Death on the Nile!

It was a windy night with rough waters, not the perfect conditions for sailing, but turns out that like driving in Egypt; conditions or actual skills mean nothing, don’t even worry about a license, ‘just wing it, it’s Egypt’. Picture a boat less then 8meters long and 3 meters wide with two Arabic crew members who don’t speak a word of English, and then 4 travelers, 2 French who also don’t speak English an Irish twat and myself. When I signed up for a 2 night Felucca ride on the Nile this was not what I was expecting! But there I was and so it began.

The Irish guy did nothing to help the stereotypical view of Ireland -with questions like “does the river start at the sea?” and statements such as “I was going to start smoking because my friend told me it would strengthen my teeth”- I knew I was going to be in for a long ride! First night we sailed about 12miles downstream to a quiet bay and anchored on the riverbank, and sure enough the Leprecon didn’t fail to meet standards “if they point the nose to shore we are safer from thieves”. Now for one we are miles away from any sort of township we are on the flipping NILE! And in addition what difference would it make if the nose points to the shore or if the boat is parallel!?

The next day went pretty slowly as we gently flowed with the wind downstream from Aswan towards Luxor, but as night fell and we pulled into shore to get supplies, things got interesting. There was a MASSIVE shifting of Nile Cruise ships upstream and I’m still unaware of why in excess of 50 EMPTY cruisers decided to migrate up the river like a flock of birds migrating for winter, but it turned the peaceful atmosphere of water lapping on the side of the boat into a noisy stampede of massive ships. At stages the boats were 3 wide powering through the water at breakneck speeds as though it was the ‘Tour de Nile’ and so our captain no lights and no engine decides that he will challenge the MASSIVE ships and try and cross the river to anchor on the other side.

BAD IDEA!

The scariest 3 minutes of my life were to follow with waves coming over the sides of the already small Felucca and Cruisers towering above us as the crew of 2 went mad pulling up the sail, trying to balance the boat by dropping the fin all at the same time turning the rudder to steer us out of harm’s way. With the cruise ships stopping any wind that may have helped us sail out of the way we were headed straight for them with no way of getting out. As the ships drew closer our shouts were heard by the crew and all of a sudden we were blinded with flashing spotlights and blasting horns. Man we already know we are in the way that’s just not helping at all! Closer and closer they came until they were towering above us and as if by some miracle we floated in between 2 of the cruisers but with less than 20meters between us and the hull it was a close call.

But that was the least of our problems, being between 2 cruisers acted as a propellant in sending us backwards with the pressure of the water into the path of yet another daunting ship threatening to shatter our small boat into a million splintering pieces! This game of ‘dodgeship’ continued for 3minutes before we were finally able to catch the current out of the shipping lane and onto safe ground!


Oh Egypt... good times!

If you can't find the video at the bottom of the page click here to see the Death on the Nile video