Dave n Judy
03/17/2010, Eritrea, Africa

We're still out here sailing away. Right at this moment there is a fishing frenzy! Big fish flying out of the water chasing the little fish & boobies, pelicans diving. Davey dropped his 2 lines in the water. Yesterday, we had to leave that super windy windy anchorage without getting to shore to hike the cinder cone. There was no way we could even think about launching the dinghy. We had to leave at 3AM in order to make it to the next anchorage before dark. At first we had southerlies but just at daylight it switched to northerlies, luckily for us ~ light northerlies. We sailed until the afternoon until the wind was on the nose & we motorsailed into the anchorage. There was only 1 other boat there that had sailed all night & stayed the day. We picked them up in our dinghy when we went over to have a potluck BDay party with our friends who was celebrating their guest/crew/friend's 65th BDay. It was our first time off of the boat since we left Aden last week. We sorta thought of it as "land time". It was a pretty big stretch considering monohulls are known to roll a bit... But we had lots of fun with it! We wanted to make it to Port Smyth/Shuma Island today for snorkeling but with the northerlies couldn't get in before dark so we just pulled into Adjuz. It's gotten overcast & not too inviting right at the moment. We came through a super shallow patch going between the 2 islands that had us terrorized momentarily when we got down to 2 ft on the depth meter but managed to get through there ok.... phew.... Davey caught a beautiful Travali or something.... oh yummm, dinner!

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Dave n Judy
03/17/2010, Eritrea

After two days sailing in 30 to 40 knot winds Freebird is covered in a crust of salt and red powdery dust. You can write your name in the grime. We're anchored behind a small low island about 300 meters off the shore. The sand is blowing off the beach and sand dunes. We can feel it sting our skin when we go out on deck. We won't see any water for boat washing for at least a month. Our new anchor is worth ten times what we paid. It's nice to not worry about that. Today we sailed 9 hours and 60 miles to arrive here. The Red Sea is one thousand miles long. If we choose not to sail at night and just day hop the distance.... It will take 16 more days like this one. Of course we plan on spending more time at the more interesting places. Today was down wind so our progress and comfort was at a premium. As we move North the winds will turn against us and we will be sailing to windward in heavy seas. Judy made some yummy bread today, which I almost missed smelling as I was soooo engrossed with sailing.. I had the fishing lines out but no bites. Maybe I should change the lures.... Too lazy... If I catch something, I'll have to clean it. ....too lazy. Sailing and navigation keeps me pretty occupied. Today we sailed with just the jib tacked to the rail. When the wind piped up I rolled it up to control the speed. At times we were sailing well over 10 knots Fun... There are 2 camps on the beach here. One is clearly the fishermen as there was one boat on shore. Later 2 more small craft came in with provisions. Huddled down the beach was a second group of very young men. At first they tried to wade out and then swam to us. Finally one older boy made it. The first thing he asked for was water. Well, how do you convey water to group of people. We put 4 ~1 litter plastic waters & 3 grape juices in a big baggie.. He could barely make it back to shore. Then his little buddy came out. He wasn't as strong & asked for "biscuits". We gave him a package & another water.. They had their teeth filed down to points. They stayed well away from the fishing group. At sunset they faded back up the hill to the other side. We hope for the best. The fishermen headed to sea. There are a few Somali refugees around...they are desperate. So sad....

We are the only boat here...we're alone, surrounded by inky blackness A sliver of moon followed the sun to the distant African mountains.. No call to prayer, no gunshots, no disco music. Just the wind in the rigging, desert sands and the stars above........Peace and love to you all..

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Dave n Judy
03/17/2010, Eritrea, Africa

Well, the Red Sea & i aren't going to be friends, for sure! Dave, the sailor (sailboat =wind) windsurfer/kiteboarder is ok with it. These constant HUGE hot stifle-ing winds aren't for me. EVER So far, we've had south winds from 25 to 50 knots, from the stern. Luckily we aren't beating into north winds... When we go to turn towards shore to anchor, sometimes as much as an hour, we have that off shore furnace blast of sandy wind pelting us & our boat. When we arrived here this afternoon after a 3 hr sail there were 6 boats here, 2 that had just left, & the other 4 pulling up anchor. I watched this single hander guy run forward & grind up his anchor, then when the wind would blow him back he'd race back to the cockpit & motor back up on it. By the time he ran forward again the anchor would be pulled tight & he'd have to run back to the cockpit & start over again. These wind bullets of 35-50 knots kept him at it for a half hour. Poor guy. We had to take our sail down & motor into it with both engines. Dave can't let the boat go backwards to fast during anchoring because it puts such a hard strain on the gear that it's a whole nother ball game. Got the wind generator working again & that poor thing gets whipped up so high that it shuts down at 50knots. It's hard to tell who'se going to blow first ~ me or it, as it revs my heart right up with every gust. The folks that live here must be really tough. They have my admiration. wow Dave has a totally different perspective. Tonight we have to leave at 2am in order to get to the next anchorage before dark tomorrow night... the trouble is ~ they are talking about the wind changing direction from the north. yikes I've been plotting getting picked up by a helicopter & getting dropped off on an aircraft carrier. Maybe getting towed behind a freighter. Kenmore AirHarbor in Seattle won't come & pick me up.... i can't think of one person who would trade places with me, some other wind junkie!! Something, anything!

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Dave n Judy
03/15/2010, Bab el Mandeb

Here we are, we made it..... or are making it right at the minute any way. We left Ra's Al' Arah, Yemen last night/this morning at, 2:15 am, the last stop around the corner from The Red Sea Straits. We weren't far off of a military base & they ~ YES ~ were shooting off flares over our boat around 1AM. The automatic weapons fire went on for hours. Then, there was the call to prayer. Not sure if & when i've had a full night's sleep lately??? Because of the wind, currents & light it's best to hit the opening of the straits right around 6am, which we did. We heard on the radio about 8 other sail boats that were in that vicinity as well. Yesterday, when we got to the anchorage there weren't any boats there .... by the end of the night we were with 5 other boats.

Later in the day:

Have the hook down at 11am, almost 9 hrs of sailing. We are officially in Eritrea, Africa!!! The straits weren't too bad.......... but when we turned to go to towards the anchorage, oh baby. Wind gustting to 40, rough beam seas. Had to roll the jib twice. We were going 11 knots there for awhile. It's pretty hot here and if we weren't so sand blasted off this tiny scrap of island we could open up more.... On the beach there are a bunch of folks huddled under some scrub. Just as i was putting down the anchor, Dave says ~ hope they aren't pirates. Well there you go. Another one of those nights! Alright !!! Another boat , our friends on "Sundance" have pulled in next to us so we somehow feel a little more secure.....

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Dave and Judy
03/13/2010, Aden

We are truly now in Arab country. There are calls to prayer from every corner of the city throughout the day. Men wear daggers in their belt, most women are completely covered accept for their mysterious eyes......Yes, they are very friendly and curious about us aliens in their midst. Sometimes, we are asked to pose for a photo. Yesterday at the water tanks we encountered a group of folks and were invited to a picnic. We all had fun taking each other's picture. There are signs of antiquity at every turn. Old castles, ancient water systems and forts. You look at a building from the front and it looks modern and new. From behind it looks like it's hundreds of years old. Some are thousands of years old. We found a local taxi driver to be our guide (Mohammed, again) Today the sailors were invited to a private tour of the local museum with the the local dignitaries. The whole thing was being videoed for TV. We're instant celebrities!

Aden	Comments [0]

Dave and Judy
03/11/2010, Yemen

Sorry for the delay. We have no internet here. Just found an internet cafe and will try and add photos and positions soon. We arrived safely and have enjoyed the sleeeeeep. Doing a little touring in this new location. We had a survivor party last night with all the yachts. The people here are very friendly and helpful. First thing we topped up our fuel so we can make a quick exit. We hope to head around the corner and into the Red Sea in the next 3 days. We are now mostly rested and ready to head out but, we just found out that the city officials are having a party for us Saturday and it would probably be impolite to sail away before that.

Aden	Comments [2]

Dave and Judy
03/07/2010, Convoy...

Just a quick one to say we are ok. Very tired ....Little sleep....Slow progress... boats being towed because of breakdowns. These stressful times bring out the best and worst in people. Some of these folks are pretty disappointing....not team players... hope we don't get any pirates .... Fortunately, there are a few standouts that are carrying the whole fleet. I guess that's how it is in life... We have wind but can't really sail because we can only go as fast as the slowest boats .. pretty frustrating sometimes..

Convoy to Aden

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Dave and Judy
03/06/2010, Convoy...

We've had a few scares that really became drills for how we will react if attacked. Can't go into detail here or I'd have to kill ya. I'm sitting here in the dark watching the other yachts on the radar. Twenty little dots ... Freebird is motoring on a cloudless, windless, moonless night. We have four groups of boats , each with a leader. Just so happens that all the boats in our group are American. We had one Kiwi boat but they quickly moved to another group ... Just too rowdy for them guess. The other groups are a mix of European, Kiwi, etc. We are pretty exhausted. It requires our full attention just to keep track of the other boats. On top of that we must keep the boat running....constant oil checks, engine speed control, navigation, cooking , etc. We must maintain our position in relation to the other boats. ......Just went out to check our visual position and I'm back now... It's 24/7 , One of us must be awake at all times. It can be difficult in the wee hours. Coffee! We are using low level running lights and low power radio We just want to slip through unnoticed. The radio is alive with ships reporting to the "Coalition Force" of suspicious activity. We listen and plot the locations on our chart....hoping that it is far away. Freebird's feeling pretty pent up. We can only travel as fast as the slowest boats. It feels like we are sailing in molasses. It' will take us an additional 2 days longer than normal .......

Convoy to Aden

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Dave and Judy
03/04/2010, Convoy...

5 days is just not enough time to see a country ~ especially a whole country. We enjoyed our visit there very much & would have liked to have gotten up into the mountains & to the capital... next time... 5 days was waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy to long in the port. The facility was first class & the officials ok. It was those huge double dump trucks hauling loose rock up & down the unpaved road day & night, 24 hours of dusty dirty day. Freebird got the last spot on the "wall". Well no wonder, duh.... it was in the very back corner next to the road. There wasn't a single spot on her not caked with grime. We'd hose her off every morning morning but that almost made it worse as then the next load landed on the wet surface making mud. We were Dirty Birds for sure. Our convoy consists of 20 boats in 4 groups of 5 fitted into a diamond shape. Each group has a team leader heading the point & then the other 4 on both sides: A,B,C,D. We are "Delta 2" or the 2nd to last boat in the formation. We left 1 hr & 15 min after the first groupe left. Before we were underway a boat in "Bravo" group had engine trouble & was already being towed. Guess their fuel got mixed up & evidentially they went back from the 1st way point to sort out their problem & refuel. They got back to the convoy about 4AM this morning. Just as we were getting underway a very unusual bird flew by (no free bird ride for that one)! It was black & white striped with a pointy red- orange kingfisher type beak. Striking Later on in the day we had a small pod of pilot whales & a few dolphins. They were fishing though & not very playful. Staying in formation in the night was s super challenge when each skipper had their own interpretation of how close to get & how to do it. If only you could hear the radio chatter. These folks aren't used to team sailing.... A real independent bunch... A Coalition Forces helicopter flew over first thing this morning when we were having our breakfast. It was Australian. He came on the radio and asked where the Ausie boats were. Dave came on and said "Sorry mate.....No blokes here..... Reassuring!!! BFN

Convoy to Aden

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Dave and Judy
03/02/2010, Salalah

We are enjoying our short visit here in Oman. We are departing for Aden Yemen in 2 days. We have joined a convoy that will transverse the infamous "Pirate Alley". Between provisioning, fueling, and repairs we have done a few side trips. Yesterday we headed to "Jobs Tomb" up in the hills about an hours drive. We also stopped by the tomb of Mary's father, Jesus's grandfather. It was 41 ft long & covered in granite & housed in a building next to the Mosque in downtown Salalah. Amazing really. This area is just steeped in history. The Al Balid Archaeological Park & Museum had a fabulous Maritime exhibit that was extraordinarily fascinating.
Today we drove west along the coast to some very remote areas. One of our stops was to see the Bufadora's. There were quite a few blow holes but since the swell was down, the spray didn't come blowing us off of the grates. The sound was impressive though!! The drive passed through some beautiful (Grand Canyon like) areas. There were camels everywhere. Sometimes we had to stop because they were standing in the middle of the road. The beaches were totally isolated and very beautiful. It was warm and we found a small overhanging rock cave like area on the beach. It was cool inside on the shady sand. We watched 2 turtles in the surf just in front of us.We soon fell asleep listening to the surf just feet away.

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