Luckily we happened to be awake at 0532 when we entered the
Suez Canal about 30 minutes ahead of “shed-ule,” numero uno in a northbound
convoy of 18 ships. The captain seemed pleased at being first. There is a
small, tugboat-looking type of boat (ship?) in position two. For him it must be
sort of like our being in our Corvette behind an 18-wheeler; we can’t see a
damn thing because of the behemoth in front of us. And the little tug does
occasionally move out to the side, perhaps to see what’s in front of us.
I knew this before, but I am still surprised at how
different this canal is from the Panama Canal. It is mostly sand—on the east
bank, at least. But on the west bank it is green, green, green because it has a
"sweet water" canal on that side. It’s green at least for the first two-thirds,
then the canal ends. We’ll see what it’s like then. (later: the same!)
Today is why we got a suite with a large balcony: we will be
on the balcony all day; breakfast will be in about a half and hour; we ordered
a carafe of coffee at 0545; the weather is beautiful: 24°C (75°F), low
humidity, and a light breeze. Life doesn’t get any better than this! Happy
Anniversary, Randy!
All along the west bank at close and regular intervals are manned
Army watch towers. Can’t say as I blame the Egyptians for being paranoid! They
lost the use of the canal—as did the world—for several years: 1967–73(I
won’t go into the politics of THAT!). Fourteen ships were trapped in the Bitter
Lakes at that time, including their crews and they formed a “yacht club” of
sorts and held the Bitter Lakes Olympics in 1968, shared a swimming pool on one
of the ships, had church services on another ship, played soccer on the deck of
yet another, and generally made the best of a really bad situation. In the
Yellow Fleet—so called because of the dust that settled on the ships.—there
were two German, two Swedish, one French, four UK, two US, one Bulgarian, and
one Czech ship. Only the two German ships were able to leave under their own power. Eventually
the crews were brought home until only a very few crew remained on the ships. By
1972 all the crew had gone.But they had fun while it lasted.
As we left the Great Bitter Lake there was a ferry crossing
where the ferries have to time their departures to go between the ships in the
convoy. Although it looks a bit dicey, there seems to be about 10 minutes between the convoy ships.
It has been a very pleasant morning (and it’s only 0930)
being in this stately parade of ships. We can only see behind us (unless we
watch the bridge cam) but it is so pleasant just sitting here, sipping coffee,
and watching the world pass by.
Some statistics: Fifty ships transit the canal every day in
convoys of 18–20; the trip around the Cape of Good Hope from the Persian Gulf
to the Mediterranean is 10,000 miles and takes a tanker two months; a
367-meter-long container ship can carry 12,000 containers; 8% of the world’s
shipping passes through the Suez Canal.
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