Port Ghalib to Abu Tig Marina

We were welcomed here with open arms and made very welcome. as we were the first boats to visit. The usual (getting used to this now and a bit blasé about it) free drinks party in the evening when we arrived and a free dinner, a wonderful buffet by the hotel, the following evening.

Port Ghalib is a new development and has much still to be built and finished. It is in the middle of a vast stretch of desert coast line along with other hotel and apartment complexes that are strewn along the coast. Who is to fill and buy them remains to be seen. The developers are selling the property so when they leave they will take the profits and leave any problems behind!!

Unfortunately there were no shops to speak of yet and we had to order everything through the hotel who then delivered it. This was OK except that most of the yachts were going to Sudan and Eritrea and no shops would be available so they ordered 3, 5 and 6 kg of meat which was supposed to be prime beef. Each piece arrived frozen solid. The hotel offered to cut it on their meat saw in the kitchens. I do not know what the other yachts meat was like but ours was still to tough after 2 hours cooking. So much for prime beef but then it is Egypt so why expect different.

The party went with a swing with lovely nibbles and a good Egyptian wine, well not bad, and everyone had a good time.

One evening we had a bubble pipe party on a yacht called Panta Ria which was good fun.

We left Port Ghalib on the 21st for Abu Tig Marina and ended up in bad weather with the wind on the nose. It was a washing machine sea and we got tossed about quite badly. When we got to our intended port for the night the anchor would not run out. The chain had got mixed up in the bad weather. Luckily there was a buoy we could pick up to give a chance to sort the anchor chain out. This took up 2 hours hard work.

The following two days were flat calm and wonderful cruising to Abu Tig Marina.

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