Sadly, we left Port Said in a rather unpleasant atmosphere after a very interesting transit of the Suez Canal. We had stayed half way in Ismailia, a compulsory stop and on checking the weather decided it would be better to delay our final passage by 24 hours. We completed the administrative tasks on arrival in port Said and left for an anchorage just out side recommended by one of the TTT convoy who were ahead of us. No sooner had we anchored than we wree approached by the port authority boat and the navy and summarily dismissed and told to leave immediately. We did not want to go back to the port as there was nowhere satisfactory to stay and the cost was high so we had no choice but to start our passage and hope the bad weather would not be too serious. Despite our pleas and entreaties they insisted we leave.
Luckily the weather was not too bad and calmed after the first night. The wind was not favourable as it was from the NW where we were going so we had to sail north initially and at one stage wondered if we should go to Cyprus instead. The wind lessened so we continued to head for Marmaris motoring to get the westing as we could Tthe generator was not working again so we also needed the motor to charge the batteries.
At dawn on 17th may we reached Marmaris bay which is very beautiful and it was a very exciting moment for us as it was somewhere we had wondered if we would ever reach. We decided it would be sensible to refuel first before going to our berth and so our first stop was the fuel dock .After refueling we started the motor to drive to our berth and nothing happened, no sign of life in the engine at all ! We looked for the source of the problem but could find nothing but as we were in the marina we were able to call the local Yanmar engineer who diagnosed the problem immediately and pulled out a broken wire from the engine and replaced it ! If this had happened out at sea I might not be writing this blog for another few weeks !
We felt curiously lucky and remembered a black cat had run across our path in port Suez !
Our plan is to stay in Turkey for a year and then do a fairly leisurley crossing of the mediterranean starting May 2012 and do the ARC november 2012 so this blog will start again May 2012 all being well.

Birdy who sat here for 2 days during our crossing of the Med