Wednesday April 3^rd

In the Suez Canal

We had dropped anchor in the Gulf of Suez over night. At about 4:30 this morning we were ready to join the convoy of ships transiting the Suez Cana.

When I woke up soon after sunrise, we were already well into the canal, and close to a lovely looking village, bathed in the pink early morning light.

I have loved our transits through the Panama Canal, but this was different.

Instead of the cacophony of noises around us with the clanging of the mules, the shouting of the attendants, the scraping of the ship against the locks (happened to us on the HAL Maasdam), there was peace and quiet. Then some dogs started barking, a donkey was clearly not happy with its situation, cocks were crowing, and the call to prayer echoed across the water. Now there are sounds I love. So much more peaceful than Panama. I knew right then that this would be a good day.

The sun rose higher in the sky, and I sat on the balcony watching the villages go by, and waving at the passing fishermen.

There was a running commentary going on, which luckily we could hear from the balcony, so we were kept apprised of the points of interest along the way.

Apparently we were very lucky to actually be in the canal. Yesterday it had been closed due to high winds. Not good for those trying to get through. Then Graham Howell, our guide through the canal added that the port of Dubai had been closed the day after we left due to strong winds, and Aqaba had been closed the day before we went there due to the wind, so we were one very lucky liner.

Usually our vacations are severely impacted by weather events or natural disasters, so I was most relived that we had escaped the forces of nature so far with this trip.

We spent the day watching our passage through the canal from our balcony, the Commodore Club, and Deck 14. All of which provided an excellent view of the canal, and we marveled at how it had been built, and how beautiful the villages were as we went by. The Sinai Peninsular side is mostly undeveloped desert, while the mainland Egyptian side is lush farmland with pretty buildings along the canal.

There is one huge development on the Sinai side, consisting of what looks like hundreds of identical apartment buildings in the desert. All very odd. I don’t think I would like to live there, even if I had a good view of the ships passing by.

All along the way trucks hooted at us, fishermen waved at us, passersby waved and whistled, they all seemed to be very excited to see this ocean liner come so close to them. I waved back with great enthusiasm. I do think we are one of the most majestic ships afloat, and do deserve their admiration.

There were 23 other ships transiting the canal in a northbound direction today. There were 2 huge container ships at the front, the Costa Victoria behind us, and then us, 4^th in line. There were sundry container ships and tankers behind us, but it was difficult to see them as they were quite a distance from us.

We did have a tug behind us all the way – apparently every ship has a tug there just in case they run into trouble and have to be tugged out of the way to prevent disruption to the canal traffic.

In places bypass canals have been built, to that ships can go in opposite directions, and it was interesting to watch the southbound traffic as it looked like they were sailing through the desert as the canal is not always visible.

One casualty of the building of the bypass canals is that there used to be a railway bridge, the El Ferdan Bridge, which transported rail traffic across the canal. Now with the new canal it no longer spans the water, so there is no more railway traffic between the 2 sides.

There is, however, a beautiful road bridge, known by several names, but mostly the Mubarak Peace Bridge, which crosses the canal in Ismailia. We had no trouble going under it, it’s that high. Despite it being called the Peace Bridge it is currently closed due to security concerns.

After 12 wonderful hours of peaceful sailing up the canal, we finally reached the open sea, and said goodbye to Egypt, and hello to the Med.

It was no longer warm and calm on deck, very soon it became cold and windy, and time to retreat inside once more. We had experienced a fabulous day in the canal – I’m so happy we chose this itinerary; it really is something to experience.

We are doing a private tour with a couple and a friend of theirs in Cyprus so we met up with them for pre dinner drinks in the Commodore Club. I am pleased to say that we had canapés and nuts and olives. Not the same variety as we had been served on previous voyages, but enough to keep us happy.

It was the Indian Buffet night in the Kings Court, and as we love Indian food and had had excellent meals before at the Indian Buffets in the Lido on Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth, we wanted to give this one a try. The food was OK, but nothing special. We would have had a better meal in the dining room. Still, we didn’t go away hungry!