Cutting the Dragon's Tail

by Lynda Chidell

  On the third day we made some reasonable progress in the afternoon breeze, enough to leave North Yemen behind. The land to starboard of us was now Saudi Arabia.

  After another comfortable but windless night spent hove-to, I decided to motor for a while. Our immediate reward was landing a small barracuda; and by midday we were again enjoying a pleasant sailing wind which allowed us to make good progress.

  At six o’clock in the evening we entered a strange area with extensive weed where the two opposing swells of the Red Sea met. It was time to motor onwards to Port Sudan before any adverse northerly wind sprang up.

  So, much of the final three and a half days of the voyage was spent under power. This included the crossing of the shipping lane to get over to the African side of the Red Sea. We took avoiding action for two ships – the Bunka Tiga and the Danish Sally Maersk. Port Sudan’s lighthouse was sighted at ten minutes to ten on 1st February, and we reached it at twenty minutes past four. As there was no wind and the sea was flat calm, we decided to turn off the engine and simply rest in silence under the full moon until dawn.

  At quarter to six we spoke to one of the Port Sudan pilots on the VHF radio and were given permission to enter the harbour. Half an hour later we were ghosting in towards a town that had not yet woken up. I decided to anchor as quietly as possible amongst a dozen or so foreign flagged yachts in the western corner of the harbour. Aquilla was the only one we recognised.

  7. Port Sudan

  Once again we found ourselves in an intriguing new world, totally different to anything we had seen before.

  Sudan is a huge country, Africa’s largest and twenty times the size of England. Much of it is desert, although along its lifeline – the River Nile – the terrain is often lush, and tasty fruits and vegetables are grown. The capital, Khartoum, is located at the important junction between the Blue Nile, which starts its life in Ethiopia, and the White Nile, whose source – about one thousand miles to the south – is Lake Victoria.

  I had been to Sudan twelve years earlier as part of my Africa Overland journey, having entered it in the south-west from the Republic of Central Africa, driven through the only large town in the south – Juba – and left via an unmanned border post into Kenya. My main impression then was, as in Nigeria, that I was in a country split very broadly into two parts – the Arab Moslem north and the African Christian south. I had been horrified to learn about some of the massacres that had happened over the years, particularly in the south. I remember seeing little crosses stuck in the ground, at fifty yard intervals, for mile after mile beside the road (if one could call it that) near to the RCA border.

  For centuries Sudan had been part of a collection of warring states and empires extending from the Red Sea westwards as far as the Atlantic Ocean. In the late nineteenth century, the fearsome Mahdi controlled much of the present Arab part of Sudan. He captured Khartoum from the British under General Gordon in 1885. Thirteen years later, however, it was re-captured by an Anglo-Egyptian force led by General Kitchener; and Sudan remained under British control until independence in 1956.

  Port Sudan, a town of about 150,000 people, is modern Sudan’s only port of significance; it is connected by road and railway to Khartoum, four hundred miles inland. Thanks to this, the large open-air market was stocked with some wonderful fresh produce – particularly the Nile valley grapefruits, which we had heard about long before reaching Sudan. These lived up to our greatest expectations and were certainly the biggest, juiciest and least expensive grapefruits we had ever come across. They lasted for six weeks – nearly all the way to Suez; and really meant a lot to us! In a country like Sudan – as in so much of the third world – you learn to appreciate the few things that are available, rather than complain about what is unavailable, as is done in the west.

  The other supplies for which Port Sudan was known amongst yotties were also very good. The water was excellent – we filled up all our tanks and loose containers. How could a town with hardly any rain, hundreds of miles from the nearest river, have such a good supply? Diesel was reasonably inexpensive – we bought a forty-four gallon drum of diesel for seventy US dollars. Our appointed agent, Ali, took care of all of this, together with an order from the market worth two hundred and fifty Sudanese pounds (eight Sudanese pounds were equivalent to about two US dollars at the bank, or one US dollar on the black market, a facility that was recommended to me by a policeman at the main police station, although I wasn’t sure whether or not he was seeking a reason to arrest me!) On our second day in Port Sudan, the morning after we had placed the order, Ali arrived in his car with the entire contents of the order. There was no fuss. No extra money was demanded. We were pleasantly surprised by his efficiency, and felt instantly guilty that we had ever doubted his honesty or abilities.

  The town itself gave the appearance of anything but cleanliness and organisation. I think it was the large number of free-grazing camels that struck us first. These seemed to be everywhere – along with goats, Toyota pick-up trucks, large lorries heavily laden in readiness for lengthy journeys across the desert, tall dignified looking men in long white robes, old men squatting on the top of sacks of interesting smelling spices, and children playing in the dusty streets. There were some fine old buildings in the centre of the town, built to give plenty of cool shade. Once away from the centre, homes tended to be built of old sheets of corrugated iron, scrap pieces of timber or anything else that happened to be at hand.

  We were free to wander around at will; and, although we were stared at with great curiosity and perhaps sometimes regarded as dollar notes on legs, the looks were open and friendly. On balance, I liked Port Sudan very much.

  Everything that happened from our second day onwards at Port Sudan was, however, clouded by a serious downturn of fortune.

  Lynda started the day being violently sick. I went backwards and forwards to the heads with countless buckets until I thought she could not possibly have anything left inside her. But still she went on, until she was just about losing consciousness.

  I really did not know what to do. Port Sudan was new to us. Aquilla had already left. Dreamtime had just arrived, but we knew more about Port Sudan than they did. Ali, our main Sudanese contact, was busy delivering the provisions and might be able to help us. First I rowed over to the Australian yacht Copper Lady, whose owner, Brian, had been most helpful the previous day in telling us this and that about Port Sudan and – in particular – in recommending Ali. He was in fact based in the area, undertaking some casual charter work.

  ‘There are some English nurses in that boat over there,’ Brian said. ‘Let’s see if they are in.’

  We rowed over and knocked on the hull; sure enough, they were on board. I told them about Lynda and they were immediately most concerned. They had no hesitation in recommending one particular private hospital in town – Al Ahly Hospital.

  I rowed back to Tin Hau and asked Darren to take charge of her – I didn’t know when we would be back. We gently helped Lynda into Knot Often.

  By now Ali understood exactly what was going on. He was there on the shore waiting for us. We got Lynda into the back seat of his car (she remembers none of this) and drove across town at high speed. Ali refused any payment as he dropped the two of us off at the hospital entrance.

  What to do next? There was no reception in the hospital, just hundreds of people. The corridors were full. There were patients on stretchers, apparently abandoned. The few notices on the otherwise bare, unpainted walls were in Arabic, which I couldn’t read. I had to get Lynda to a doctor soon.

  I started opening doors and wandering around different parts of the building, supporting Lynda as I went, just saying one word, ‘Doctor’. Eventually I was told to sit in the corner of a room and wait.

  The next few minutes were unbearable – I had to find someone who could help us. I had never seen Lynda in this state before. Usually, nothing would knock her down. Again I started making a nuisance of myself, pestering anyone who didn’t ap
pear to be a patient.

  At long last, a door opened and a man of obvious authority, dressed in crisp white suit, came in. This was the doctor.

  He had one look at Lynda, said he would examine her immediately and they both disappeared.

  I sat and waited. Nearly all day. No one spoke to me and I had no idea what was happening. All I could do was pray.

  Eventually the doctor appeared again. ‘Your wife is all right now,’ he said, ‘but she must stay here.’ He tried to explain exactly what was wrong – something to do with the gall bladder. I wasn’t hearing the details. I was just so relieved that Lynda was okay.

  I wondered what to do with myself for the night. Lynda was in a hospital bed with all sorts of tubes coming out of her in various directions. There was an empty bed next to her. I decided to lie on it and keep watch.

  This continued throughout the next day (Thursday, 4th February). At one point in the afternoon I was dozing on my bed, when suddenly I became aware that Lynda had woken up and was agitated about something. She was calling for the nurse (who, like so many of the nurses, was a male refugee from Ethiopia). She was pointing to her drip where a large bubble of air was working its way towards her bloodstream. Luckily the nurse moved quickly when he saw his error and serious trouble was averted. Amazingly, even when heavily drugged, Lynda proved herself to be more vigilant than either myself or a trained nurse!

  The following day, being a Friday, was the Moslem day of rest. I was astonished to see a beautiful bunch of flowers arrive at Lynda’s bedside. These had been picked by the doctor in his own garden during the only few spare hours he had every week. By this time, I had grown to admire him enormously and wonder at our luck in finding probably the best-qualified person in the whole of Sudan’s Red Sea Province to deal with Lynda’s particular problem. Dr Abu Sin had worked previously at a hospital in Aberdeen in Scotland, but, being Sudanese, I suppose it had always been his intention to return to his native country. Lynda’s sickness had in fact started in Aden, and her trouble in Zubair had been more of the same thing. Somehow she had not allowed her body to rebel totally until her part in seeing us safely to Port Sudan was over.

  Later that morning Lynda was told that she could eat for the first time in nearly three days. However, there was a slight problem. In an African hospital such as this, it was up to the family to provide food. For once, I was not there. I had returned to the boat and joined the others and some of those off Dreamtime for a quick visit to the famous old town of Suakin just south of Port Sudan. It was known for being the last slave trading port in the world, still used for this purpose until the Second World War. The old town was an archaeologist’s paradise – so many ancient buildings remained. My mind was more on what was happening at the hospital; when I returned there I found a very hungry – but much better – Lynda.

  On Saturday the Doctor was prepared to discharge Lynda from the hospital. When I told him what the next six weeks or so might hold in store for us and that we would be totally out of touch with the outside world, he was horrified. ‘She must not be over-stressed. She must eat the right food. Her symptoms could well reappear.’

  It seemed that there was just no way Lynda could join us on this part of the voyage. We could hardly wait indefinitely in Port Sudan, or abandon Tin Hau there. So the decision was made that Lynda would fly back to England to stay with my mother and seek further medical care there. Hopefully she would be able to rejoin Tin Hau before too long. Martyn, Darren and I would have to take the boat northwards to Suez and possibly all the way to Cyprus – without the mate. This was a very sad state of affairs for all concerned.

  We were presented with a bill for hospital care. It was a mere 365 Sudanese pounds (£27), inclusive of the hospital bed, drugs, nursing staff and the attention of the best doctor in Port Sudan. ‘Your wife is a colleague,’ he said (he had learnt that she was a paramedic), ‘I cannot charge any more.’

  Back at the harbour we discussed our predicament with John Watson and the crew of Dreamtime. We knew that two crew members, Richard Henry and his son, were flying out of Port Sudan on the following Monday. We asked if Lynda could go with them. ‘Of course,’ Richard said. ‘No problem at all.’

  So it was agreed that Lynda would fly with them, first to Cairo on a local plane, then on to London. That left me the following morning to arrange the flight details and sort out all the paperwork with the authorities. I decided that I would clear Tin Hau out of Sudan at the same time so that we could also leave town.

  The next morning the first place I had to visit was the Sudanese airline office. I learnt that the cost of the one-way flight was a horrific US $950 (about £550). This had to be paid in foreign currency. Richard very kindly allowed us to use his American Express card for most of this amount, as we did not have enough traveller’s cheques with us (Lynda repaid him in England).

  Before I could buy the ticket, I had to go through the process of signing Lynda off Tin Hau’s crew list and getting her a temporary visa to enter Sudan for one day. This took me until eleven o’clock, which left only three hours to take care of the rest of the paperwork, as everything closed at two in the afternoon.

  I consider the next three hours to have been my most intense battle with bureaucracy ever – and by this time I was pretty experienced at filling in forms in triplicate, quadruplicate or whatever. It was also my biggest triumph. The clock was against me all the way. I only had to visit about six places, but some of these had to be returned to more than once, and they were all a long way apart – some in West Town near to the dinghy jetty, some across the creek in East Town.

  At first I walked, but after a while I saw that I would never finish on time in this way. So I started running between the port office, the police station, the customs office, the immigration office and so on. I hitched a lift at one point with a donkey and cart. I crossed the creek once by ferry before realising that it was much quicker to run up one bank of the creek across the bridge and back down the other bank. If I did not finish everything I would have to start all over again from scratch the next morning.

  Finish I did, thanks to a phone call being made to the final office, which stayed open two minutes past the closing time on my account.

  I returned to Tin Hau, hot and thirsty, but feeling really good about the morning’s marathon.

  During the afternoon there was a chance to visit one or two of the yachts in harbour, some bearing familiar faces from Galle. Lady Rosi had just arrived after delays due to engine problems near Djibouti. Also there was Endurance II with Steve, Warren and Michelle. We heard on Dreamtime’s radio that Klepel’s Satnav had still not been fixed in Djibouti and that she was being navigated via Top Knot’s radar. We learnt that many of ‘the Fleet’ had stopped in Hanish or were still there.

  There were several other yachts anchored in the harbour, new to us since Galle. Boo, from St Vincent, had arrived with a broken engine, a broken Satnav, and no steering. The skipper was an ex-Hong Kong policeman. The crew, soldiers based with the British forces in Cyprus, were keen to get back.

  There was U-Matalu, a sleek French aluminium sloop with one incredibly tall mast. We were to see more of this boat later. Bug Off, Nalu IV and Cheval de la Mer were all from the United States. Aurora, a large seventy-five foot schooner, was one of the Italian charter yachts operating in the Port Sudan area. La Sacrée Thérèse and Sinbad were two French yachts, each about thirty-eight feet in length, sailing from Suez to southern Sudan and back.

  Then there was Ann Judith, a forty foot steel ketch from Australia, crewed by father and son, also going north; Couchen, a thirty-five foot Swiss sloop with a yellow hull; and Guinevere, sailed single-handedly by Bill Belford, a Kiwi vet whom we were to get to know better at Larnaca.

  Finally there was a black hulled wooden ketch – whose name we never did learn – skippered by a pirate-like figure, Alistair, from Scotland. He seemed very much at home in the Red Sea and had a large family on board, complete with monkey. He had many exciting stori
es to tell, including one about hitting a reef in Saudi Arabia, abandoning ship, and subsequently being rescued – at no charge – by the Saudi navy.

  We took Lynda to Dreamtime early on Monday morning, so that we could get clear of Port Sudan before the usual headwinds and seas had had a chance to build up. It was a very sad moment, waving goodbye to her as she stood in the cockpit of another boat. She disappeared from sight as we rounded the harbour’s breakwater and turned to the north. It was quarter past five in the morning.

  For thirty minutes we motor-sailed into waves which were already increasing to a critical height. At quarter to six I decided we were wasting our time. We would only get a quarter of the way to Suez at that rate. Reluctantly I turned round; but at least there was the consolation that I would see Lynda again.

  We entered Port Sudan once more and I looked across towards Dreamtime. But Lynda had already left.

  We returned to our old anchorage, notified port control that we would leave as soon as the weather allowed; and prepared ourselves for a long wait on board Tin Hau.

  8. Port Sudan to Hurghada

  On the following day, Tuesday, 9th February, we had to move Tin Hau three times to allow ships clear access to the coal jetty – all good practice for Martyn and Darren. Shortly after this the wind seemed to drop slightly and I decided to set off up the coast, bound hopefully for Marsa Darur, fifteen miles to the north. Anything to get away from Port Sudan. By ten o’clock in the morning we had rounded the breakwater and were once again in clear water.

  As I had expected, motoring straight into the choppy waves was just not worth it. But I found that motor-sailing, with plenty of power from the engine and with full main and mizzen, was feasible. We could tack through ninety degrees, which was not bad for Tin Hau. The price was high fuel consumption.