Day 29: Monday 13 April

Re-reading the Covid-19 port special procedures data on Noonsite this morning we realised we had missed something. Spain and Portugal have not entirely locked down their harbours to foreign, transient yachts. It is apparently possible to stop over to pick up fuel and supplies by prior arrangement. Now that would take some planning but it could just be possible if it really was the case; enough to get us home! Worth pondering on. I wonder if fellow cruisers along those coast might be willing to assist with the considerable coordination that would be needed?

Other than that it’s a bit of a duvet day. The skipper made breakfast and checked things on deck. I discovered the yoghurt was a failure, it was fizzy and foul tasting, then posted yesterday’s ramblings to the blog. The laundry is soaking. We finally made an audit of provisions and discovered we are running short on toothpaste (one small tube), deodorant (none), kitchen roll (two rolls) and bread flour (2kg of strong white plus 3kg of wholemeal or rye). Dried pulses like black eyes, lentils and so on are also low with only what is left in the in-use tubs in the galley.

Looking at the Windy App it just might be that we not only get a weather window but one with southerly winds in the Gulf of Suez by a week on Wednesday. If that is the case then things are looking up. If we reach Tor Harbour this week then next week it might be possible to cover the last 122nm to Suez. That’s a lot of ifs though. For now we sit and wait for this coming Wednesday.

To support the laundry efforts the watermaker is on as is Mr Wibbly-Wobbly the wind generator. The water quality is now in the poor range at 850ppm and the volume low but we daren’t change out the membrane as this might make the high pressure side leak worse. It’s not just food and groceries that are in short supply.

In order to safely cover the remaining few thousand miles we somehow need to source watermaker parts, and maybe additional fuel filters and other boat consumables like engine oil. There are enough for now but when we left Malaysia back in January we envisaged stopping in first world harbours with chandleries once we reached the Med. A replacement autopilot control head for the cockpit would be useful in an ideal world too as could the space to replace the foot tape on the genoa again; I actually have the tape but manipulating the metres of tape and acres of sail in the cockpit just isn’t feasible.

Are companies able to supply parts? Are companies like DHL and Fedex operating? Are countries allowing goods in? And finally in this equation where could they be delivered to? Egypt has never been high on the list of places to get yacht parts shipped to. We are too isolated from what’s going on to even contemplate starting to look into this.

And a little bonus to brighten our day; I tugged and wiggled the packet of smoked salmon tucked in the ice building up along the sides of icebox, then having extracted it, realised there is another pack still stuck to the side! So two meals not one. Omelette and salmon for supper with cucumber rice salad.