Marsa Ata, Sudan

Anchored at Marsa Ata
Sudan
Africa
19'17.3N/37'19.6E

684 Miles to the Suez Canal!!

Our small fleet (Sandpiper, Shiraz, My Chance) left Suakin at 8am for a short trip 10 miles north to where we are currently anchored inside a protective reef along Sudan's shoreline. Onshore is sand, with small brush, and we can see the heat shimmering off the sand. In the distance we can see large trucks driving along the same road that we took on our bus ride into Port Sudan yesterday. And off in the far distance are mountains.

From here until we reach the Suez Canal we will have northerly winds that we will be motoring against. The winds drop down at sunset and at sunrise the winds start blowing from the north lightly. Later in the day, around 1pm, the winds are blowing up to 25 knots at times.

The charts for the northern part of the Red Sea are reported to be off. So we will not be traveling at night unless we are in an open stretch of sea. So far our electronic charts have been pretty close, considering where we are. This means that for most of our trips headed north we will be leaving early in the morning, and hope to be at anchor by early afternoon, before the northerly winds and seas start to beat us. So we should be jumping north at about 30 miles a day.

We tried fishing today, but no luck. There are many fishermen along Sudan's coast, unlike Eritrea. This might explain our lack of fish.

Tomorrow's plans are to get a move on at first light and make the next anchorage.

Tom and Amy