Red Sea

We are currently in the Red Sea; we just entered this morning through the 'Gate of Tears', and have said goodbye to the wonderful Indian Ocean. We had wonderful weather in it the whole time, great passages and clear skies. We sighted Africa today, and there are lots of ships. In fact, at about six this evening we had a really close encounter, way too close. We didn't even see the ship until it was about a quarter of a mile away and we could make out every detail. It was a huge tanker, steaming along. Very scary.

Our next port is in northern Eritrea, which is supposed to be a great place, as these countries go. Africa! We just came from Aden, Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula. On the whole the people were the most friendly we have seen at least since Thailand, although some of the men would try to rip us off on account of our skin, tourist skin. Yemen is almost all Muslim, so we heard the mosques at all hours. The women all dressed in black from head to toe, and many of them wore veils over their heads with just little slits for the eyes. They must get incredibly hot in this dry heat. The area around Aden is all desert, with not even a cactus. Just dry bare rocks and little stone houses climbing the sides of the valleys. Aden was a big town though, and somehow or other had lots of fresh produce which we really stocked up on. The trip from the Maldives to Aden was 18 days long. By the end we still had cabbage, potatoes, onions and apples, but those first tomatoes on shore were delicious. That passage from the Maldives was really pleasant though, good wind for most of the time, although we did a bit too much motoring and we were concerned about pirates (yes they do still exist, unfortunately!!) a bit too much off Somalia.

OK, I've got to go for my watch. Bronwen

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