Long Island, Sudan

Anchored Long Island
Shubuk Channel
Sudan
Africa
18'46.3N/37'39.4E

720 Miles to the Suez Canal!!

We left Khor Nawarat at 7am yesterday. After transiting through the reefs we were able to sail until about noon when the winds picked up to 25 knots off the starboard bow. Both S/V My Chance and S/V Shiraz had to motor this whole stretch because they are not able to point as close to the wind as well as the 'Piper can. This is one of the rare chances where we are able to out perform a catamaran.

After the winds went over 25 knots and waves were coming over the bow we decided in might be a good decision to roll in the jib. But this slowed us down below 4 knots. So we motorsailed for the last 10 miles to where we are currently anchored on the south end of Long Island. During that last 10 miles we took a real thrashing, with waves pounding us, and water all over the place.

We are anchored in a large area of reefs called Shubuk Channel. You should be able to get a good view of using the Google Earth program. You can also see all of the reefs that we have to transit through as we head north.

All us boats fished yesterday, and we all hooked a delicious Spanish Mackerel that we BBQ'ed last night. We also hooked several large barracuda whom we released as soon as we got our lure back. We also lost 2 lures to something really large that chomped right through the steel leaders. One barracuda hit our lure so hard that it straightened out the hook before spitting it out.

It was way too rough to clean our fish. So we ended up dragging him behind the boat till we could get anchored, pull him aboard, and clean him up for dinner.

Current plans are to possibly move to another anchorage 10 miles from here up the Shubuk Channel to shorten our next jump north to the Port of Suakin where are going to officially check into Sudan.

Tom & Amy