Severomorsk has left Algeria and headed deeper into the Mediterranean, her route will take her well past NATO lines especially Italy which as we found out from the exercise has sent a submarine after us.
In reality the Severomorsk is heading for somewhere the Italians can’t follow without showing themselves.
Heading East we pass by the French La Fayette frigate plus several cargo ships and some patrol craft over fly us nothing major to report, we keep to a steady 15 knots before passing Malta to our port side.
During the evening a heavy swell came up roughly 2.5 meters sea state 4 wind speed around 30-40 knots, we slowed to 10 knots to maintain safety.
Severomorsk arrives the following morning at the anchorage just outside the Suez Canal at 0330, she is on the early morning south bound convoy and will transit with other cargo ships down to Lake Victoria.
On the passage down we are escorted by a Egyptian KA52 helicopter which is also running a circuit with the North convoy, which is mainly cargo ships with the exception of HMCS Halifax (hence the helo presence), a Halifax class frigate heading into the Mediterranean.
After passing the northbound convoy we were released from pilotage and allowed to travel independently, we travelled through the Babel Mendeb with no incident passing the coast of Yemen and out into the Indian Ocean.
The Severomorsk has new tasking and that is to work with CTF150 currently being headed by the Germans, we will conduct Anti-Piracy patrol off the gulf of Aden until relieved by another unit.