Day 100 - Friday April 7

Suez Canal photos
position at 8:45am: N30 10.41 latitude E32 34.08 longitude
temperature: 64F, 73% humidity, partly cloudy
distance since FLL: 32,116 miles
Today was Clay's appointment with Capt. Dag for his long-awaited visit to the bridge for the entrance to the Suez Canal. Clay was up early and ready to go. Too early! He watched from Deck 12 until we started for the mouth of the Canal and then headed to the bridge. There were 6 passengers there with Freddie, the Navigator, and the staff captain, and Jamie and Capt. Dag. Capt. Dag had requested to be the first ship in our convoy today. Voyager wound up number 8 of 28. This is apparently a much larger number of ships than is usually allowed in a convoy. But, they evidently decide based on demand, the size of the ships, the priority, etc. For example, Freddie explained that by some treaty all United States warships are given first priority and are always the first to go through, thus Voyager is number 8, but the first non-US warship. One of the 7 US warships was a submarine. At first, they could not figure out what the gap was between ships and then they noticed just the conning tower sticking up in the gap. Clay was back in the cabin to return Bob at 7:10am. He told Debbie that he had to go back. What? Capt. Dag had invited Clay to climb the smokestack with Jamie to take pictures. Dag told Clay he was not insured for this, but that if Clay wanted to take the risk he could go. Of course Clay wanted to go! The Captain ordered him a white jumpsuit. Now, if Clay can just fit in the jumpsuit and through the ladder hole, he is ready to go. Clay is on the last and largest set of clothes we packed for him and has not been the least concerned that they are getting tight as well, and now he is worried that he might be too fat! Debbie pointed out that breakfast would not be served for another 15 minutes yet. OH. Clay had to be back up there by 8am to go up the smokestack. OK! We both ate a quick breakfast of cold cereal and then Clay was off before Debbie could drink her coffee.
Sandra Bowern is a lecturer and our onboard commentator today. She spoke over the loudspeakers most of the time that Clay was on the smokestack, but they could not hear anything up there. She said that the average charge to go through the Suez Canal is $200,000USD. She said for most ships it was worth it because of the amount of time and fuel it would take to go around Africa instead. Having sailed from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean by going around Africa, we can confirm that if the Suez Canal is an option almost any ship would be willing to pay that price for the one day instead to transit the Suez Canal.
It is fascinating that the west side of the Canal is green and the Sinai, or east side, is just miles and miles of sand. We passed over a road that came towards the Canal and then vanished into the sand at one point. Sandra said that it is the only tunnel under the Suez Canal. Clay was up top and did not hear this, so he may or may not have gotten a picture of it.
Debbie asked Clay to give her another camera before breakfast and he said that we did not have one. He apologized again for breaking the Sharper Image waterproof camera, but said he was taking our only camera up the smokestack. Debbie asked again, if there was not another camera. NO. Clay also refused to take Bob up the smokestack. Bob will NOT forget this! Clay said it was for Bob's own safety. Right, now Clay is concerned with Bob's safety! After breakfast Debbie returned to the cabin and rummaged until she found Clay's camera bag and his old Olympus digital camera. It did not work, plus she did not know how it worked anyway. As she was packing it back up, she found another set of batteries. She figured out how to get the batteries out and changed them. These had a low charge, but the camera did come on. Now to figure out the memory card. There were 3 memory cards inside the case, but no empty card cases. So, what did that mean? Finally, she figured out there was a card in there and she rushed back upstairs. Mishiel did not appreciate Debbie's frantic trashing of one side of the cabin while she cleaned up the other! Debbie arrived out the aft door onto Deck 12 as Clay was coming out above. She could hear the officer's accented speech to them, but could not see them. Finally, she walked out far enough to see them through the slats above the stairs. Clay popped out and Debbie tried the camera. It is old and works strangely and the low battery light was flashing the whole time, but Debbie did manage to capture some reasonably decent photos of Clay's special smokestack ascent. When Clay came back down to the cabin, he asked her who she had borrowed a camera from and still did not remember that he had this camera or that he had brought it along. Hello, talk about a senior moment!
Clay spent about 45 minutes up there and said he could see forever. There was another passenger with Jamie, an officer, a regular smokestack worker and Clay. The same woman passenger was on the bridge this morning with him, but he had not met her. She had a great long camera lens and Capt. Dag told her he wanted a picture with the bow of the ship and sand on either side. She definitely had the equipment! There was not a lot to be seen from up there. Of course though, he could see off both sides of the ship without walking back and forth across it! It was very noisy and dirty up there and he was glad for the jumpsuit use. Then, he changed clothes and went to do his morning walk. Clay had a very exciting morning.
Later in the morning, more exciting news was delivered to our cabin via letter from Lars Olsson, Hotel Director. The letter says that as of April 13th we are Seven Seas Society Gold members and entitled to free Internet. It says that any time left on our $600 "time plan" that we purchased when we boarded would be credited to our onboard account within a few days and that our usage of the Internet will be free. It says that we should just continue as we have been doing and it would be handled by billing. The letter also says that the next time we cruise a Regent vessel that we have only to sign-on as indicated in the Club.com instructions and select a "time plan" of either 100 minutes for $25 or 250 minutes for $50 and then click "purchase plan." The letter says that since we are "known" as SSS Gold Members that our onboard account will not be billed. This is nice. Too bad it is only in effect for our last 15 days, but we are still happy to have it.
Today the other big news is our passing the triple digit milestone. 100 days is a very long time. Only 21 days left. It is hard to imagine, but it will be hard to pack up and leave. Of course, we have been wishing for departure day for a long while, but at some point you get over it and know you are on to stay and then it gets hard to think about leaving. But, we will be leaving in 21 days no matter how hard it will be to actually pack up and go. Strange days.
The Suez Canal transit was just fascinating. It was actually much more interesting than the Panama Canal transit for different reasons. The Panama Canal was obviously more interesting from an engineering point of view. But, that was only in the locks. There are no locks here and so you think, well, you're just sailing through a big ditch in the sand. Yes, you are and you aren't. You are, but it is a big ditch through Egypt! There is something to see all the time here unlike transiting the Panama Canal. There are soldiers everywhere along both sides and although lots of ships must pass them everyday, they all look with binoculars and whistle and wave. People live along the way and come out to wave. Farmers in the fields stop to wave. There are ferries and towns and then there is all the sand. It was really just an amazing day and while it was a tough choice to skip Cairo, we are extremely happy that we chose to stay on Voyager today.
Debbie fought with exhaustion and amazement until mid-afternoon when exhaustion won out and she decided to give up and take a nap. Clay would wake her if something really amazing and new came up. She did get a nap, unfortunately she got it in 2 parts instead of one long nap. There was a laundry delivery in the middle, however we did not have any laundry out! Debbie did not get up in time to stop the woman who left it and fled when she realized she had woken someone. Fortunately, it did have a name and cabin number on it, so Clay took it down and across the hall. No one answered the door, so he hung it up on their door. Debbie missed the fork in the north end of the canal. We took the left fork to stop at Port Said. The military convoy in front of us took the right fork and went straight out to sea. Just before Debbie's nap, we passed a large suspension bridge, Mubarak Bridge. There did not appear to be any cars on the bridge. As we approached you could see people on the bridge, but still no cars. Debbie ventured that the bridge had been shut down and no cars allowed because of the US military ships passing. Eventually, Sandra did point out the lack of cars and that they were stopped because of the military convoy ahead of us. We did spend part of the afternoon in the Observation Lounge and there was a point at which you could see all 7 US military ships in front of us including the mostly submerged submarine very clearly. Sadly, we were never close enough for a clear photo with the camera that we have.
There was another happy surprise this early evening. There was a 2 hour technical stop scheduled at Port Said. Jamie and Capt. Dag told us if we arrived early and it could be arranged with the Port Said authorities that we would be allowed ashore during this time. Well, we docked a little before 5pm right next to the town. It had some charming old surviving architecture and a beautiful mosque on the other side of the Canal. Not sure how we did with photos, but the town had much more character than Port Suez. Also, here we could just walk off and the town was here, vs. the bus ride in Port Suez. We did not leave the gated port area. The many vendors that were arrayed along the cruise ship dock area were aggressive enough to keep us on our side of the fence. We docked on the port side and right behind Costa Marina. Capt. Dag set the all aboard at 7pm because that was when he expected the buses returning from Cairo to be here. We happened to be up on Deck 12 taking a look at the lights after dinner in LaVeranda when we heard the sirens and saw the flashing lights of the convoy of buses being escorted at 7:25pm. The returning passengers were forced by the port authorities to walk a zigzag pattern through the vendors to return to the ship and it was 8:50pm before they all got back onboard. People we spoke to ashore or returning to the ship as we exited it seemed really disgusted or put out with the shopping area on the dock. After we had strolled it, we think they are in for big trouble in Kusadasi then! This was a very controlled and patrolled area and the vendors, while aggressive, were not as aggressive as those we experienced in other ports earlier.
Some other Suez Canal facts we picked up today. The speed limit is 8 knots. There are 3 convoys every day of the year. Two southbound and one northbound. The northbound go straight through. The southbound have to stop in the middle in one of 2 places. Either anchored in Great Bitter Lake or in a canal siding further north, near Ismailia. The convoys leave at about the same time every day, just like we did today.
Some catching up with things that we missed reporting earlier. Petra on Wednesday. Don't know if the pictures showed the sheets draped over the butts of the horses. There was a reason for that windbreak butt drape! We don't know what they were feeding these poor animals but those horses had some serious gas. Every few steps there would be an eruption. It was a tragically hilarious accompaniment as we got the life jostled out of us as we raced up and down that rough stone path. We also forgot to tell about our horsecart wreck in the Siq on the return trip. It is not very wide, certainly in many places there is not room for 2 carts to pass. These guys drive up and down here all day and must know that. Anyway, as we were going up an empty cart was coming down. They yelled at each other, but neither stopped until the wheels met and locked together. The horse going downhill had the momentum, of course, so our cart and horse were yanked back and started to tip over. Debbie was screaming. The driver fell out and Debbie was sure he had broken his leg when the cart came down on him wedging him against the water trough that runs down that side. We continued to tip over and be pulled backwards until our horse was up against the wall and that stopped us going any further. Debbie had ahold of the driver's left arm and kept him from falling all the way down. As the other cart driver realized what was wrong and started to back his horse and cart up, she drug him back up onto the cart. Debbie stopped screaming. Then, there was a lot of yelling as the 2 tried to unlock the wheels. Clay seemed not to understand what had happened or the danger as he hung out his side looking at the wheels behind him. After Debbie got the driver back in the cart, she had to ask Clay to keep his head and arms inside the cart, to keep them being broken off when the 2 carts slid back by each other! He did eventually get it and comply. Debbie turned back to the driver and yelled are you OK. Clay yelled back, yeah, I'm fine. Debbie pointed out to him that the driver had been thrown from the cart and pinned to the wall of the Siq and was bleeding. She asked the driver again and he said he would be OK. He did get out and stand and walk later, so any injuries he had were probably not disabling. This is the same driver we had going down. Clay had tipped him $1USD going down and tipped him $2USD going up. The driver acted very offended by the $2 tip. Clay guessed that he expected more because he got hurt, but he was the one driving the cart, not us. It is lucky that no one was more seriously injured including the poor horses. Following up with the status of our official complaint about the Petra - Jewel of the Desert tour, we have not had any response at all. And, we forgot to tell about the baklava. There was no dessert served at the Bedouin tent lunch buffet. After the bathroom stop at the hotel in modern Petra, Raed told us he had a treat for us. Then he spent a few embarrassing minutes wrestling a mile of plastic wrap off a tin. He finally got it off and had a variety of homemade baklava in it that he passed around with a package of paper napkins. It was a very touching and generous gesture. Also, we don't know if we said that at the beginning when we were waiting on the bus that he passed around postcards with a picture of the Treasury building at the end of the Siq. He told us to fill them out and he would collect them and post them for us. We decided instead to keep ours for souvenirs. (An explanation may be required here. Don't know if we wrote it here before. Debbie's Mom, Margie, gave us a set of 48 postcard stickers is the best way to describe it for Christmas. You print a 4x6 photo and then you peel the backing of the back side of a postcard and you stick it to the back of the photo and voila, personalized postcards. So, we have been using those to mail to family during this long cruise.)
We have to advance the clocks by one hour tonight. Too bad. But, tomorrow is a true sea day and we should be able to sleep in and nap without feeling like we are missing anything.
Suez Canal photos