Port Said
I am writing this in the nasty, polluted yacht harbour of Port Said, and however horrible it is, I am glad to be here. We had a difficult journey here, to say the least. First of all, the wind was against us all the way, and raised a lumpy, uncomfortable sea. Secondly, we had quite a few problems; a kink in a sea water cooling pipe caused pressure to build up until the band was forced off and we suddenly had a massive pipe pumping seawater into the engine room, while the engine overheated at the same time, of course this happened at 2 o’clock in the morning. We acted quickly though, Oren closing the seacock while I turned the engine off, and pumped the bilge, as usual. We thought the head gasket might have blown, and meanwhile set a course under sail north-west, thinking that we would have to return to Ashkelon. However, after letting the engine cool down enough to work on it, Oren fixed the pipes which had variously blown apart, melted or become distorted, and we cautiously started up. Amazingly everything was ok, and we turned back round. We had gone back quite a few miles, and this, together with the wind, made what should have been a day and a half into a three day journey, all of it beating to windward. The next problem was that the navigation lights stopped working, a bit worrying when you are sailing through an area with lots and lots of big ships! So we got an old round engine light, and coloured it red and green with felt tips and oil crayons, and stuck it on the mast. Then for desserts, when we got close to Port Said the vhf stopped working! So we just followed the navigation marks and steamed in, and everything was fine- a pilot came along in a launch and hopped on, and showed us where to tie up. And so we are here, despite everything! We still can’t go and call home, because our passports haven’t been returned yet, so we will have to wait until tomorrow.
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