From Tobruk to the Egyptian border is around 70 or 80 miles; as far again inside Egypt is Sidi Barrani, followed by Mersa Matruh, and then Alexandria, another 150 miles or so altogether.
In places the coast is ruggedly beautiful, with groups of narrow headlands and bays punctuating flat sandy beaches that stretch for miles. The land looks uninhabited, though there are signs of cultivation as you move into Egypt, and roads. We did see one person who waved – and one small fishing boat on the intensely emerald sea.
World War II fortifications were scattered about, incongruous in the natural beauty.
At a place in the middle of nowhere, delightfully called Buk Buk, we began to hear radio signals from, we thought, Sidi Barrani. We could not raise them, probably as we were so low, skimming along just above the gentle waves as they met the baking sand of the beach. We tried Cairo, with no success there either: we were just too far from anywhere.
We saw very young soldiers patrolling the beach, armed with rifles. Most ignored us. One took cover. Suddenly, as we rounded a gentle sandy headland, one of these young soldiers raised his rifle and took aim. I threw the helicopter out to sea in a violent left turn, to put the solid block of the engine between me and his gun, and to get out of range. After that, we flew on, farther out to sea.
We made contact with Mersa Matruh at 30 miles to the west of it and they cleared us through their airspace, no problem. They gave us 130.9 as the Alexandria frequency and reported our position for us. The town itself looked prosperous, a contrast with Libya, and there were increasing signs of tourism and leisure as we moved farther along the coast. People swimming in the sea waved at us as we went by. The atmosphere had changed. This was again a prosperous and free western-style society.
We went on, looking for a place to land, take photos, and take a break. After several attempts, we found a likely looking beach to put down on, desperate to relieve ourselves, and hoping no-one would see us or point a rifle at us. We still needed to feel convinced that things had changed.
I had just cut the helicopter's engine, when Martin pointed to a group of twenty or so figures running towards us up the beach. They were far enough away for us not to be able to tell whether or not they were armed.
“Sod it, there won’t be any guns - this is Egypt, you can come here for your holidays”, I said. I got out hurriedly. If I was going to be arrested, at least I was going to have relieved myself first. There was just time.
But we needn’t have worried. We were being approached by friendly educated Egyptian tourists shaking our hands, smiling, taking photos, and using camcorders on us. That helped wipe away the last traces of the militaristic cold war atmosphere that lingered on with us from Libya.
“Love your Robinson,” they shouted in smiling approval, clearly no strangers to American luxury brands. One of them said he ran a casino in Cairo.
We took off within ten minutes, leaving a group of new friends.
Later as we approached Alexandria, we got into the air traffic control system, and asked for a particular course, one that would take us close to the pyramids for a bit of aerial tourism. This was refused. But a minute or two later we were called and given the course we wanted. Perhaps it was good nature triumphing over the rules. We got a great view, and we took some good photos. The air pollution, a mixture of desert sand and exhaust fumes, gave the printed images a rather surreal appearance.
We stopped at Alexandria for fuel and formalities, and it took forever. The service was slow in spite of the enormous number of people involved at every stage. There were 37 people standing around our helicopter as it was refuelled, and only two of them were necessary to carry out the work. We could tell that we represented dollars for these people, and that they were all hoping for a cut. The handling agent, whose job it is to smooth our way through the airport and its procedures, was corrupt and greedy. Worse still, the food looked dangerously unrefrigerated and expensive, and the bottled water had a suspiciously insecure cap.
Worst of all, their greedy inefficiency stole precious and irreplaceable time from us.
The area stank of oil pollution from the nearby coastline, and we couldn’t wait to get back into the air and get away. Our aim for the day was to reach Aqaba in southern Jordan, and if we could do that we would have made up the time lost being entertained in Libya.
We flew down the west coast of the Gulf of Suez, where a range of low mountains runs north-south along the Gulf. We stopped to take some photos of the harsh and impressive landscape. The ground, made up of what looked like small pumice stones, burnt our feet through our shoes. We seemed to be the only living thing visible from horizon to horizon. Our helicopter stood there looking like an Apollo landing craft on the moon.
At that point, we suddenly realised that the sun was touching the horizon behind us. We were more than 20 degrees farther south than when we started out from home, so it got dark much earlier than we were used to in the UK. And because we were much closer to the tropics the days were ending without much in the way of twilight. We should have taken all this into account, and kept going, rather than wasting time taking photos and drinking Coke.
In the air again over the eastern coast of the Gulf, and looking at the map on my knee, I talked this through with Martin:
“We’ve really fluffed this up. It's getting dark already, and we've got an hour and 10 minutes flying to do, across uninhabited desert and uninhabited 3600 ft mountains. A forced landing in that kind of terrain in the dark would be unsurviveable. Then if we do get over the mountains, we're looking at a night landing at Aqaba, which we could probably manage if we had a copy of the approach procedure to hand, which we haven’t. On the approach path to Aqaba International Airport you have less than a mile to play with or you stray into Israeli airspace, and you can imagine what kind of firepower that might let loose.”
“Yes, I see what you mean,” said Martin. “Is there anywhere round here we could land instead?”
I looked down at the map.
“There's some kind of military airport on the coast marked here just south of the town, but I can't see anything at all that looks like a runway down on the ground. Other than that, there's no airport closer than the one we've just come from.”
We didn’t fancy returning to Alexandria, and in any case, we had used more than half our fuel, so couldn’t get back there anyway.
By now, lights were coming on in the town we'd just flown over, as darkness began to fall.
“I thought I spotted a hotel on the coast back there, with parasols and stuff on the beach.” I ventured.
We turned round to go and find it, gagging for a cold beer in the hotel bar, not having had any kind of alcohol since Crete, which seemed half a world ago.
Halfway back to the coast we saw a dusty compound, surrounded by what looked like whitewashed chalets and a high wall. From 1000 ft it looked like it could have been some kind of motel, so we thought we’d try it. Martin put the helicopter into a steep descending turn to the right for a closer look.
“Not sure that’ll do us,” I said as we got really low. “Er, it looks like a police station.” There was a guard house, armed guards, a flag-pole with the national flag, and even an armoured jeep.
“Better get away from this,” I suggested “before we get shot down”.
Martin pulled up sharply and headed back for the hotel I had seen on the coast. It certainly looked more promising, with an elaborate sunshade over the front door, and sun-worship paraphernalia to the rear of the hotel on the beach. It had everything a hotel should have, but we felt there was something odd.
The immediate neighbourhood, indeed the whole town, was a dusty staging post on the main road heading north-south along the coast. It might even have been partly military in origin. In the main square beneath us we could see ancient juggernauts, elaborately decorated by hand in the style of the local mosques. Most of the streets were just sandy trails leading down to the sea from the main road half-a-mile inland, edged with low concrete houses, their boundaries marked by what looked distinctly like discarded tank caterpillar tracks. These prompted another doubt; this part of Sinai not so long ago was a war-zone.
Not really tourist hotel territory at all.
“Beach clear of wires and people!” I confirmed, as Martin approached the beach flying low over the sea. This is one of the safety rituals we had developed over the years to avoid the many simple mistakes which can spoil a nice day out in a helicopter.
“Thanks,” said Martin, “I'll put it down on the sand next to the beach entrance then. Watch the tail for me as we settle. The sand looks very soft so we might sink in.”
With the machine hovering, I opened the door to watch the tail rotor at the far end of the helicopter. It's the most vulnerable part of the helicopter, being relatively close to the ground, and out of sight of the pilot, as well as the most threatening to onlookers for similar reasons. The skids settled far into the fine dusty sand of the beach before we stopped finally. The tail was inches from the sand, but safe enough.
As we looked around us, waiting for the engine to cool, we could tell for sure that something was not right. At least a hundred young people, definitely not hotel tourists, were lined up along the boundary wall of the hotel watching our arrival.
“It looks more like some sort of youth hostel,” said Martin.
I opened the door again to get out onto the hot beach. No longer blown away by the downdraught of the rotors, dozens of flies poured in to check out the cockpit for food, stopping only briefly to land on our lips and in our eyes.
It turned out that we’d landed at the Institute for Tourism and Hotel Studies, where hotel and tourism skills are taught to the teenagers who now crowded round us.
We were welcomed by the Manager, and this welcome was followed by visits from the police, the military, the plain clothes men and a few others, all of them wanting to photocopy just about every document we had, including our fuel receipt from Alexandria and Martin’s Warranty Certificate for his water purifier. Once they had done all this they departed, friendly and content, and everyone chatted happily with us. Another squad, this time from the Navy, turned up just as we were half way through our meal. We exchanged friendly words and they too left happy.
After supper, a young tourism student called Hani took us round the town, El Rashid, showing us the shops, the bars for tourists, the cafes, and the neat but sandy gardens. An enthusiast for tourism in his country, he was a good guide. But he didn't want to talk about the tank tracks.
“I take you to restaurant, very nice, very nice” he promised. “All your friends from England can come next time, you tell them,” he implored, pausing in between every other word to brush away all the flies gathered around his mouth.
“I’ll certainly tell them,” I promised politely, doing the same.
The restaurant was a Sinai roadside diner, which sold only coffee and cigarettes at that time of night. We bought some, and chatted as best we could with the lorry drivers, Hani doing the interpreting.
I slept really well, much better than in Libya, where there was always a feeling that we were being treated with suspicion, and that they were keen to control and monitor our every move.
