Flight To Bourbony
The Falcon has been restocked, courtesy of Princess Yetive as well as Remi's, Viktor's and Matthew's efforts. So once everyone was aboard, Remi had the lines cast off by the ground crew. The ship began its slow majestic rise into the skies over Graustark.
Within a few minutes, it had sufficient altitude to clear the mountains to the south, and Remi set a course over them.
It was easy enough to follow the landmarks below... out past the Grecian islands, down the Greek peninsula and out over the Isle of Crete. By then, Turkey was visible off to the east and even coast of Egypt could be discerned ahead.
Airship travel was still new enough and sporadic enough that the upper wind currents had yet to be fully documented. On the other hand, water travel across the width and breadth of the Mediterranean Sea had been going on for several thousand years. The Meltemi winds off the Balkans and down from the Black Sea were offset by the hot dry Siroccos from off the Sahara Desert.
Finding a tailwind at this time of year would be near impossible.
While the ship could easily have followed the Nile River down the continent, it was decided to use the Red Sea as a guide to catch updrafts from the shore in the day time and updrafts from the sea at night.
It was going to take about 50 hours to reach Eritrea.