Wüstenschiff

Position Report 73
Date: 29th November 2009
Location: 09 54.7S, 60.48E
Message: Blog 18 and a couple of Photographs!



They say you know when you get to the south east trade winds when you get there. Well we have certainly arrived and for the last three days have averaged just under a hundred miles a day, as we continue to head southwest towards even better and more consistent winds predicted at around 11 degrees south.

Meanwhile the piracy situation remains much as before with new incidents to the west and south west of us between Seychelles and Dar Es Salaam. Having come rather too close to comfort to a group of pirates to the north east of the Seychelles, we have taken the decision to divert to the Comoros Islands and Mayotte in particular. Although as our security advisers Drum Cussac point out, there are pirates in many areas of the world and pirates have operated not that far away from the Comoros islands, by diverting to Mayotte we will at least be reducing our chances of being hijacked. And with some 900 miles to run we hope to be there around the 8th or 9th December assuming the south easterly trade winds continue to blow.

Meanwhile the end of our sugar supplies hasn't caused too much discomfort. That may not be true when our rice and pasta run out over the next week! However we have large stocks of lentils, red beans, buck wheat, corned beef, sausages, sweet corn, tinned fruit, porridge oats, raisins, tea and coffee. Water supplies are holding up especially as we have been collecting rain water to augment our supplies. So whilst the last days of our voyage may not be as comfortable as some would like, we are unlikely to starve or go thirsty. At the moment we are just crossing the Malha bank to the south east of the Seychelles where the water is just 20 meters deep and this morning Dirman hauled in a large 20lb groupa which has provided an excellent meal for lunch. No wonder he looks happy in the picture with the prized garoupa and Rashid. The other picture is of Phoenicia early last week when we were becalmed and taken by Aziz from the inflatable.

Half an hour into the tow across the Mediterranean the port rudder block broke. The rudder was hauled up on deck. We continued on with one rudder.

The tow to the anchorage off of Port Said took just over two days. It was calm all the way. The ship dropped us in an anchorage just outside of the shipping lanes and we waited there most of the day until a small boat came to tow us to the yacht club in Port Said. To pass the time we did a little swimming in the warm Mediterranean Sea.

In Port Said we had to inexplicably wait a week at the yacht club for a tow through the Suez Canal to be organized. Five of our crew had to return to their homes, so we were down to eight. Philip had been looking for a crew of 14 to 20!

Most of the days at the yacht club we worked hard in the heat, sweating profusely to finish up jobs and re-tarring the hull and rigging. I had two metal brackets made up at a metal shop to replace the broken wooden block, as we couldn’t get any new wood into the yacht club past security!! The port rudder was slung back into position with the new metal retaining bracket. Philip kindly paid for all of us to take a day trip to see the pyramids, our first full day off in more than a month.

After a week Philip finally decided that we should take matters into our own hands regarding our tow, instead of waiting for the shipping agents who seemed to come up with one delay tactic after another. Philip, Adnan (our lone remaining Syrian), and I took a taxi halfway down the Suez Canal to the Suez Canal authority main office to plead our case to the top man. After speaking with him about the expedition and our troubles getting a tow he told us we would have our tow that night. It had already been arranged while we were driving down. Unbelievable. But sure enough, at 3 o’clock the next morning our tug arrived to tow us through the Suez Canal to Port Suez.

The trip down the Suez Canal was a long-time dream come true for me. I have seen the St. Lawrence Seaway many times and the Panama Canal twice, but this was my first time to see the Suez Canal. The scenery was not spectacular, very flat on both sides. The train to Cairo passed us on the African side, which was green, but the Asian side (Sinai Peninsula) was desert with numerous military watchtowers. We did go by the town of Al Qantara and pass under the Mubarak Peace Bridge. Along the banks of the canal were floating bridge sections left over from the war in 1973. Fishermen dragged their small boats towards the north, walking on the banks with towlines over their shoulders.

We were traveling at the end of the southbound ship convoy and met the northbound convoy. I certainly felt tiny on Phoenicia seeing the massive ships so close up. The thought of encountering one of these at sea was... well, not worth thinking about. Further on, the west side of the canal turned to desert as well and we came into the Bitter Lakes. A lot of ships swung at anchor here. From the lakes we re-entered a canal section, passing some lovely luxury homes. That evening we dropped anchor in a stiff wind off the lights of Port Suez. We had a near disaster as the tug stayed attached to us as we dropped anchor and the weight of the extra boat pulled our anchor chain and line out to the bitter end. So we stood uncomfortable anchor watches through the night on a very taught anchor line.

regards
eric

Nach einer halben Stunde auf See brach der Backbordruderblock.

Das Ruder wurde an Deck gezogen. Wir machten mit einem Ruder weiter.

Das Schleppen zum Ankerplatz bei Port Said dauerte nur zwei Tage. Es war die ganze Zeit ruhig.
Der Frachter setzte uns an einem Ankerplatz ab- knapp außerhalb der Schiffsrouten- und wir warteten den Rest des Tages, bis uns ein kleines Boot in den Yacht Club von Port Said zog. Um die Zeit rumzukriegen, schwammen wir ein bisschen im warmen Mittelmeer.

In Port Said mussten wir unerklärlicherweise eine Woche im Yacht Club warten, bis ein Schleppdienst durch den Suez Kanal organisiert wurde. Fünf aus der Crew mussten nach Hause zurück, also waren wir nur noch acht. Phillip hatte nach einer Crew von 14 bis 20 Leute gesucht!

Die meisten Tage im Yacht Club arbeiteten wir in der Hitze, schwitzten reichlich um unsere Arbeit zu beenden und den Schiffskörper und die Takelage neu zu teeren.
Ich hatte zwei Metallklammern in einer Schlosserei gebaut, um den gebrochen Holzblock zu reparieren und wieder einzusetzen- wir bekamen kein Holz durch die Yacht Club- Sicherheitsvorkehrungen!

Das Backbordruder wurde wieder mit der neuen Metallklammer an seinen Platz gebracht. Phillip zahlte netterweise für uns alle, damit wir einen Tagestrip zu den Pyramiden machen konnten-
unser erster komplett freier Tag seit über einen Monat!

Nach einer Woche entschied Phillip, dass wir unsere Sachen selbst in die Hand nehmen und nach einer Schleppmöglichkeit suchen sollten-
anstatt auf die Schiffsagenten zu warten, die jeden Tag mir einer neuen Verzögerungstaktik kamen.

Phillip, Adnan (unser einziger, übrig gebliebener Syrier) und ich nahmen uns ein Taxi und fuhren den halben Kanal entlang zur "Suez Kanal Hauptbehörde", um unseren Fall dem obersten Beamten dort zu schildern. Nachdem wir mit ihm über die Expedition und unsere Probleme sprachen, einen Schleppdienst zu finden, versprach er uns, dass wir in dieser Nacht noch gezogen werden würden.

Es war scheinbar organisiert worden in der Zeit, in der wir zum Office fuhren.
Unglaublich.
Aber wahr.
Um drei Uhr morgens kam unser Schleppboot und zog uns durch den Kanal nach Port Suez.

Mit der Reise durch den Suez Kanal wurde ein alter Traum von mir wahr. Ich habe den Sankt-Lorenz-Seeweg schon oft und den Panama Kanal schon zwei Mal gesehen- aber es war das erste Mal dass ich den Suez Kanal sah.
Die Szenen waren nicht spektakulär: Sehr flach auf beiden Seiten.
Der Zug nach Kairo überholte uns auf der Afrikaseite- welche grün war- aber die asiatische Seite (Sinaihalbinsel) bestand aus Wüste mit vielen militärischen Wachposten.

Wir fuhren an der Stadt Al Qantara vorbei und unter der Mubarak Peace Brücke hindurch. Am Ufer des Kanals waren schwebende Brückenstücke, die von dem Krieg 1973 übrig blieben.
Fischer schleiften ihre kleinen Schiffe nach Norden, indem sie zu Fuß am Ufer entlang gingen- mit Seilen um den Schultern.

Wir reisten mit dem "Süd-Schiffs-Convoy" und kreuzten den "Nord-Schiffs-Convoy".
Ich fühlte mich allerdings winzig auf der Phoenicia mit all diesen riesigen Schiffen so nah bei uns.
Der Gedanke daran, eines von ihnen auf See zu treffen war…
nun- nicht Wert darüber nachzudenken.

Später wurde die Westseite ebenfalls zur Wüste und wir kamen in die Bitter Lakes. Eine Menge Schiffe hatten hier Anker geworfen. Von den Seen aus kamen wir erneut in den Kanal, wobei wir an einigen hübschen luxuriösen Häusern vorbeikamen.

An diesem Abend warfen wir den Anker- bei steifem Wind- unter den Lichtern von Port Suez. Wir hatten einen "Beinahe- Unfall":
Weil das Schleppboot immer noch mit uns verbunden war, als wir den Anker warfen und das Gewicht des Extrabootes an unserer Ankerkette zog-
bis zum bitteren Ende.

Also machten wir in dieser Nacht ungemütliche Ankerwachen an einem sehr "stressigen" Ankerplatz.
(Bei diesem letzten Satz bin ich mit der Übersetzung nicht ganz sicher)

Gruß
Eric

Hi,

kein neuer Blogeintrag-
aber der aktuelle Tracker zeigt, dass die Phoenicia unaufhaltsam Richtung Afrika unterwegs ist.
Eine kleine Kurskorrektur nach Norden ist noch erforderlich- sie sind ein wenig zu weit südlich für ihr nächstes Ziel- Daressalam- unterwegs.

Aber irgendwie geht- mit dem passenden Blick- allein aus der Trackerlinie hervor, wie sehr Schiff und Besatzung Richtung Küste jagen...

Gruß
Micha

Position Report 74
Date: 2nd December 2009
Location: 10.54.3S 57.05E
Message: Blog 19 from Niklas

Following the landing of the groupa on Sunday, we caught a large dorado yesterday. Both made great meals but sine then we have caught nothing more. Our rice has nearly run out and we have started to ration our pasta and noodles to a couple of packs per day to ensure that we have some carbohydrates with the meals for the rest of the trip.

Our progress has been a little slower than we would have liked at around 90 miles per day and we have some 700 miles to go before we reach Mayotte.

There is a wager between Aziz and Philip riding on when we will arrive. Philip (the optimist) is suggesting the 8th December and Aziz anywhere around the 12th December. Philip is banking on the strong winds forecast between the Seychelles and Mayotte and a few record breaking days of between 125 and 150 miles per day. Aziz is hoping the winds won't materialise. It will be interesting, as at the moment it is still a close call and the stonger winds are expected later today. At the moment we are about 40 miles south east of a small island called Agalega and will pass it 25 miles to the south. Some of the crew think we should visit it as they believe there will be drive-in supermarket and that their mobile phones will work! Clearly delusional after so many days at sea. However from the chart it looks like the only think that works is a large coconut plantation, a boat house and jetty to export the copra. So we won't be calling in.

Some of the stays have been tightened and various ropes, that have chaffed, have been replaced to prepare for the stronger winds and bigger seas. Some of the waves that are now rolling up behind Phoenicia are already 5-6 meters high but we can expect larger as we head towards the tip of Madagascar.

A couple of the brailing lines that enable the main sail to be furled and that were replaced a week ago have already broken and can't be replaced unless we bring the main sail down which would be quite a lot of work. As there are still several other brailing lines that do work, there is not too much to worry about for now.

Today is Yuri's birthday which we will celebrate later, no doubt with some soft drinks and a dip into our dwindling supply of chocolate bars. As we have no flour to make him a cake we have put together a "Phoenicia survival bag" made up pieces from a Ministry of Defence 24 hour ration pack (one of our emergency rations), that contains a chocolate Yorkie bar, biscuits and some prized sachets of sugar. Hopefully it will be the thought as well as the contents that count!


Position Report 75
Date: 3rd December 2009
Location: 010° 52.731S, 055° 32.272E
Message: Blog 20 plus photographs: Grey skies ahead


Yuri's Birthday flapjack cake Grey skies ahead!

Yesterday we celebrated Yuri's birthday and amongst other things we made an oat cake for him. The attached pictures shows him handing out a piece to another member of the crew.

Progress towards Mayotte has been fair. At times we have made dramatic progress with strong winds and speeds of around 6 knots. These have been compensated for by dull periods of light rainy winds where we have only managed to do 2-3 knots. Still we are closing the gap on Mayotte and have about 600 miles to run. An ETA of Tuesday is still looking optimistic except when we were doing 6 knots but that didn't last for many hours.

During the night we experienced a fair bit of rain, lightening and thunder storms. We also experienced a rather dramatic wind-shift that sent the boat spinning for a while amongst large waves till we could re-brace the sails.

An anxious moment because it was so sudden but it soon passed and we were back on course within a minute or two. As the other picture shows, we are constantly on the look out for grey skies with heavy rain clouds, so we can anticipate the next soaking and whether to furl the sail if needs must.

To date the wind forces from the rain clouds have been manageable. In the foreground of the picture is Phoenicia's Zuli or head/PC and one of our three Viking Liferafts. Hopefully we won't be needing the latter anytime soon but we certainly got a bit of a taste for things to come on the weather front during the early hours of this morning.

Grüsse
Alexander

Die Phönizia hat den Nordzipfel Madagaskars erreicht




Und die Stimmung an Board ist gut

Position Report 76
Date: 6th December 2009
Location: 11.09.5S, 50.51.2E
Message: Blog 21

We have been making slightly quicker progress these last two days and have averaged between 100 and 120 miles per day. We have just 340 miles to run before Mayotte, so its looking like PM Wednesday 9th December so it looks like Aziz may win the wager but the bad news for him is that he will have to buy the ice creams for the crew when we arrive! Our passage isn't totally straight forward as we have to give a wide berth to the tip of Madagascar, Cape d'Ambre, because it is at this point where the South Equatorial and Mozambique channel currents and the prevailing south easterly winds converge, often causing confused and angry seas.So we will be passing about 50 miles to the north of the Cape and then as we head south west to Mayotte where we have an island and reef to pass between (Iles Glorieuses and Recif du Geyser) before the final approach to Mayotte.

The weather these last couple of days has been bearable, with a lot of rain on Friday night and a times torrential. Last night was better in that there was less rain and we endured less hardship, but there were slightly lighter winds as a result and we were somewhat slower than the previous day.

We are making the best of the limited range of foods on board and this afternoon we have chosen to eat one or two of the last 3 remaining packets of biscuits and some chocolate bars. Pure luxury in the context of 6 weeks at sea today.

Grüsse
Alexander

8 Seiten später und 46 Tage später:

Land in greifbarer Nähe, Aufregung an Board, Alarm im Hafen :D

Position Report 76
Date: 7th December 2009
Location: 11.19.0S 47.22.2E
Message: Arwad meets Arwad in Chance encounter North of Madagascar (plus photos)

On Monday morning Phoenicia had a chance encounter with Syrian owned and crewed ship Aboudi V. Aboudi V had come from Socotra, Yemen and was on the same course as Phoenicia and heading towards Mozambique. The crew of Aboudi V is mainly made up of seamen from Arwad Island where Phoenicia was built and gave them a first chance to see Phoenicia in under sail.

Mohamad Osman, the owner of Aboudi V, on hearing of the encounter kindly offered to provide some much needed chicken and rice and other supplies for the crew of Phoenicia. However a transfer between the two vessels was abandoned on account of the swell and in view of the fact that Phoenicia is now less than 200 miles from her destination at Mayotte. Nevertheless it is hoped that the ship’s paths may cross again as Phoenicia will also be heading for Mozambique following her stop over in Mayotte. Pictures show Phoenicia’s chance encounter with Aboudi V.

Die Phoenicia wirft um 21:58 den Anker

Position Report 78
Date: 10th December 2009
Location: Mayotte, Comoros Islands
Message:

We have had an interesting 48 hours with many mixed emotions. Yesterday the wind died on us and we made just 70 miles towards Mayotte and we wondered just how long it would take us to make landfall. The early this morning the winds were fresh and for much of the day we have done 5-6 knots and we worried about entering a lee shore with a large reef around it. We lowered the main sail about 3 miles off the reef and carefully made our way through the entrance passage to Mayotte. On reaching the entrance we were greeted by a magnificent pod of dolphins, as if they were sent to welcome us. We are now witnessing an amazing sunset but our anchorage is still some 10 miles further along inside the reef, so we won't anchor until after dark. But we are still hoping the customs and port officials will clear us tonight so we can eat some decent French food after six and a half weeks at sea!

PS. We are now at anchor 2158 local time.



Grüsse
Alexander

Land in greifbarer Nähe, Aufregung an Board, Alarm im Hafen

Trapperjoe hat es wohl verdammt gut getroffen!

Es war eine ungewöhnliche Etappe, welche die Phoenicia da hingelegt hat- insbesondere auch in Bezug auf die Anfangsschwierigkeiten!
Ungewöhnlich lange, ungewöhnlich weit draußen...
und der Beweis, dass sie es drauf hat!

Seit dem 11. Dezember liegt sie hier:




Offensichtlich wurden die Hafengebühren gespart.
Offensichtlich ist das ein verdammt schönes Stückchen Strand- wenn so viele andere Boote ebenfalls dort ankern.

Offensichtlich gibt es Wein, Weib und Gesang in unmittelbarer Nähe.

Nun hatte ich gedacht, dass da irgend ein Freudenschrei im Blog niedergelegt wird- nach sooo langer Zeit auf See, so vielen Strapazen, so prekärer Nahrungssituation...

aber der Gentleman genießt und schweigt offenbar.
Kein neuer Blogeintrag bisher.
Sie haben es sich verdient...was auch immer

Es war eine reife Leistung-
und um die Erinnerung wieder ein wenig wach zu rufen an jene Zeit, als die komplette Expedition mehrmals im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes ins Wasser zu fallen drohte, hat Eric Hebert einen neuen Teil seiner Erlebnisse an uns geschickt-
an jene sechs oft dramatischen Monate, wo alles mehrmals am seidenen Faden hing!

Sein letzter Bericht endete im Suezcanal-
nun geht es ins Rote Meer-
wo die Phoenicia erstmals mit eigenen Segeln unterwegs sein wollte...

Gruß
Micha

Port Suez to Port Berenice

In pairs, we all stood two hour anchor watches through the night. The wind died down by morning.

After breakfast we had a brief crew meeting to determine our plan of action. Firstly we agreed to use the main sail as the wind was only at 5 – 10 knots. It would be very difficult for only eight of us to raise, but if we couldn’t use it in these light winds, why bother carrying it at all? The second problem was how to weigh anchor, as there was no slack left in the line on deck with which to start pulling it in.

One of the crew slipped another line over the anchor line and using that we were able to haul in the polypropylene line. But when we came to the chain section we couldn’t budge it. We couldn’t haul the ship back against the wind. Luckily for us a small pilot boat came by just then and we flagged him down. He came over and, taking a towline from us, he dragged us upwind and we were then able to haul in the chain and anchor. What we found was that several of the chain links had opened up through the night. Wow! How lucky we were that none of the links had let go completely. That could have been the end of the expedition right there. Philip passed over two cartons of cigarettes to the pilot boat and they departed happily.

We already had the yard raised halfway, so we set the sail and raised the yard a bit further. We were on our way to Aden. It was September 5 and the expedition was finally underway!


reagards
Eric

Die Ecke wo sie gerade ankern sieh gar nicht mal so schlecht aus. Wird wohl etwas Erholung & Landgang auf dem Programm stehen :D

Port Suez bis Port Berenice


Paarweise wachten wir in zweistündigen Ankerwachen die ganze Nacht über. Der Wind erstarb am Morgen.

Nach dem Frühstück hatten wir ein kurzes Crew Meeting, um unseren Arbeitsplan auszuarbeiten. Als erstes entschieden wir uns dafür, das Hauptsegel zu benutzen, da der Wind nur 5 bis 10 Knoten blies.

Es würde für uns acht sehr schwer werden, es zu hissen- aber wenn wir es sogar bei diesen seichten Winden nicht benutzen könnten, weshalb ärgerten wir uns dann, es überhaupt mitzuschleppen?

Unser zweites Problem war: Wie den Anker lichten? Es war kein Spiel mehr in der der Ankerleine an Deck um den Anker hochzuziehen.

Ein Crewmitglied streifte eine zweite Leine über die Ankerleine und so waren wir in der Lage, die Polypropylenleine einzuziehen.
Aber also wir am Kettenteil ankamen, konnten wir ihn nicht mehr bewegen. Wir konnten das Schiff wegen dem Wind nicht zurücksteuern.

Zu unserem Glück kam ein kleines Lotsenboot vorbei und wir winkten es zu uns. Er kam und zog uns mit unserer Schleppleine gegen den Wind- und so konnten wir die Kette und den Anker an Bord hissen.
Es stellte sich heraus, dass einige Kettenglieder sich in der Nacht geöffnet hatten.
Wow!
Was für ein Glück hatten wir, dass keines komplett abgefallen war. Das hätte das sofortige Ende der Expedition bedeuten können. Phillip übergab zwei Kartons mit Zigaretten an das Lotsenboot und sie fuhren sehr glücklich zurück.

Wir hatten die Rah immer noch halb gehisst- also setzten wir das Segel und zogen die Rah ein bisschen höher.
Wir waren unterwegs nach Aden.
Es war der der fünfte September und die Expedition war endlich unterwegs!

Gruß
Eric

Kettenglieder geöffnet ??
Ja, der Dorfschmied der kann alles.....

Kettenglieder geöffnet ??

Hi schu,

hoffentlich ist da kein Fehler in der Übersetzung.
Unsere hilfreiche Hand beim Übersetzen hat noch nie auf einem Boot gestanden...
und ich kann ebenfalls mangels nautischer Kenntnisse derart technische Passagen nicht wirklich überprüfen.

Ich hatte nämlich den gleichen Gedanken wie Du.
Kann doch jeder Schmied wieder richten....

Gruß
Micha

We were now on our seagoing watch system.
We divided the crew onto two watches of four people each, trying to spread out the experience. Philip had decided on a system of three four-hour watches from eight o’clock in the morning to eight at night, and two six-hour watches from eight at night until eight in the morning.

This was the system we had used on Borobudur-
and I hated it.
Because there are five watches each day, it means that each day you have to switch your sleep and work hours. My body doesn’t work that way and I struggled to get rested.

Through the day we had calm sailing conditions and made about 5 knots. In the early evening the wind started to pick up. After dinner, at 2000 hours (8 p.m. in nautical terms) my watch took over the deck. The wind had by now picked up to about 25 knots.
Shortly into our watch the ship got about 50 degrees off course and the sail backed.

I was amidships washing the dinner dishes at the time and heard Philip yell my name from the quarterdeck. Two people were on the starboard helm, but they couldn’t turn it as it was too stiff and there was too much pressure on it. I leaned on the tiller to help turn it but just heard it crack. By that time we had all hands on deck, and one person manned the port rudder to try and help turn the ship. The port rudder came out of position.

Not being able to turn the ship we turned our attention to the sail. We brailed up the sail and lowered the yard to the rail. The ship was now broadside to the waves and rolling quite a lot. Two of the crew got the sea anchor up on deck and streamed it off one of the aft stanchions, which brought the stern into the wind and waves. We then all struggled to bring the port rudder up on deck. It was a heavy beast, a couple of hundred pounds, and awkward and dangerous to do in the dark with the ship pitching in 3 metre seas.

That done the starboard rudder was manned and we slowly drifted down wind at one knot dragging the sea anchor. I went to finish washing the dishes when a larger wave hit us and ripped the starboard rudder block off the rudder thwart. So now the starboard rudder was flailing uselessly and it was hauled up on deck. There we were drifting rudderless in the Red Sea, in Force 5 – 6, on our first true night of the expedition. I wrote in my journal that perhaps I had jinxed us, as I had called home earlier in the day and told my mother that all was well.


reagards
Eric