Suez Canal

Yesterday we continued sailing up the Red Sea until about 3pm when we dropped anchor near the city of Suez at the entrance to the Suez Canal. There we wait for the other 36 ships that will travel north with us in a convoy. At the same time, a convoy is gathering at Port Said in the Mediterranean Sea to sail south. Since the canal is only wide enough for single file, we must reach the Great Bitter Lake at the same time. There, it is wide enough for us to cross and continue on our way. At 6am we enter the canal. We are second in line. Mainland Egypt is on our port side and the desert of the Sinai Peninsula is on our starboard side. I sit all day in the Crow’s Nest Lounge on deck 9. Floor to ceiling windows and my binoculars allow me to see Egyptian life along the canal right below me about 50 yards from the ship. Many military encampments and outposts guard this strategic waterway. Intermittently we pass towns, cities, and farms with families living along the embankment. From this vantage point, I can look right down into yards and houses with doors and windows open. I see life as it’s been lived from antiquity—mud block dwellings with thatched roofs, chickens in the yard, a man and woman tilling their field with an ox, children playing. Even right outside the doors of their homes, the women are veiled.
There are no locks here as there are on the Panama Canal. The Red Sea and the Mediterranean are on the same level. Eleven hours from when we began this morning, we pop from calm waters into the slightly blustery Mediterranean, and we’re on our way to Alexandria.