Suez Canal

After a much needed sea day after leaving Safaga, we lined up for our transit the next day through the Suez Canal. We began our transit at around 6AM and were the second ship in our convoy of 37 northbound ships. There was another convoy of 22 ships headed southbound. The Canal can only accommodate one way travel so when we got to the large Bitter Lake one convoy pulled over and anchored while the other convoy passed. As we transited the narrow canal we had the continent of Africa on our port side and Asia on our starboard side. We could wave and yell hello to people on the shore, most of whom were Egyptian soldiers guarding the canal. It took about 10 hours of slow and careful sailing in line. We could see the lead ship ahead of us and the long line of ships behind us. There were a few bridges across the continents and at several points ferry boat docks for transit back and forth across the canal. For the record, the Canal was opened in November 1896. It is about 101 miles long with no locks, unlike the Panama Canal. The southern entrance is Port Suez and the northern entrance is Port Said. We exited the Canal around 4PM and there we were in the Mediterranean Sea!! From there we took a southwesterly course to Alexandria Egypt.