Following is an e-mail I received from a mate who is headed for the
Med, via the Red Sea. It is written after a stop to repair the broken
steering on his Prout 36 ft. He departed Langkawi, Malaysia on 17
January.
It is kind of long but I though it might be of some interest.

Hello all.
Hoping all is well with you and yours.
Well, I finally got away from Aden, Yemen. I would liked to stay
longer but civil strife is more eminent every day. The city center
sits in an old volcanic crater and the police and government buildings
are in it as well all shops., etc. Militants are now frequently taking
pot shots at police and government workers from the old volcano rim.
Many road blocks. My schedule is good and transiting the Red Sea is
best at the end of March and early April when northern winds and
currents are low. I would have liked to kill more time in Aden but in
view of all above, could get killed as well. My Arab friend and his
Filipino wife were very nice to me. He helped me get my steering
tie-rod rebuilt and many other things done. She was appreciative to
meet me as soon as she found out I'd spent a lot of time in the
Philippines especially in Santa Cruz, Manila where she was raised up
at. I never could see her face but her eyes showed her happiness. She
gave me a few of her English written Philippine love story books to
read on my trip. They actually encouraged me to leave Yemen. All
embassy people have been evacuated for the past three months. No more
non-Arab international flight can come there now. The US done a few
drone air strikes on an Al Qaida hangout in the southern province of
Abayan not so far from Aden the day before I left. I only saw two
other white guys during my whole stay. One was Greek, the other, who
knows. BTW, where I was anchored was about 100 yards from where the
USS Cole took the hit.
The trip to the entrance of the Red Sea at Bab Al Mandeb (meaning the
Gates of Sorrow) was excellent. As I entered the Red Sea and headed
north, the wind from the south kept increasing probably getting 20 to
25 knots and gusting to gale force. I was doing 6 to 7 knots with just
the little inner fore sail. I never thought this boat could ever get
pooped as it surfs downwind so well but one time as the stern was
heaped up, the wind blew the top off the wave and my whole back porch
was full. Nearly lost my dinghy. Speaking of being pooped, there are a
lot of interesting birds seen now. When the wind was high, one took
refuge on my bow area. I risked my neck and went forward and carried
it back to the cockpit where it had some cover under an old jacket of
mine. It stayed all night and in the morning, all was seen of it was a
little pile of poop. Talk about some gratitude!
I got a long way north running with the good strong wind. During this
time, I noticed something funny with my wind charger and learned that
one of the angle braces had broken. I quickly lashed it with rope,
duck tape, u-name-it and have saved it's life. It is one of my
cherished items on this trip. I was going to go straight to Port Sudan
but now have veered to the west and will stop in Massawa, Eritrea and
try to get some more welding done. Seems strife everywhere in this
area. Ethiopia has just attacked Eritrea. Sudan and South Sudan are
bickering. Oh well, if one listened to and was swayed by all the news,
one would never go to places like Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka and
rtc. Theoretically, I should be out of the notorious Somali pirate
zone and apart from an odd bushwhacker, out to have a clear run now.
Ok, and my water maker lives again. On the way before reaching Aden, I
was making water and heard a weird noise. I turned it off and saw that
one of the external piston cylinders had blown completely off and away
from the Clark (intensifier) pump. I dismantled everything and learned
that this "new" pump had problems before. That cylinder is of
composite material with an aluminum end cap on one end and an aluminum
mounting plate on the other. The threads on the cylinder had been
ground off, some sort of glue applied (like liquid steel) and that
cylinder was pasted back into the mounting plate. I cleaned off all
the existing gluing compound and then made scars or small grooves
where the previous guy had only ground threads smooth. I found some
really expensive Devcon industrial epoxy (mixed with aluminum) and
re-glued it back successfully (I hope) together again. It so far has
been working well. Hopefully the Devcon glue that the guy I bought yhe
watermaker from in Langkawi used was of the "off the wall Home
Hardware" stuff and my industrial stuff is stronger.
My reason for killing time is weather. Some of my acquired information
about the Red Sea is:
Although very far from the equator, there is an ITCZ that extends up
into the Red Sea turning it into virtually a North Red Sea and a South
Red Sea (in regards to weather) and the border is about at Port Sudan.
During the winter, the south has southerly winds and a north bound
current. Because, the southern entrance gets narrow, the winds get
very strong (as I just experienced) due to a funnelling effect and
gale force strength has been recorded. In the summer, the currents are
south bound and the winds are NE, N and NW.
In the north, the wind blows all the year from the NE, N and NW, The
current is northbound in the winter and south bound in the summer.
The transition between summer and winter is happening soon. It has
been proven that going up the Red Sea is not the hardest when done in
late March and early April. The head winds may not be so strong and
the still northerly setting current may help. This is my timing now.
FYI, if you look west just after sunset, you will see Venus and
Jupitor shining very brightly close to each other like two big lights.
This morning at 02:30 UTC 17/Mar/12, I am about 15 miles from Massawwa
at 15 deg 37.2 N and 39 deg 45.7 E.
Other than all that, life aint too bad. Regards ..... Wayne
--
Cheers,

Bruce