But we actually managed to get everything done all right. Others got it worse, they lost their entire mast.

On February 25 we finally continue our journey, equipped with a new turban and a new 46 spanner for the shrouds. We carry on, heading for Aden.

This part of the Jemen coast is one of the most feared ones - at least concerning pirates. After many conversations with people who have intimate knowledge of local affairs - to name one, with Mohammed from Salalah (who is also a great help to all yachters in many other matters), quite a different picture forms in our mind:
Firstly, one should disregard all horror stories told by people who only rely on sofa-navigation. Sure, there's still some danger here, but the Jemen has apparently built up a well functioning coast guard and the dangers are much less than anticipated.

Ok, one should stay a good 20 – 30 nautical miles off the coast, and to hope that one could sneak past unnoticed is also not really probable. Many strongly motorized wooden boats drive out rather far to catch sardines. And some of them do approach you, asking for food or water (or less often for cigaretts). Meeting them with a gun in hands is not the ideal approach. A friendly smile when beeing approached, and an arabic hello „Salaam al haykum“  create a relaxed atmosphere and even if you were to meet actual pirates that would sooner help than worsen the situation. When using weapons around here you're sure to loose since real attacker will most probably have the better weapons.

So only food and water bottles fly around - and over to the fisherman producing huge smiles on their faces. Now and again a freshly caught sardines comes flying back to us. So our cruise was a peacefull one, but sadly, one without wind. We were motoring for 5 days.