The Red Sea is behind us. She didn't go down with out a fight. Our predicted winds were generally double. After a 22 hour engagement to windward we entered the canal at daybreak. The air was so filled with dust that we thought it was dense fog. Super tankers and mega container ships would emerge out of the "brown out". One behemoth executed a UTURN ~ in front of us. We heard on the radio that they had jumped the queue and was instructed to go back into line by the port controller. You should have seen the wake and mud that it churned up right next to us. Frightening!
When we reached the entrance buoy we called for permission to enter. The port captain SCREAMED at us to STAY OUT OF THE CHANNEL. We were??? We were never in the shipping lanes. So, we hovered around the bouy for about 1/2 hr waiting for permission to enter. We radioed twice & finally announced that we were going to the marina outside of the lanes ~ and left.
When we were near the opening to the marina we phoned our agent and he arranged for Saed, the local yachtie helper to meet us there. His guidance was really appreciated as we tied fore and aft to mooring balls between 2 other boats. He rowed out to take our lines. The winds were not strong there in the anchorage so that was a pleasant relief.
Although we had been up all night we met with the agent and arranged for our transit paper work to begin the process. We laid down to take a short nap, the chipper Saed was back with some fresh bread, fruit and veggies. So instead we regrouped. We hoped to transit the next day.
It wasn't too be. A huge ship had gone aground with the full moon low tide and the canal was closed until they could get it off.
One more day....... maybe......