2.12. Sur, dhows, complains Shab

The children go to take a quick bath, the discovery of small honeydews gets them out of the water. We go to the port city of Sur, where the traditional manufacture of wooden dhows is still maintained. Only a handful of people already master this craft, one ship is built by hand without plans for 3-4 years. The Sultan himself orders ships to keep the craft alive. They have two ships under construction and it is possible to climb into both of them by ladder, we walk through the hull of the ship under construction and it is quite a challenge because there is no platform, we climb the ribs of the ship up to the tip. They are building an even smaller boat next to it, it already has a finished deck and you can also climb on it.

It is noon and the crowds are pouring into the mosques for the noon prayer and we say goodbye to Sur. We arrive at Wadi Shab at half past one, take a boat to the other side of the mouth of the wadi and continue along the concrete road, which turns into a road with smoothed cobblestones. Gradually, the footpath rises and leads along the balcony in the rock wall of the narrowed canyon. We come to the place from where people swim to the cave, it seems like a long swim from the map, so we continue along the path along the rock that is marked on the map. The terrain is not marked, but sometimes there is a concrete step or a paved part of the road, which assures us that we are going well, because otherwise it is quite exposed and high on the rock above the water. There are even steps as you descend back into the canyon. We are near the water, we can hear the voices of people bathing in the cave below us, but we are separated by several meters of height and a cave-in of huge boulders. We climb a floor lower, we are only about 10 m above the voices, but which way down. The way back doesn't appeal to us, we have to make it down. We see a waterfall disappearing under a rock in a hole. We don't have the guts to do that (but in retrospect we realize it was the easiest way). So we go around it from the left, there is a rock with the rest of the rope. I look around for a while and conclude that it will work, although the rope ends on a sloping rock above the water, but if one climbs into the crack, one will land safely in the cave. I climb first and it goes better than it seemed, we gradually feed the children. Phew! We repack dry things into the boat and water bottles into the backpack. We will definitely swim back. We are already a short way from the cave down the rock to the water and we are already swimming through a very narrow canal to the water cave. We are not afraid of that, all tourists go this way (unlike our goat trail). It's late, so we're almost alone in the cave at first. There is a rope hanging next to the waterfall, I climb up, it's going well and I realize that we could have gone down this way easier, at least with the current state of the water.

We make out in the cave and swim back. We meet 2 Egyptians who inform us that the last boat leaves in half an hour. We don't worry about it, there are still a lot of people here with us, and at worst we'll swim through it at the parking lot. (and the guy in the parking lot said that it runs until 5:00 p.m., but 5:10 p.m. is still ok). They warn us about the darkness and the slippery stones, they are obviously worried about us and then say goodbye as if they will not wait for us. We swim back, I pull David on the rope to go faster, we leave a number of people behind, including the Egyptians. We are back at the ferry in a surprising 3/4 hours including the swimming part, which was faster than we expected, it is still light and the ferryman does not look like he is about to pack it up.

We have an early evening snack and look on the map where we will go to sleep. 3/4 hour from here I find Wadi al Arabiyin, where, according to iOverlander, several groups slept and liked it very much. We are already leaving in the dark, the road is moderately difficult, we sense mountains and rocks around us. The chosen place is occupied, so we go one further, where there are small stones by the drying lake on which we camp. Compared to the reviews, the water is not very clean, apparently it is dry and the water has been standing there for a long time. It doesn't matter, tomorrow we plan to swim in the sea for the last time.