CHAPTER 



SHEIKH SAID, GREEN ISLAND 



AT eight o'clock in the morning following our Red Sea 

 initiation, Mohammed took us again to Sheikh Said. 

 Actually the island was of no great interest to us, but as our 

 Eritrean visas had not yet arrived we had decided to study 

 as much as we could where we could rather than laze about 

 on the Formica, In the event the island provided us with our 

 first surprises. 



To get to it from Massawa, even by rowing-boat (to which 

 we attached an outboard motor) was difficult, for a precise 

 and complicated route had to be followed across the coral 

 banks. The only navigable part of the bay is one narrow 

 channel which in a century or two will also be filled with 

 coral. All that will then be needed to get from Massawa or 

 Taulud to the green peninsula will be Shanks's pony, 

 furnished, however, with good thick rubber soles. 



We dived in from the north-east of the island. The water 

 was much clearer than it had been on the previous afternoon, 

 although horizontal visibility was still reduced to a dozen 

 yards. We could now watch the corals and their inhabitants 

 with greater ease. 



We were about five hundred yards from the island. It was 

 low tide, and yellowish sand and the encrusted coral shelf 

 emerged all round the great emerald bush of mangroves. 



