Maldives to Egypt

Its official, we are out of Asia. I love Asia, the people are relaxed and the cultures are immense. Just walking down the street is a great experience that once you’ve been there for a while you just take for granted. Your first time in Asia the sides of your face and your forehead start to ache because your eyes are constantly staring and taking in this new world, its hard to explain the difference between Asia and Europe. Like I said, I love Asia but damn am I glad to be almost in the med right now. I guess you just need a break from paradise once in a while.

The second leg of our journey was from the Maldives to Egypt. The 3176Miles took us close to 2 weeks and was for about 4days whilst cruising the Somali coast line quite scary.

Pirate attacks have increased in recent weeks off the coast of Somalia after dying out during six months of strict Islamist rule in southern and central Somalia at the end of last year. There were scores of pirate attacks in the unpatrolled waters off the 3700km Somali coastline between March 2005 and June last year and in recent months pirate attacks have become more frequent. The pirates of Somalia are advanced, using current technology and probably them selves’ military trained. Only last week were 3 Finish fishing vessels seized and the crew held captive.
This is the information that we get once we arrived in the Somali waters and we quickly tried to get as far away as possible but were on high alert for 3 days.

This is a copy of a chat I had with my parents on skype when we were in pirated waters:
Dawn Greenhalgh 07:56 hey cant have a chat now coz im on watch 07:58 We are just off the coat of Somalia Mum n dad 07:58 700 hrs Dawn Greenhalgh 07:59 Most dangerous place in the world 07:59 Its 4am here Mum n dad 07:59 Yes I know Dawn Greenhalgh 07:59 Look it up online, 3 boats seized by pirates last week 08:05 Me n the other guy on watch were just about ready to get our snack pack n water n hibernate in our hiding place- perk of being the deck hand. I know all the hiding places 08:06 We had a boat heading to us at 25kts, but turned out to be a cargo ship 08:06 I was nervous man, so as normal I spent the last hour laughing Mum n dad 08:07 Just looking at the web and the pirates are using cargo ships that they have seized Dawn Greenhalgh 08:09 Thanx for that dad, me n Joel really appreciate that. he says there is a faint smell of poo coming from his side of the bridge Mum n dad 08:11 Be carefully and take care. The International Maritime Board has warned of an alarming increase in piracy in Somali waters and has urged ships to avoid the area. Dawn Greenhalgh 08:13 Ill be careful n ill let u know when we're out of Somali waters. so guna get back to watchin out 08:13 xxxxx Mum n dad 08:13 I think that’s wise. Love you and take care
That was all an adventure, which we got out of totally unscathed. I still think that pirates are more feared than they should be and think that it is not as dangerous in these places as the western world make it out to be.

After this we made it up through the red sea. We had a few days of rough weather, as you can see on the picture. But this just all makes it that little bit more entertaining I guess- we had fun seeing which would be the biggest wave to hit the boat and the one on the picture was defiantly not it. We actually had a wave brake on the top deck of the boat, lots of fun!!! At the north end of the Red Sea we entered the Suez Canal (this is a picture of me in the Suez Canal).

The Suez Canal is a large artificial canal in Europe, west of the Sinai Peninsula. It is 163km (101 miles) long and 300m (984ft) wide at its narrowest point, and runs between Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea and Suez on the Red Sea. The canal allows two-way water transportation, most importantly between Europe and Asia without circumnavigation of Africa. Before it’s opening in 1869, goods were often offloaded from ships and carried over land between the Mediterranean and the red sea.

The history in to all of the different leaders and ways that they thought of to construct a water way from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean is quite interesting. Apparently Pharaoh Senusret (1878BC – 1839BC) did actually build a canal linking the River Nile to the Red Sea, this was an east to west canal through Wadi Tumilat, and thus allowing trade indirectly between the Red Sea and Mediterranean. Also Napoleon made plans for the Suez many years before it was actually constructed but in his calculations he somehow came up with the fact that the Red Sea was 10meters higher than the Med, which off course is a fault, and because of the extra expense in construction of a lock system he did not go through with it. Like I said I find this all really interesting but I won't bore all of you with history- well at least no more on this blog anyway.

We are now at the Med end of the Suez and are getting ready to go and see the Pyramids and take a camel ride.