Ferry between Iskenderun - Port Said / eastroute 2014

After an pretty inconsistent informations about the unroro ferry between Iskenderun and Damietta I`m glad to tell here, that there is an alternative arround.

An option who was available at the past is running since a while, the ferry "Cenk Y" who runs between turkey (Iskenderun) and Egypt (Port Said):




The ferry CENK Y, Source: marinetraffic.com

The ferry operates regularly and directly between Iskenderun and Port Said. You can see the current location, Speed and Target Harbor under this livetracking link:

http://www.marinetraffic.com/de/ais/details/ships/271042575

The Ship is built at 1970 and is under turkey flag. It is tagged as Roro/Passenger Ship, so that we Overlanders can travel with the ship and don`t have to use a airplane. If you look at the Pictures who are provided by Marinetraffic it can also handle big trucks, what is nice for these readers who use a an bigger expedition truck

The Informations about the Ferry who are currently available are pretty poor. Also the Website of the operator dont show much informations:

http://www.cenkgroup.net/en

Howto reach the eastern route of africa

This article shows how you can reach the eastroute of africa as self driver. How you can reach or avoid egypt. You can read an many places that it is not possible today, therefore I try to show here what options are known and give you links to travelblogs where the travellers had choosen that option.

There are actually severall options

- Arrival across Tunesia and Libya
- Arrival across the ferry from Turkey to Egypt (Iskenderun, Damietta)
- Arrival across the Taba border at Israel / Egypt (not by 4x4)
- Arrival across the Nuweiba border, ferry Jordan - Egypt (not by 4x4)
- Avoiding Egypt (bypassing via Jordan via Jordan/Sudan and Saudi-Arabia/Sudan
- Shipping the car from Jordan (Container) to Egypt (Sokhna)
  (Shipping will give you many more options anyway)

The problem of 4x4 vehicles are just at the sinai, from Israel and Jordan borders. From Lybia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Sudan you can enter Egypt too by 4x4.

Here is a List of travelers who did that borders recently, where you can optain fresh experiences about border crossings, bureaucracy, Visas and Paperwork generally.

The ferry from Iskenderun (turkey) to Damietta (egypt)

You can read in many blogs and websites, that we overlanders can't travel with the ferry, that we had to ship the car and take an airplane. These Informations are pretty outdated, when we watch these pictures:

 

A swiss guy who blogs under the name Cruise-the Planet did the crossing from Iskenderun (Turkey) to Damietta (Egypt) at march 2014. And he had manage it to stay in a cabin. Great news for us Overlanders!

At the Port in Iskenderun (Turkey) you can organize everything for the ferry. If there is no cabin-space left, you can organize there a flight and the whole transfer.

There are not many cabins, so you better should book the cabin early, or bring the time with you to wait for the ferry coming back. Or to be a lucky guy who get a cabin without a reservation like this guy.

The cabins are for two persons, if you travel alone you will have to share them. There is no entertainment or so, but you will get some food.

The first stretch from Iskenderun to Haifa (Israel) needs around 20hours. In Haifa the ferry does a stopover and some cars and trucks leave the ship, new one comes. After that the ferry needs around 12 hours to reach Damietta (Egypt).

The whole process is described thrilling, of paid bribes to a small odyssey until the vehicle finally could be driven out of the harbor.

Here is the Link to the Blog:

http://cruise-the-planet.ch 

Translated to English with: Google-Translate

A beautiful well written blog, i hope that google Translate did the job for you readers! Many thanks to Lukas, for allowing me to use his pictures!