Our day in the Suez Canal actually started at about 1:00 in the morning when we were awakened by the sound of the anchor being dropped. We were at our place to wait for the morning transit. Jim got up about 5:00, but I went back to sleep - at 6 he called me and said we were starting to move toward the canal.
The southern entrance to the canal is the city of Suez. The city was really big - it seemed to stretch for several miles after we started through the canal. There were industrial areas, apartment buildings, houses, mosques… just about anything you could think of. The canal doesn’t have locks like the Panama Canal; it is just a canal that links the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea. It was built in the early 1900’s. We were lucky to be on the port side of the ship as I thought there was much more interesting scenery on that side. Our side was green and had villages, farms and houses; the other side was desert.
All along the canal were guard posts with armed soldiers in towers and fortifications on the ground. We could see a highway not far from the canal that had the same guard posts. We must have passed at least 25 of these in the 100 (or so) miles of the canal. The soldiers were all friendly and waved and whistled at the ship as we passed. We followed one of the Star Clippers four-masted ships all the way… it’s too bad her sails were not up. It was fascinating seeing the way people actually live and the many little boats they were using for fishing or just local transportation in the canal. One of the unique things we have only seen in Egypt are the pigeon houses; they look like giant bee hives. They breed the pigeons to eat. 
We arrived in Port Said about 4:30 in the afternoon and docked right behind Star Clipper. It was funny watching all the vendors scrambling to get their stalls set up as we were about an hour early. More about Port Said in the next segment!
The southern entrance to the canal is the city of Suez. The city was really big - it seemed to stretch for several miles after we started through the canal. There were industrial areas, apartment buildings, houses, mosques… just about anything you could think of. The canal doesn’t have locks like the Panama Canal; it is just a canal that links the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea. It was built in the early 1900’s. We were lucky to be on the port side of the ship as I thought there was much more interesting scenery on that side. Our side was green and had villages, farms and houses; the other side was desert.
All along the canal were guard posts with armed soldiers in towers and fortifications on the ground. We could see a highway not far from the canal that had the same guard posts. We must have passed at least 25 of these in the 100 (or so) miles of the canal. The soldiers were all friendly and waved and whistled at the ship as we passed. We followed one of the Star Clippers four-masted ships all the way… it’s too bad her sails were not up. It was fascinating seeing the way people actually live and the many little boats they were using for fishing or just local transportation in the canal. One of the unique things we have only seen in Egypt are the pigeon houses; they look like giant bee hives. They breed the pigeons to eat. We arrived in Port Said about 4:30 in the afternoon and docked right behind Star Clipper. It was funny watching all the vendors scrambling to get their stalls set up as we were about an hour early. More about Port Said in the next segment!
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