RIGHT Our bus driver, with a perpetual mouthful of qat leaves, shuttled our crew north from Port Sudan to the isolated outpost of Mohammad Qol, where our live-aboard boat was moored. L ooking at the lonely strip of Sudan’s Red Sea coastline on a map, it seems improb-able against the vastness of the Sahara to the west. For most of us, any familiarity with Sudan comes from breathless media coverage, State Department warnings, civil war, Sharia law. As such, Sudan’s Red Sea coast endures as an anomaly in today’s hyper-in-formed world. There is so much unknown yet so much potential. But all it really takes is a story or two and a few photos of ridiculous fish. Really, that’s all the fuel we ever need. Imagination takes over. By Western standards, Sudan is not a family-friendly destination. There are no all-inclusive resorts—or any resorts at all. Unless your non-fishing partner is into goat-herding there are few, if any, companion options. Upon arrival in Port Sudan, we are asked to hand over our passports, which are deposited into a ragged plastic grocery bag along with a clutch of others, tossed into the passenger seat of a dusty old hatchback and spirited away with a wave of a hand and vague promise to be there at the airport for our scheduled departure. That’s commit-ted in a way the imagination did not anticipate. Liberated of passport, bunked down aboard a con-verted dive boat miles off the Sudanese coast, roast-ing under the African sun and constantly drenched by sweat and seawater is a travel experience that defines commitment. All of this comes before the very first showdown with a triggerfish or giant trevally, before frayed 130-pound fluorocarbon tippet, before broken 12-weights, and before a brush with a 10-foot shark. The environment of Sudan’s Nubian Flats is very much like a hallucination—or straight up is one. Expansive flats and moonscape islands hold potential for scores of triggerfish, trevally, permit or the biggest bonefish you’ll ever see. Dramatic and otherworldly coral pinnacles rise from 300-meter drop-offs. They teem with schools of trevally, tuna, sailfish, snap-per, queenfish, barracuda and many kinds of shark. Within their massive mazes live giant grouper, par-rotfish and wrasse. Standing at the jagged edge of one of these pinnacles is mind-bending. It is easy to get lost gazing at the moving shapes 100 feet or more below, while an aquarium’s worth of wonder swims at your feet. 044 SUDAN
The Flyfish Journal Volume Eight, Issue Four: Page 44
