We sailed up the Red Sea to the Suez Canal and then parked outside the entrance for the night with a few dozen other ships. It was a veritable parking lot. Apparently, they don’t let ships go through at night. In the morning we would sail as a caravan with a pilot boat.
Bright and early (around 4:00 am) we pulled anchor and were the lead boat in the first caravan through the canal for the day. About halfway through we started seeing ships coming the other way. Sometimes we had separate channels, others we were in the same channel.
There were lots of fishermen along the banks in little boats who were waiting for us to pass. The big ships churn up the water and make catching the fish in nets a lot easier. The same as when we went through the Panama Canal, there was lots of waving back and forth between our ship and other ships and people on the shore. The universal language of sailors.
Unlike the Panama Canal, there are no locks here – the Red Sea and the Mediterranean are at the same level, so they just dug a channel through. It sounds simple, but it’s taken centuries to get to this point. There have been partial connections and canal attempts to create water access from the Nile to the Red Sea since the second millennium BC.
With the new channel, the SCA has been dredging regularly and piling the sand on the shoreline, where they are smoothing it out and it looks like they are preparing for building or something. We passed what looked like a Ghost City (a huge block of apartments that seem unoccupied) and we wondered how people would live out in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps they are planning to add industry along the canal.
We sailed under the Egyptian-Japanese Friendship Bridge, a railroad bridge 2.4 miles long with 70 meter (229 feet) clearance.
They have other bridges that cross the canal too; I saw a pontoon bridge that gets extended after the caravans go by so cars can cross to either side, and a swing railway bridge – two pieces, one on each side of the canal that swing out over the water and meet in the middle. I was not fast enough to get pictures of them though. Sorry!
I was very distracted at line dancing since we had something to look at outside the windows, but I am getting quite good at the dances so it wasn’t a complete horror show. There is a great group of regulars, and the instructor is so cute and fun. It gets me out of bed and moving on sea days. I’m trying to write down the steps to the dances and make a playlist so I can continue at home.
It was interesting to see the Egyptian landscape. It was very flat, and we passed lots of farmland. For some reason it reminded me of Fresno, California. It took most of the day to get through the canal, and we hit the Mediterranean around 5:00 pm. The weather has turned cooler (high 60s-low 70s F) now that we are nearing springtime in Europe, so I’ve broken out my sweaters and long sleeves again.
I just realized I haven’t mentioned the Piracy Drill. Once we headed toward the Persian Gulf (which they are now re-branding to the Arabian Gulf), the crew was required to perform a drill on what to do if pirates attack our ship. They lowered the lifeboats on the promenade deck (only about 6 feet off the floor at its lowest point), I guess to give them a harder time boarding the main deck(?), and put out these water cannons.
Passengers were told that in the event of an attack to get away from windows and shelter in the hallways. There are lots of white uniforms walking the promenade and lido decks, keeping an eye out. I do my part each night by standing on my balcony and planning what I will do when I see the boats sneaking up on us under the cover of darkness. I will, of course, save everyone on the ship as I sound the alarm and be awarded Princess Elite for Life, with free laundry and applause at every Captain’s Cocktail Party by a grateful captain and crew.
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