Last night’s score was 4-2 to MUFC J. So we (Khachik I mean) could get on with our
Suez preparations without any sadness.....
Like a child the night before a special trip I was awake
every couple of hours all through the night wondering if it was “first light” yet. 1 a.m. my wakefulness started, until finally
at 6 a.m. Sam began her presentation through the ship cam channel on cabin tv.
The ships engines were turned off at 3 and the anchor dropped. But by 7 a.m. it became apparent that the
southbound transit had been lucky and set off first and we would have to wait
until around 11 a.m. to make our start in our convoy. Not that it matters at all when you are on
the sea. It got more and more exciting
as we realised that ahead of us in the queue were a US naval ship and a
submarine. Behind us were container
ships and other cruise ships. Like
Panama it costs a ship a lot of money to cross – this time it was £400,000. We
found out that 76 ships would be going through today, so not a bad income for a
day. It’s a good job too, because
there’s no tourist industry left in Egypt. A few years ago everyone wanted to
sail on the Nile, or visit Cairo. Now
tours are diverted away from Egypt. Our
2 scheduled Egypt port stops were cancelled before embarkation for security reasons.
All the way along the Egyptian coast on our port side there
were armed soldiers keeping watch over the canal, all 120 miles of it from the
Red Sea to the Med. On land and sea was
all the evidence of a successful oil producing country with moveable bridges,
platforms and paraphernalia.
Sam talked to us as we passed landmarks and went under the
Suez Canal Bridge, giving us a lot of historical information and descriptions
of the conflicts over Suez over the years. Here's a pic of the souvenir from the Suez Transit.
The weather stayed fine and dry, hazy skies at first but then true blue, with very few clouds, cool early but warming up to about 20C throughout the morning. This meant we could be outside whenever we wanted without worrying about burning.
The weather stayed fine and dry, hazy skies at first but then true blue, with very few clouds, cool early but warming up to about 20C throughout the morning. This meant we could be outside whenever we wanted without worrying about burning.
During the day a massive barbeque was set up outside today
as most of the passengers were watching the transit from the decks. Otherwise our day incorporated 60 focused
minutes of cardio whilst looking out onto the sea at the front of the ship this
morning, and a lovely art class this afternoon.
I had a bit of a cob on (only inside, no tantrums!) in art as it appears
I am hopeless at drawing and painting flowers, and there has been no
improvement in my flowers for the whole cruise.
Khachik’s flowers are always amazing, with soft petals and curves. Mine
looked seriously flat and lifeless. Ah well, I will keep practising.
Dinner and an early night tonight. Has to be when you’ve slept like a child on
Christmas Eve the night before. So I
will say bye for now, until our sea day to Athens tomorrow. x
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