. Then we motored into a light northerly, varying the engine speed to continue the running-in process. Given our past experiences, it was not surprising that we were very nervous about any change in engine note but all went well. About 1700 we contacted Captain Heebi of the Prince of the Red Sea Agency to tell him to expect us at the Suez Canal Yacht Club about 2000 hours that evening. "Good timing" he said. "There won't be anything moving at that hour".
About twelve miles south of Port Suez you start to pass anchored ships which are waiting to form into convoys for their northbound transit. There must have been about forty huge monsters lying to their chains on the eastern side of the waterway, which is perhaps twelve miles wide at that point. The parking lot measures maybe four miles by three. It is difficult for a small craft to slip up the side as there are many reefs and wrecks in the narrow strip of water between the anchorage and the eastern shore. We had therefore decided to keep to the edge of the main channel, about three miles wide and to keep a very sharp lookout.
About 1900 we reached the first anchored ship. Nothing seemed to be moving, as expected. Suddenly the wind increased, going from a gentle eight knots to thirty five knots in the space of fifteen minutes. Landlubbers should know that that is the start of gale force conditions. In no time the seas built up and ALIESHA began to buck and pitch as the engine tried to force her over and through them. Our speed dropped from 5.5 knots to only 2. Even running the engine at nearly full power gave us no more than 3.5 knots and waves began breaking over the decks and soaking us.
Darkness fell. We spoke to Captain Heebi on our mobile phone to advise him that we would not arrive before 2300. Slowly we crawled past the lines of anchored ships. Still the wind blew , thirty five knots right on the nose.
Heebi called about 2145 to say that because of the conditions the Port of Suez was now closed to small craft until further notice and that we should seek a place to anchor for the night. He added that a southbound convoy of twelve ships would reach our position in about an hour and that once this had passed through, the anchored ships would start forming up for the night's first northbound convoy. "You need to get out of there" , he added.
We asked him if he had any suggestions and, good agent that he is, he suggested Green Island (a misnomer if ever there was one), a small islet about six miles north of us with depths too shallow for large ships. Once there we would be safe and reasonably sheltered for the night. He even gave us a Lat and Long position which helped locate the place on our charts. But how to get there before the coming ship movements made our position very dangerous?
There is at this point in the Canal approaches a large, triangular dredged basin, its base extending about two miles to the west. Its purpose is to allow southbound ships to align themselves with the southbound traffic lane down the Gulf Of Suez. We had to get to the western edge of this basin and quickly, then turn north keeping away from the western shore until we reached Green Island. We found that, by turning across the wind and sea and running the engine hard we could coax ALIESHA up to 5.5 knots. In twenty five minutes we should reach safe water. We went for it.
It was surprisingly cold. Pam went below to don dry clothes and dig out our foul weather gear, unused for over a year. In the violent motion this took her a while. Meanwhile on deck I was growing concerned at sailing blind, since I had not had the chance to put the position of Green Island into the GPS and so had no waypoint to steer on once we had crossed the dredged basin. Once we reached the halfway point, marked by a light float, I took a careful look around and, seeing no movements among the myriad lights from ships and buildings on the shore, dashed blow to enter the waypoint.
I stayed too long, checking the large scale chart for potential hazards along our track once we made the turn north again. A sense of unease propelled both of us onto the deck together, to be met by the blast of a ship's siren and the beam of a searchlight being played on us from very close upwind.
A large container ship was running nearly parallel to us, but turning towards the south to enter the traffic lane. We were no more than forty metres away and the distance was closing fast. With shaking fingers we disengaged the autopilot and swung ALIESHA in a violent turn to port, away from the oncoming wall of steel. In seconds we were facing East and the ship was past. Talking about it, we figured she had been anchored to the east of the basin and was making a dash for the south ahead of the expected southbound convoy. I had failed to spot her lights before I went below, with nearly disastrous consequences. Someone, it seemed was looking after us that night.
That was the last of the excitement. We made the edge of the basin, turned north, avoided the mudflats and another score of parked ships waiting to form a convoy and came to anchor off Green Island just before midnight. Almost as soon as the anchor was down the wind dropped away and we had a quiet night. In the morning sunlight there was hardly a ship in sight. While we slept they had raised their anchors and sailed quietly away. We had a late breakfast, called Capt. Heebi and motored the two miles to the Yacht Club where he and his henchman Sayeed helped us moor to buoys fore and aft. They were delighted to see us. We were delighted to be there.
Transiting the Canal
Before a vessel - ship, yacht, tugboat, whatever - can pass through the Suez Canal she must be measured and the appropriate fees determined according to a complicated formula which few people seem to understand. Capt Heebi got us a measurer the day after we arrived. He and I ran tapes over the hull and around it to establish the length and the girth and a figure was subsequently calculated. Our fee was about half what I had expected so we paid up cheerfully and awaited news of when we could make the first half of the transit, the 48 miles to Ismailia. It was scheduled for two days later, the 3rd April. (Coincidently we had gone through the Panama Canal on 1st April 4 years earlier).
Every vessel using the Canal has to have a Pilot on board. Yacht pilots are coxswains who normally drive the small boats which take the fully qualified pilots to and from the big ships. Most are charming and efficient. A few (we had learned from fellow cruisers who had made the transit in earlier years) are a disgrace. We asked Capt Heebi to be sure to get us a good one and he did.
Mohammed was tall, darkly bearded and taciturn. I had
decided to steer ALIESHA away from the moorings and into the Canal proper and
then to share the task with our pilot during the seven to eight hour
trip and this we did. At first he read a newspaper or a copy of the Koran,
looking up from time to time to check on progress and to ask for the occasional
change of course. Gradually
we got him to open up and to talk about his job and
his family. In turn we showed him pictures of our children and
grandchildren. In this way we passed a pretty boring trip, arriving at the
Ismailia Yacht Club shortly before 1800. Mohammed accepted his tip with
genuine pleasure (we were quite generous) and set off for his home in Suez by
taxi while we settled for pizza from the Club's snack bar, which was delicious.
We waited a day in Ismailia in order to reseal the hatch in the cockpit floor above the engine which was leaking. It was a Friday and clearly the Yacht Club was a popular spot with the locals. Whole families came to drink coffee, read newspapers, meet friends and to take lunch. It was interesting to see the people of a northern Egyptian town enjoying themselves in a venue devoid of tourists. It could almost have been a scene in England. We would have liked to see more of this civilised town and its pleasant people but were not able to leave the Club grounds as we had already checked out of Egypt in Port Suez
At 0600 precisely the following morning (5th April) Yasser,
our pilot for the second half of the transit, arrived. He proved to be a
lively, cheerful fellow and had good conversational English. He asked to steer
the whole way and did so, rapidly showing that he knew what he was doing so we
relaxed. We
talked about all manner of topics, from politics to football. This helped
to pass another seven and a half hours of very boring scenery (sand, sand and
more sand, for the most part, with the occasional small convoy passing us for
some temporary interest).
The waterway through Port Said is very busy with all manner of ships and small craft. At 1330 a launch came alongside, Yasser jumped aboard and we were very nearly free. As well as a $15.00 tip I had given him six packs of cigarettes, for which he was grateful. "On no account give anything to the scoundrel driving the boat that will collect me" he told us, stuffing cigarette packs into his socks and down his underpants. "He and the soldier at the gate will ask me to share my tip from you, but I shall tell them you were mean and gave me very little little. That way I won't have to give them anything"! Somehow this seemed a fitting way to say farewell to Egypt
The dash to Turkey
As we motored out of the harbour towards the outer breakwaters I set the sails. The wind was from the south east and that gave us a broad reach towards our destination, Fineke in southern Turkey, a little over three hundred miles away. it was wonderful to turn off the engine and to be sailing again. The weather forecasts, from Navtex stations in Haifa, Alexandria and Antalya and from GRIB files all suggested a strengthening wind that would swing to the south west and then westerly, maybe reaching gale force when we were off the western tip of Cyprus. In normal circumstances we would have delayed our trip for a couple of days On this occasion we just kept going. We enjoyed a fast and at times a furious sail, heaving to on the evening of the second night to allow Pam to cook a meal and to have a rest. Then we got going again, well reefed and just off close hauled. This meant a change of destination, to Kemer but we didn't care. We were going to Turkey and precisely which port hardly mattered.
At 2050 on the 7th April we dropped anchor in the small bay just south of Kemer Marina. The 340 miles from Port Said had taken just fifty five hours, a storming end to a great adventure. Although eleven months later than originally planned we had achieved our goal, could put the trials and tribulations of the Red Sea and Egypt behind us and get back to cruising.
And we have.
