Sadly, we are underway this Good Friday morning from the last island in Eritrea. We had a very good stay here & would have liked to stay even longer but the weather is light so off we go to Sudan on an overnighter to Khor Nawarat.

We were greeted immediately upon anchoring by 4 young Navy men who are manning this remote outpost. They have radar & are checking all vessels looking for Yemenese & Sudanese fisherman mostly who are encroaching in their waters. Military service is mandatory in this country & these 4 are fulfilling their obligation cheerfully even though their conditions are extremely basic. They asked for cigarettes initially & we had bread & grape juice instead to share. We went ashore for our first beach walk in a while & was accompanied by the youngest one ~ Meran, who is the spokesperson for the group. His English was excellent & he talked about the island to us. We brought in coffee/tea/sugar/cookies/crackers. The next day we hiked around the island. Just when we were almost back to where we started from we came to a bay that was surrounded by mangroves & had to go all the way back around. It took us 3 hrs & we were pretty hot & tired as the sun is so relentless in these parts. The fellows invited us in for some tea & homemade Eritrean flat bread. They have a small freezer/tv/radio so we watched a bit of news. Meran asked for sunglasses & toothpaste so yesterday when we came back in to walk the beach we brought some floss, TBrushes too & did a quick demo along with all of our old sunglasses we could find. They made Dave some coffee. I brought in a big pot of steamed rice with sautéed onions & chicken bullion.


Gehru, the leader had a badly infected hand. We took him out to the fleet (there were 11 of us anchored in the bay)where a retired surgeon took a quick look & gave him some antibiotics. Hope that really helps as they are so far away from any kind of services. We came back in at sunset & showed them how to play Bocci Ball. They took to it immediately & were natural pros. Luckily we were just the coaches as they would have beat the pants off of us at our own game!!!! 2 of them went fishing & caught us some small fish for dinner & we shared them with a French boat that had come in late the night before. So, we 11 cruisers are all underway north during this brief weather window. Some are going as far as the winds let them, Egypt & beyond. A few of these boats are finishing their circumnavigation & can't wait to get back to Europe somewhere. The wooden classic French skipjack really has Dave's attention. When they came in the dusk undersail he couldn't wait to meet them. That's where we took the fish last night. The captain & his son are hurrying back to France to compete in a classic yacht race. Dave volunteered to crew and sent his credentials this morning.................................