One of your final treats in your voyage up the Red Sea is a stop at Abu Tig
Marina. This resort community is your last port of call before you sail up
the Gulf of Suez to enter the Suez Canal.
Abu Tig is the perfect base from which to stage your Egyptian adventures.
The Marina has a Mediterranean flavor and is extremely secure. The cost was
$150 per month when we were there. They charged $15 per day for the first
ten days, and after that the rest of the month was free.
Surrounding the Marina is a designer village with beautiful restaurants and
shops. Each night you can eat at waterfront restaurants overlooking the
harbor.
As an added bonus, the Sailmail system has a transmitter at Abu Tig. If you
are behind on your correspondence, you can instantly log in via pactor to
send and receive mail. You'll never find a place where it's easier to log
into the system.
Abu Tig is a gated community several miles long with condominiums, houses,
and resorts for thousands of visitors who come for water sports and to tour
Egyptian antiquities. Because it's so secure, yachties can leave their boat
when they do a Nile River cruise. It's so inexpensive that some sailors
even winter over there.
Abu Tig is one of the best kite boarding destinations in the world. A wind
compression zone funnels strong breezes down the Gulf of Suez blasting
resorts with predictable wind. There can be upwards of fifty inflated kites
lining the beach on any one day. Professional kite boarders put on mind
boggling displays in the fifteen to twenty-five knot winds. I spent four
days photographing airborne dare devils as they took to the air.
Abu Tig has it all, and I suspect it won't be long before it will be
discovered by eastern Mediterranean sailors who are looking for a great
place to winter over.
When it comes time to head 180 miles north to the mouth of the Suez Canal,
you need a weather window to avoid a hard slog to windward. On this
particular day, the Red Sea is flat calm. Now that is a weather
window!
