Shortly after Fuerteventura, Dieter headed over to Egypt, in the middle of a major political crisis, in search for wind to finalize his preparation for the penultimate PWA World Cup event of 2013. Read his update below:

Hello everybody!

It’s been a long time since I wrote something but August has been kind of busy and hectic and one of the reasons for that was a last minute trip to Egypt. The wind at home didn’t cooperate since I got back from Lanzarote, except one day, and the forecast for Egypt simply looked amazing. After checking the tickets, I was on a plane one day later and caught literally the last flight to Egypt after the conflict in Cairo which, if you believe the media, was spread all over the country and made Egypt unsafe.

When I landed in Egypt there wasn’t too much difference, compared with the last times I had been there: no burning cars, no tanks driving through the streets; only less people walking around and no taxis driving to Dahab after 7 PM as this wasn’t allowed by the government. This caused me to stay one night in Sharm for the first time ever as normally I go straight to Dahab, which is a one-hour drive from Sharm. Although I was there on one of the worst nights of the “Revolution”, I didn't notice anything in Sharm and pretty much in the whole Sinai (the touristic and windy part of Egypt). Arriving in Dahab the next morning, with just a few more police officers at the checkpoints, it was still the same as it always had been, windy, sunny and warm!

Like always, I stayed at Club Vass, which was exceptionally calm because of the revolution and all the alarming news in the media. This actually gave me more space on the water, which was pretty nice! Anyway, just as the forecast promised, the wind was there every day for the whole week, with wind in the afternoon for 5 out of the 7 days, which allowed me to sail at least 4 hours every single day and was great training for the upcoming PWA World Tour event in Brouwersdam which starts Sunday! Besides the great sailing for which I came for, I had great days and evenings with my friends and the local boys from Dahab. Relaxing after all the sailing with a BBQ on the beach during moon rise was my absolute favorite!

When I came back home after a week, everybody told me that it looked bad on the news; I was amazed at how good the media is to turn things their way and make it look like the whole of Egypt is at war, even though the conflict was only in Cairo. In my point of view, the media made the biggest disaster in Egypt by distorting the facts and killing tourism to Egypt, which still is perfectly safe! With a lot of flights to Egypt canceled, it’s hard to get to Dahab... but if you can, I only can say that is as safe as always! However, if it was up to me, I wouldn’t go to Egypt for the upcoming week as it's much better to come to the DAM7 and PWA World Cup event at my home spot Brouwersdam! Next update will be from there!

Cheers!

To find out more about Dieter van der Eyken, visit his blog here! or simply visit his Facebook page here!