Suez Canal

Suez Canal 25th May

Suez Canal.

Egypt was the first country to dig a man-made canal across land to connect the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea via branches of the River Nile. This was built by Senausert III, Pharoh of Egypt in 1874 BC.  It was abandoned to silting and reopened several times.

The Suez canal was the first that that directly links the two sea. 

The canal opened on 17th November 1869, and remains one of the planet's busiest shipping lanes. Through it the vast percentage of Europe's energy needs are transported from the Middle East oil fields.

It has been closed by war twice. The most recent closing occurred during the Six-Day War (in 1967), a brief war between Israel and its Arab neighbours. 

And a cool satellite photo of it.

Traffic through the Suez Canal runs in convoys. AND USUALLY IN THIS MANNER!

Ships going South sit at their 'mooring spot' near Port Said until called forward.  They head off at around 8pm.

Ships going North sit at their 'mooring spot' just outside Suez. They head off at 6am.

We both get to the 'Bitter Lake' along the way at around the same time.  The south bound guys sit at a 'mooring' point while the north bound guys steam ahead.  When north are gone the south bound guys head off.

BUT... WE MIGHT ARE GOING THROUGH IN THE NGHT.

BOOO!!!!!!  HISSS!!!!!!  SULK!!!!!!

Road works up ahead so they have changed the convoy order.  Oh well, it will still be amazing.

And looks like I'll be up at 5am to see some of it.

We left eh red sea and sailed into the Gulf of Suez for a few hours.  Getting to see both Egypt...

And Saudi Arabia.

We arrived at our 'designated spot' by 8 pm and awaited out orders.

There are 19 other ships waiting with us.

The seas are the flattest seas ever.  Worse than a lake. Almost getting reflections in it.

The sunset over Egypt was pretty spectacular.  To the left of the sunset, along the coast, was a band of air catching the sun colour - a huge band of dust!  It wouldn't show up in photos though.

The Pilot and an electrician arrived to give us our position number, leave the pilot and to inspect our floodlights.

At around 10pm we headed off in the convoy. Very exciting.

We have just gone into the canal.  The side is about 20 meters off the ship. We are travelling at around 6 knots and hundreds of people are outside cheering at every one we see.
Very exciting.

I jumped up every 30 or 40 minutes to look out as we travelled along.

Saw stacks of ships waiting to go south in The Bitter Lakes.

I got to see the wedge shape of the canal and the sandy sides.

Then I got up at 5 am and went upstairs to be ready to see things as the sky lightened.
But.......... the sky didn't lighten until well after 6.15.
But I did get to spend time talking to the Pilot (from the Port Suez end) - so that was good.

We were the 22nd ship in the convoy of 36.

Then the sky lightened and I could see ! Hooray!

Looking forward.

Looking back.

The ships - even at 7 to 10 knots make waves that drag sand off the edges, which then falls to the bottom - thus the need for dredging. 

There are many military lookouts along the way.  Lonely job!

So many fishermen. In their little boats and nets being put in and out by hand.

Then the sun finally rose.  And it was pretty.

And very cool that we saw it SET into Egypt last night, then RISE out of Egypt the next morning. 

Then into Port said for a technical stop.  Technically the Israelis into Israeli's will not let us in if we have come if we came directly from an Arab nation - ie Oman!

Our technical stop upset the sellers. the were calling out and trying to sell to people one Deck 5.


We have now arrived in Israel.   So now it's time to click on the next tab.  

Israel