Project s/y Fanny Djibouti to Sawakin

N Djibouti, dunes in the sea, some of them Islands

As we were setting off I outlined the passage to hug the Djiboutian and Eritrean coast as the lesser evil having not heard of any incidents on the W coast of the Red Sea. I also wanted the protection of the archipelago off the Eritrean coast as the relentless NW that had been badgering us for most part of the Indian Ocean crossing I was sure would be ever present in the Red Sea too. We sailed in good weather and when we passed Bab-el-Mandeb we only met a few Djiboutian fishermen who paid us no attention, I assume they had enough sense to bring water with them before they set out. Even the wind was with us for awhile and we were surfing along a good 5-6kts. Towards the sunset the wind died and we motored once again. During the afternoon I had been in touch with the Agent in Suez who informed that there is no diesel available for small craft and he recommended to to up fuel in Sawakina, Sudan (sometimes written Sawakin or Suakin). As we had intended to go to Suez directly this put us on further delay but hey-ho, we would need the fuel so we decided to pitstop in Sudan. After all it was along the way. I got a contact for a local chap in Sawakina and I sent my documents in advance and told him my ETA and on we went.   

Sunsets were becoming very hazy from dust

Couple of days later we were passing an Island on our Navionics referred to as "Port Smythe", there was a lighthouse on the Island and according to the chart also a small port like structure. It was slow going as wind from NW was pushing against us and seas we're coming up. We came closer to Port Smythe and could see the lighthouse and some additional buildings, perhaps some kind of Fort, the place appeared deserted and the lighthouse was dark even as the sun kept setting. Finally we passed the Island not having seen any signs of life so maybe it was a remnant of the colonial era or something. The Island seemed otherwise completely barren. From here onwards we entered the Massawa channel and to the N was the Dahlak archipelago. As the night set one could see a bit of light pollution from the larger Islands and few fishermen, very quiet.

Port Smyth fort (?)

Port Smyth lighthouse

Next morning came along with light breeze and we were sailing again in good side wind. I headed off to rest at 6am and was just about to nod off when Enok banged on my ceiling window to come up. I went straight away and alongside us was a skiff with 3 guys in it and Enok said she had seen a rifle. I had to take responsibility and see what they wanted. They asked where we were going and for our previous port clearance. I showed them the same but then they spoke in a walkie talkie and it appeared that they were some kind of authority and one of he guy was wearing a light blue T-shirt with a print that said "ER-Navy". Obviously the other guy at the other end was not happy with that and they asked us to follow us to their base. Seeing not being able to outrun them I complied and headed for Harat Island where they were escorting us. 

Eritrean navy base buildings

The Island was surrounded by a shallow reef littered with coral heads so I refused to go to the jetty they wanted us to go as one only needs one hole to sink a boat. As we had anchored they wanted us to go ashore with our documents, after some deliberation we complied to that too. The Island was housing a small base with barracks, there was only a handful of people and loads of goat poo. It was sweltering hot, hardly any wind. The base commander was sitting on a tractor wheel under a corrugated sheet metal shack, didn't speak a word of English and I doubt he could read any either as he was using his minions to translate where we were coming from. The commander was close to his sixties I guess and he had 2 other senior officers that were somewhere in their late forties early fifties that appeared quite educated, they spoke decent English. 

Eritrean navy base jetty

After having seen the passports they started wondering why 3 people from 3 different countries would be traveling along the Eritrean coast on what business? Didn't we know that these waters are not permissible? I did try quote the UNCLOS law of the sea for innocent passage but that didn't ring a bell. Later on when I checked, I found out that Eritrea had not ratified said Convention, what are the chances for that? I did also explain my security and weather motivations. Then they decided they needed to inspect the boat, said and done we were whisked back and boarded, one of the senior Officers told me they are not robbers or pirates but doing their Gov't assigned jobs. One of the minions went around the boat and opened luggage's and cupboards & in the end they found nothing interesting. All the while one of the minions was taking notes in hieroglyphics that I assume was Ethiopian writing.    

Djiboutian fishermen

We offered them cold water, juice and biscuits that we had and they enjoyed themselves. Then asked if we had any cigarettes which we unfortunately did not have. They said they had run out and next supply run was due in 10 days. The agony of being idle on a barren island with only Company your navy mates and sheep and no cigarettes I clearly saw the pain they were in. The educated chaps asked if we had any books, luckily Tim had left some books that we gave them. They inspected closely our plotting chart where I had marked our noon positions since we left Malaysia and we chatted long about our journey and our relationships with each other. One of the guys let slip that some years before a sailing ship had passed loaded with drugs so I guess that was the reason the base was on Harat Is with this mandate. Then they left and told us to stay put until they give us permission to go. I admit the temptation was there but the border was too far with us being too slow for any shenanigans so we stayed. The temperature rose even more, we made breakfast and tried to siesta. Some time in afternoon they came back and this time they wanted to see our track on our chart plotter, the commander inspected it closely but could not find anything to remark about as we hadn't been stopping anywhere. Later I read in the routeing book that the Dahlak archipelago requires a permission to cruise in, luckily we hadn't entered the archipelago either. This visit was much shorter and they came as their own conclusions we had chosen Massawa channel due to weather and piracy risk (from Yemeni) to which I readily agreed to. Then they said they will refer this upwards and come back to us and to wait for further instructions. By 1300hrs the skiff came back but this time only one guy and he waved us off and returned to base. We didn't waste time, heaved up anchor and continued after 5 hours of being detained. 

Livestock carrier

As we left Harat Island we discovered that the autopilot had given up on us so we had to hand steer. After some fiddling and recalibration the autopilot came back online and we continued again towards Sawakina. Then as everyone knows bad things comes in threes so same evening shortly after sunset we suddenly heard a weird rattling. We realised it was our anchor going down, we had forgotten to secure it as we left Harat Island. The chain went all out and then stopped at the rope that was tied to the bitter end. We tried heaving but the winch was not pulling, only slipping. So we used two lengths of rope and pulled it up with the capstan. Once up we tied it up properly and continued once again our journey.

Livestock carrier

The rest of the journey was uneventful, we kept hugging the coast and weaved between reefs and Islands towards Sawakina and he morning when we did our our approach was dead calm. There was no radio traffic so we pushed on and entered the channel and then the port. It took us hours to get in, the port itself is a huge natural basin. The commercial port was established on the natural wavebreaker that I'm guessing used to be a reef and had been landfilled and reinforced. There was a slew of livestock carriers loading and thousands of cows and sheep milling on the jetty with herders egging them onboard. All of the carriers appeared very old and worn, it is usual that the ship at their end of the line are purchased by companies based in Africa and then converted for livestock and used for this trade until they sink or are sold for scrap. After we passed the commercial port we actually passed a half sunken ex German made coaster that had been converted for livestock. After this we entered a narrow channel that led past the old town of Sawakina, the old town was basically a pile of rubble with one husk of a building standing, on the eastern side of the old city some modern buildings had been erected in a presumably old classic style. I guess it was an attempt to start resuscitating the area. Having passed the only "old" building of the old town we came into a small lake where there were 2 sailing boats anchored and we anchored next to them with our spare anchor and chain, the anchor winch brass clutch had worn out and needed spares. It turned out that the other boat we had seen in Djibouti and there were 2 Frenchmen onboard, they came by telling us that the Agent will come by in a couple of hours. The other sailing boat was empty and looked to have been sitting there awhile. She had been put in "storage" properly with the rigging and sails taken off the mast. We had clocked from Djibouti 629' in 123.7hrs, average speed 5.1kts.

Livestock & carrier

Our Agent Mohammed came as expected and sat in a car, he invited me to his office and we outlined the visit. Fuel the next morning, some local money (Sudanese pounds), his fee, landing passes and a lift to local wetmarket. I talked about the livestock and Mohammed explained to me that they were loading for Jeddah as Haj was approaching and all pilgrims needed feeding. We agreed to meet early morning for bunkers and I went back onboard. Mohammed also explained that Sawakin used to be a successful port but fell into disrepair after Port Sudan was established and people left for better fortunes but now recently trade had been picking up and people were slowly returning. As it was already late we only stayed onboard and filled Fanny's tanks with diesel and then enjoyed the scenery, locals were swimming about, some even were brave enough to swim out to us and ask for drink (what is it with that?). 

Livestock

Next morning we got our shore passes and we started filling our jerry cans ashore and I ferried back cans 6 at the time. I also got the local pounds and I went ashore with Enok for provisions. Mohammed stopped on the way by a hovel that had a hole in the wall and a guy in attendance. He spoke some Arabic and the next thing I knew he proffered to me a bag of warm breads freshly from the oven. The market was every bit of dirt and grime as one might imagine. We bought whatever vegetables were available and a big watermelon. One guy came waving a piece of meat but after looking at all the flies feasting on it I decided not to. On the side of the market were dry provision shops so we got some local coffee and various canned produce. It didn't take long to conclude the provisioning and soon we waved down a tuk-tuk and went back to the port and back onboard to stow the stuff. Then we enjoyed the fresh bread with some curry for filling, delicious. Unfortunately Owner had caught up on the stomach bug and was under the weather or on the throne. 

Sawakin old town

Sawakin old town

Sawakin old town

Sawakin old town, sunset

Sawakin market yams (that I thought were sweet potatoes)

Sawakin market

Sawakin market

Sawakin old town

After the provision run we took the dinghy for a spin around the natural port with Enok, we took the channel out and puttered to the next lake skirting the old town in the middle. It got quite shallow so then I had to row but we could see closer the new buildings on the old town and the slips on the other side. The only old standing building in the old town seemed to have had a jetty covered by a portico in it's heyday but this had all gone, only remnants left were pillars of the portico and the sunken flooring. The building now served only as shade for the numerous people that were picnicking there. Then we went as far as the wreck and discovered few more that were totally sunk at the corner, then turned around as I did not want to go disturbing the commercial port and on the opposite side there was nothing.

Wrecks on the shores

Sawakin

Sawakin

Sawakin wrecks

Sawakin, old town entrance

Eagles or hawks

Fishermens cove

An eagle enjoying a snack on our foredeck

Entrance to Sawakin old town

After our boat tour the only thing remaining was to visit the old town and we headed for the main entrance. Of course there was the old guard that extracted some local pounds for our entry, I should have known better. Anyway, paid him and walked on along the paved road that was in good condition. I saw some signs around in Turkish and I deduced that they may have had a hand in the restoration of the area and shore side new buildings. Apart from that it looked like the whole old town had been levelled to rubble and only buildings standing were a mosque and the old frame at the entrance channel. The new buildings were not accessible and there was some kind of a guard asking to see our passports, I told him I'm not showing my passports to random people, he was ok with that. Then we were approached by some local girls who wanted selfies with us, naturally we obliged. As we walked on we came to the old building and I discovered it was made out of huge coral bricks. I had earlier seen same kind of buildings erected in Jeddah and Maldives albeit in different style. I guess in old times it was easier to cut coral into bricks rather than make them from clay and fire them. Along the seaside was a local family having a picnic and they invited us for a cup of coffee. The wife had a small coal fire going and she was heating a small weird looking pot. Then she put some sugar in a cup not bigger than a thimble and poured the coffee over it before handing it to us. The taste was like coffee and we got a piece of cake too. It didn't take us long to exhaust all small talk and soon we thanked our hosts for the coffee and walked on. 

Sawakin old town hovel

Sawakin old town, local tourists at the old style new buildings

Fisherman returning home

Sawakin old town, coral house

Sawakin old town

Sawakin old town

As we had seen and done the old town we were not ready to go back onboard so we also decided to take a stroll around Sawakin and see if there was something else to see. There wasn't really. All we saw was the decrepit houses in various state of disrepair that we only could guess their purpose in olden days. As the sun was starting to set some tradesmen came out of the afternoon siesta and started working, a carpenter was banging together furniture, another fishing gear shop opened their doors. We passed what I though was an old police building with old cannons in front and also passed a bus station, probably catering to transport for Port Sudan. Then we reached the main market bought a few items we had thought of we needed and then returned back to Fanny for the night.

Sawakin

"Wildlife"

Mutton scouring the streets

Old police station

Keep on truckin'

Oil (?) vendor

"Wildlife"

"Wild life"

"Wild life" in front of main market

Sawakin main market

Sawakin police station

The next morning we were up early heaving up anchor. We already had our port clearance and cruising permit for Sudan so we left for Suez around 6am. The livestock carriers had loaded and been replaced by other ones taking on more cargo for Jeddah I presume. The port was quiet this early in the morning although one tug was making ready to assist a departing livestock carrier. By the time the ship was heading out to sea we had already exited the port. Here we headed north outside the reefs in calm seas and the next leg had started.

Livestock carrier

Livestock carrier

Provisions for the livestock

Next part of the journey: Sawakin to Suez and Port Said

Footnote: Later I learned that only few days after we left a livestock carrier had overloaded and capsized in port killing thousands of animals. From the 16000 sheep loaded only 700 survived.