World cruise 38

April 2

At A'Aqaba, Jordan today. A very large proportion of the ship's passengers along with some crew members has gone off to Petra. I think it's great that Holland America arranges for some of its regular crew to have time off to take an occasional special sightseeing tour just for them. I, however, am one of the very few who did not go as that tour involves a 1.5 mile hike each way. See Margaret's report on that one.

Meanwhile, with very few left on board, I had a prime seat up in the Crow's Nest lounge with my feet up and a panoramic view. To my right (and first photo here) is Jordan. Straight ahead is the stern of the Pacific Princess. Off to my left on the other side of the large bay is Israel.

Farther back on that side, I think, is Egypt. While I haven't checked to see exactly where all the borders lie, Saudi Arabia is also nearby...probably somewhere behind and to the right of us on this side. All of them right at the top end of the Red Sea, it's a busy area.

April 3

If success is learning to deal with Plan B, then this trip is now down around Plan J or K. Evidently dredging operations in the Suez Canal have reduced passage to "one lane traffic." This means that a convoy going south must go all the way through before a convoy going north can enter. We were supposed to be at sea today at a leisurely pace and transit tomorrow. Nope. Not now. So since we left Al'Aqabah yesterday afternoon, we were racing along at 19 knots or more to try to reach Suez in time to catch a northbound convoy at 11:00 a.m. today.

But when we got here (earlier than planned) this morning, the Egyptian officials told us the convoy wouldn't leave until 4:00 p.m. and, as a passenger ship that normally gets to go first, we would be 29th behind the freighters, and the Pacific Princess went 30th. The Captain sounded a tad miffed when he announced this. Later he announced that some passengers had complained that some of our transit would be after dark (silly geese). He had to reiterate for about the third time that transit times and sailing order were determined by the Egyptians, not us, and we were lucky to be going through today so as to not make us miss Ashdod which would happen if we had to sit here in the Gulf of Suez for another 28-30 hours.

So there we were at 3:00 p.m. surrounded by a "Jane's" list of all the kinds of freighters in the world, some full, some empty. A small pilot boat (or maybe several of them) kept zipping back and forth to different ships including ours. We presumed they were Egyptian officials checking paperwork ... or maybe which ship serves the best lunch ... no telling.

And every once in a while some large ship slid by very close to us like this one called "Blue Topaz."

The Suez Canal Development Project is a super-sized effort to do improvements all along the canal including dredging, building a whole new city, an industrial zone, 7 new tunnels and a whole new canal that can accommodate the bigger ships and constant 2-way traffic. Begun last August and originally scheduled to take 3 years, the President of Egypt said it must be done in just one year, so they are working on it all at once. When completed, revenues are expected to increase from $5 billion to $12.5 billion per year.

At 3:30 p.m. we were finally moving toward the Canal. Suez is a city of about half a million people. Port Said is 101 miles and about 9 hours north and has about 600,000 population.

One interesting feature just north of Suez is big installations along the edge that could be slid into the canal within a few hours to block it to all traffic if necessary. In the past this could only be done by sinking ships in the channel, but that was difficult to clear away again whereas these things can be hauled back out more easily. Don't ask me about details ... check out the official Suez Canal website at www.suezcanal.gov.eg, it's probably all there.

There are several types of guard towers all along the canal about half a mile apart or closer. Some, like this one, seem to be included as part of the wall along the canal.

The Canal is not straight but has curves, so you can't always see the ship behind or ahead of you, only the little escort boats in between. It also goes through the Bitter Lakes which is where convoys used to pass, but where the dredging operation is going on now. There the edge of the channel is shown by a line of black markers.

After the sun set, there were lights almost all the way along the Canal, mostly on the African side but more than expected on the Asian (Sinai) side. Some were from settlements and at least one full sized city where, in the distance, someone was setting off fireworks. There were also lights on various pieces of large equipment like dredges.

According to the Captain the next day, we exited the north end of the Suez Canal on schedule at 3:00 a.m.