My family spent eight years sailing around the world. This was the scariest part

Writer Alan Wood with his wife, Irenka, during their Red Sea passage

It started around midnight off the sparsely charted reefs of north-east Sudan. My wife, Irenka, shook me awake and hissed, “There’s a boat tailing us.”

By the time I reached the deck, it was already alongside. A battered, unmarked skiff with several men on board, one enthusiastically waving a semi-automatic rifle. He shouted that they were “coastguards” and wanted us to stop. It was the least convincing display of maritime authority I ever saw. No uniforms. No flag. No radio call. Just dirty T-shirts and guns.

Along with our three children (our eldest, Rowan, and two boys, Darroch and Yewan), we had been sailing around the world on our 53-foot yacht for eight years, living aboard full-time. By the time we reached the Red Sea, Rowan had returned to the UK to finish her education, so only the boys – aged 15 and 13 – were on board.

We had crossed oceans, home-schooled along the way, and learnt to plan passages conservatively. The Red Sea was the stretch we had worried about most. It was the final obstacle between us and the Mediterranean, where our journey began in 2017, and a route many private yachts now avoid entirely. Going the long way round, via the Cape of Good Hope, would have added thousands of miles and another season at sea. So we prepared carefully, waited for a narrow window, and went.

‘Move fast. Stay low. Do not stop’

We had already been flagged as “severe risk” by United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. Too slow. Too low in the water. No guards, no weapons, no razor wire. No insurer will cover private yachts in the Red Sea. Even commercial ships that can afford armed protection often reroute thousands of miles round the Cape of Good Hope to avoid this stretch altogether.

The advice for yachts is blunt. Move fast. Stay low. Do not stop. Sail at night if you can.

There is no real playbook beyond a whisper network. Ours came via a closed WhatsApp group of Red Sea-bound boats swapping real-time information and contacts. We also travelled with another family boat, Best Life from the US. Not because it makes you safe, but because it means you are not alone.

Skipper Ben aboard Best Life, the Woods’ buddy boat, pictured off Djibouti

That night, the skiff tried to peel us off from our two-boat convoy. We refused to stop. It disappeared, then reappeared ahead, trying to cut us off. Then their outboard stalled. We watched them yanking the pull cord as we closed the distance.

That was our chance. Full throttle. Lights off.

We slipped past in the dark while they were still fighting their engine. Not textbook seamanship. A badly charted reef zone at night with no navigation lights and a GPS signal that could not be fully trusted in conflict zones. But still better than waiting to find out what “coastguard” meant in this context.

By dawn, the Sudanese coast had slipped behind us. The adrenaline drained away and exhaustion moved in. We grabbed a few hours’ rest at anchor on the Egyptian border, technically disputed and technically unauthorised.

The two sides of the Red Sea

Most holidaymakers never see this side of the Red Sea. Marinas are few and eye-wateringly expensive, clearance rules are rigid, and safe legal places to stop are scarce. So cruisers improvise. They run at night. They anchor where they should not. They travel with buddy boats. They swap information quietly. They buy fuel from men in skiffs after dark.

It was a side we would become very well acquainted with. But first we had to get off the border. We raised anchor in the early evening – and it would not come up. Not jammed. Not reluctant. Completely immovable. We tried every hard-won trick we knew, even using a dinghy as a makeshift stern thruster. Nothing worked.

So Darroch and I slid over the side. Dusk is prime time for sharks, and we were uncomfortably aware of recent incidents along Egypt’s Red Sea coast. We needed the fix to be quick. It was not.

A shark at the side of the Woods’ boat off the coast of Egypt

The chain had pretzeled itself around rocks and a coral head 15m (49ft) down, right on the edge of our free-diving comfort zone. Darry and I took turns diving, picking and prising at the mess while Yewan stood at the bow, hauling in chain in short bursts. He relayed instructions back to Irenka at the helm, easing the boat ahead or astern by inches as we worked it loose below. Exhausting. Slow.

Eventually, Best Life came to the rescue. Skipper Ben rolled in with scuba gear and got straight to work, but even he was on the limit. He used every last breath to finish the job, surfacing effectively empty and needing to be hauled into the dinghy before he slipped back under.

With the chain clear, we could finally breathe again. In Ben’s case, quite literally.

We watched the sun sink, knowing that just beyond the horizon sat Jeddah Yacht Club and Marina. Secure. Polished. A floating safe haven designed for yachts whose price tags could buy a decent chunk of Sussex. Not a place for us. Despite the popular image of ocean sailors as millionaires afloat, we were on a boat held together by compromises, repairs and a monthly budget that felt like a hostage negotiation. That said, thinking back to the Sudanese family we had met days earlier, refugees from Khartoum but still offering us hospitality, it was uncomfortably clear how wealthy we really were.

Irenka at a vegetable market in Sudan

The home straight

We limped north with a raw water pump leak that went from annoying to a high-pressure saltwater fountain, coating the engine in crunchy white crystals. Fuel came quietly, through the whisper network, after dark. In El Quseir, a skiff passed up diesel in battered jerry cans. We did it ourselves by torchlight. The agreed price jumped on delivery. We smiled and paid.

Then came the Gulf of Suez. Traffic. Oil infrastructure. Illegal fishing boats with AIS and lights off. Service vessels treating the rules of the road as optional.

At one point a service boat came straight at us, head-on, on the wrong side of the traffic separation scheme. I made a nervous VHF call. He replied gruffly, then veered into the central separation zone.

It was the busiest and sketchiest stretch of our entire journey. A world away from Sharm El-Sheikh, less than 40 miles off our starboard bow, where the biggest concern was whether the sun loungers were aligned properly.

Standing beside a forgotten tank on the island of Socotra off the Yemeni coast

When we finally clawed into El Tor in a hard northerly, we discovered it offered nothing by way of hospitality. Or provisions. Or even basic human decency. We were not allowed ashore. No groceries. No drinking water. Just the wind howling down the Gulf of Suez and the grind of an enforced anchor watch.

We briefly considered scrubbing the hull for extra speed until a grey reef shark decided to take up residence beneath us. It patrolled daily, slow and methodical. Oddly, we grew fond of the silent company.

By the time we reached the canal, we were filthy, sunburnt, sleep-deprived and held together with hose clamps, beer-can engineering and sheer bloody-mindedness.

Looking back, that stretch of the Red Sea seems to distil our entire circumnavigation. Stunning, exhilarating and exasperating, often all at once. At times absurd. At times genuinely dangerous.

The Woods sailed around the world on their 53-foot yacht for eight years

Only later did we understand how close it had been. In early May 2025, just two weeks after we passed, RSF drone attacks struck Port Sudan. What we had been sailing past was not scenery. It was actually a front line.

Some people will inevitably question the wisdom of taking our children through waters like this. We asked ourselves the same questions at the time and again afterwards. Should we have gone the long way round, via the Cape of Good Hope? With hindsight, there were moments when that felt tempting. But there are no entirely safe routes at sea, only different kinds of risk. We planned carefully, travelled conservatively, and adapted constantly, with the children fully involved rather than passive passengers. It was challenging, at times deeply uncomfortable. But there is no adventure without friction.

Would I recommend it lightly? No. Would I pretend it was easy? Absolutely not. But was it worth it? Yes.

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