We spent the last two days at sea, sailing from Athens to the entrance to the canal. This is a relatively cruisy time (excuse the pun) because the sea days are a combination of eating, swimming, watching entertainment, having a snooze and watching some TV. Yesterday was different though, as we were scheduled to arrive near Port Said (Egypt) at 9pm to pick up a pilot and await further instuction. We were well ahead of schedule so spent most of yesterday crusing at less than 7 knots to arrive at our destination on time. This compares to our usual full speed ot 22 knots.
It was near sunset, around 6pm, when we arrived at Port Said and slowed down to pick up our pilot. From almost directly above, on Deck 14, I watched the pilot boat approach us and the pilot climbed on board.
Our captain had informed us that we would need to join a convoy of ships, and for most of the day we believed we may enter the canal at 11pm. However soon after the pilot boarded, we were informed we would enter the canal at 4:30am and would park up in the basin for the night.
We went to see a live show in the Royal Theatre, which seats 1200 people, and is located in levels 4 and 5 at the bow of the ship. While waiting for the show to start, around 8:30pm we felt a rumbling as the anchors being dropped and this confirmed we would be staying still for a while.
After the show, we returned to or cabin about 10am. The navigation station on TV in our room showed us doing 0 knots. It was dark, and we could see our ship surrounded by many other large ships. Presumably these were all waiting to join the convoy in the morning.
It was a beautiful night, no wind and a mild 18 degrees outside, so we slept with our balcony door open all night to get some fresh air.
Our cabin is near the stern and about 10:45pm we heard water churning outside. We look out, and noticed our propellers were running, and our room TV showed the ship was moving at 2 knots. We assumed if the ship was moving, the anchors must be up. Could we be going at 11:00pm after all? it was too late at night for the captain to give us announcements over the loudspeaker. We got all excited and with a rush of adrenalin, we were up for another hour before realising we weren't going anywhere, the ship was merely controlling its own position using the rear propellers.
We set the alarm for 4:00am and went back to bed. By 4:00am we were up and ready to see what happens. The answer is nothing. We didn't really start moving until about 6:00am and had three pilot boats visit us over the next 45 minutes dropping off important people. We entered the canal about 7:00am.
For the rest of the day, we had regular announcements over the intercom of what was happening. It turned out, we had two senior pilots on board, plus the Vice President of the Suez Canal, and other VIPs. Because this was a maiden voyage of a cruise ship, we were allowed to lead a convoy of 18 ships into the canal. The ships all followed with roughly one mile of distance between them. We had three tug boats to escort us, we assume in case something went wrong, and the other ships had tug boat escorts also.
We took the "left canal" which is further away from the city of Port Said and so we could not see the city so well.
I took 485 photos today, so here's a few highlights of what we saw during the nine hours it took to pass through.
The canal is largely surrounded by sand. The western side has plenty to see. There a few cities along the way, and each city is very green. There is also a road and railway right alongside the canal. There are also many farms here, irrigated and green. The eastern side is just plain desert, miles of sand, with the exception of one small settlement near Ismailia.
There are many car ferries along the way. Each ferry was busy transporting cars across the canal, although were all these cares came from was a mystery. Each ferry waited until we passed, then immediately crossed before the next ship came along.
There is the large Friendship Bridge which spans the canel near the northern end. It is around 90 metres high, and we cleared it with 6 metres to spare, standing on the top deck it looked to us like we would hit it with our funnel. Height can be deceptive!
Next we encountered the El Firdan Rail Bridge, this has a large swivelling section on each side of the canal, which swing and join together to let trains cross. This is now disused because after construction of the railway bridge, the canal was double-laned and the railway does not cross the other canal. So the railway lines are now removed and the bridge remains.
Ismailia is a nice looking city, and has several large monuments on both sides of the canal.
Eventually we entered the Great Bitter Lake which is a hafway point through the canal. Here we passed a convoy of 26 ships heading the other way. These were mainly oil tankers with a couple of huge container ships. Then we re-entered the southern section of the canal, again one way, and continued to Suez where we saw the city of Suez before heading into open sea at 4:00pm. But not before dropping off pilots and VIPs!
Most interesting was that the canal is heavily guarded on both sides. For almost the entire length, there is a wall, and also military guards stationed every few ship lengths. We were told this is in case someone attempts to jump ship and escape into Egypt. The military stations looked like very baron places, and it was very hot around 30 degrees, I don't imaging it would be fun being a soldier stationed there.
Overall this was a very interesting day. Considering we were up for 12 hours, it didn't seem anywhere near that long and it was amazing to see the canal in action.
As we were late entering and leaving the canal, tonight we're sailing at a speed of 21.4 knots to get to Jordan to berth tomorrow morning. We shall sleep well after today's excitement.
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