Suez Canal

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!

Safaga, Egypt

Our tour started at 6:30 in the morning; it is a 3 ½ bus ride to Luxor.Not many options at this port… you either went on the 4 day overland or the 15 hour tour to Luxor or stayed on the ship. Since we have already been to the Pyramids and Cairo we didn’t do the overland.

Right after we went through the small city of Safaga, we were into the mountains; big, dry desert mountains with no vegetation and few signs of life - but the highway was good. We wound around through the mountains for about a two hours and then were into the valley. Slowly it turned from desert to the green Nile valley. Once the farmlands started, it was beautiful and extremely interesting. The farmers still use donkeys and work the fields by hand; great photos!
Luxor is a huge modern city and our first stop was at the ancient ruins of Karnak Temple. So much to see and only an hour to see it, but in the 102 degree heat 1 hour turned out to be just fine! Huge columns (134 of them) and statues… all the stuff I love. The ram-headed sphinxes were wonderful. After Karnak we had lunch at the Sonesta St. George. It was a very nice buffet lunch overlooking the hotel pool with the Nile in the distance. All along the Nile in this area were the huge Nile River cruise boats - wow, they look really nice, but there were so many of them I’m wondering if the river doesn’t look a bit like the freeway at rush hour.

After lunch we went to the Valley of the Kings. This is where the Pharaohs decided to be buried after the pyramids… people kept digging into the pyramids and stealing the treasures - just digging hidden tombs into the mountains seemed a better idea. It must have worked as they have only discovered 67 tombs so far. Our entrance ticket allowed us to visit any two tombs except for Tut’s tomb. Luckily they had a little tram that took you up the hill from the entrance. Our guide told us about 4 of the tombs and then we had our hour. We chose one easy one and one a bit more difficult. They only allow 10 minutes inside the tombs and they really keep the lines of people moving - aaack, no pictures allowed! The original paint colors are still brilliant - it was amazing. Apparently one guy (not on our tour) took a picture with his cellphone and they immediately took it away from him. As we exited the tomb, he was still there arguing with the guards to get it back.

Next we went to the Temple of Luxor. That was my favorite of all the stops on this trip. More columns and statues. There was a row of human headed sphinxes. More rooms many areas where the original paint colors could still be seen.

We also had quick photo stops at the Collosi of Memnon and Queen Hatshepsut’s Tomb and then it was time to start the long drive back to the ship. The Sonesta had provided boxed snacks for our dinner. It was 10:00 when we finally got back to the ship and probably close to 11 before we got through security and back to our cabin. We had a couple cocktails on the balcony and watched as we sailed away from port. Then I hit the bed and slept like the dead until 7:00 in the morning.

I would like to spend a week at Luxor sometime in the coolest month and really take some time to see the area… then do a Nile river cruise on one of the luxury cruise boats.

At Sea

Today is April 18 and we are well over half way through the Red Sea. Yesterday we were talking with a fellow passenger when the subject of “Pirates” came up. She thought that half of the passengers were relieved and half were disappointed. We were in the half that were disappointed, not to the extreme of being hijacked and taken to Somalia, of course, but just for the unusual type of adventure some encounter may have provided and the possibility of some great photos! Speaking of photos, we were on our balcony just as we were leaving the Gulf of Aden and a Canadian military helicopter flew over the ship and then right down our port side. Our cameras were through the closed balcony door and at the other end of the cabin - no photos - we waved to the man in the open door of the helicopter and he waved back.

Heading almost due north now, the temperature is getting cooler, which is half relief and half disappointment. Tomorrow morning we will be docking in Safaga Egypt at 6:00 a.m. The forecast temperature there is 86 degrees. It will be a long day as our trip to The Valley of the Kings is scheduled for 15 hours.

That’s all for now as we need to get things ready for tomorrow - it will be an alarm clock morning.

Note from Sue: I've been having some pain problems for the last couple days and finally asked Jim to get the computer out and type this one.

Gulf of Aden

Nothing to report except a lovely day at sea. We saw many ships in the eastbound shipping lane. There is a pretty large distance between the east and west bound lanes so they are pretty far off on the horizon. We only saw one military ship and it was in the eastbound lane. I had to use my really long lens to get this picture. (you can see a tanker in the background - the military ship was passing it)

Salalah, Oman and entering the Gulf of Aden

lI don’t have much to report on Salalah as we decided not to find a car and guide to explore. It was about 97 degrees and 50% humidity… I thought it was a good place to stay in the cool ship. Different people gave different impressions of the port - some said nothing to see except Jobs Tomb which was interesting. Others that hired private cars had a great day seeing the tomb, many beautiful beaches, the city and then a ride up into the mountains overlooking the sea. They said they saw about 100 camels along the roads. Hmmm, I probably missed some good photo ops. We stayed in port until 10:00pm as the Captain had been given the location that the ship should be at at10:00 this morning. In order to maintain a fast speed and be at the right place at the right time… he delayed our departure.

This morning we are entering the Gulf of Aden. (It is 8:00 am as I write this) The Royal Navy has directed us to a certain location where we will apparently be part of a convoy of ships through the gulf. Right now there is nothing to report except that there are crew standing watch on all open decks and the bridge wings. The sonic device is mounted on the wing and we did see (and hear) them test it a couple days ago… although they just did a split second chirp with it - it was really a loud piercing tone.

Tahitian Princess went through this area 6 days ago with similar procedures and my friend emailed me that there was nothing exciting. They rarely even saw any other ships, even those that were supposed to be in the convoy. She said they did see a couple military ships, but they did not have an escort.

I’m sure the events of the last couple days have those in charge watching everything carefully. We are turning the TV to CNN or Fox quite often to get updates.

I’ll add reports if there is anything of interest!

At Sea & Happy Birthday to me

We are in the Arabian Gulf heading toward Salalah, Oman. The heightened security and watches are already in effect for the piracy threat although the area in which most of the attacks took place isn’t until after Salalah. They are utilizing all of the crew to stand watch in four hour blocks on all open decks and also on the bridge wings.

Our ‘Anti Piracy’ exercise was this morning; a five second blast on the bells and whistle and then the announcement Code Papa Code Papa. All passengers had to return to their cabins and stand in the open doorway until they were marked off by crewmembers and then remain in the cabins for further instructions. All of the crew also participated in their various assigned special duties. The entire drill was completed in less than a half hour and everyone went back to their regular activities. We have all been following the stories on CNN of the American Captain that was held by the pirates and were much relieved to see that he was finally rescued. Captain Kent, in some of his announcements, has mentioned different things about the piracy issue; my favorite comment was that these guys are not like Johnny Depp.

Happy Birthday to me! I made it another year so I guess I’ll go for another one. After the world cruise what can I do that is bigger and better??

We finally have some waves today - not rough or even moderate seas, but at least it feels like we are at sea. The whole last segment was so smooth we could have been on land except that we went 6400 miles. We have gone about 26,000 nautical miles since we left Fort Lauderdale.

Dubai, UAE

Money, Money, Money. That pretty well sums up Dubai. It is really something to see - an architect’s dream world. Twenty percent of all the tower cranes in the world are in the UAE with the most in Dubai. It has 47 shopping malls with the two biggest in the world; one includes the indoor ski hill. Our guide said that is all there is to do for the rich Arabs and others that live there. They live in their huge palaces and mansions and go shopping during the day. I think I saw more Rolls Royces, Bugates, Bentleys and any other exotic and luxury cars than anywhere.

Our tour started with Tea at the Burj Al Arab Hotel. That is the huge hotel shaped like a sail that has come to be the symbol of Dubai. We were able to take pictures throughout the parts of the hotel that we saw. Sadly I didn’t get to see any rooms; I had thought the Tea would be the last stop of the tour and I had taken my travel agent IATAN certification card hoping that I could get a tour… no such luck. Anyway, it is pretty spectacular; the cheapest small suite goes for about $2000 a night (as our guided said “without breakfast!”). There was a row of white Rolls’ parked outside to cater to the guests needs… no doubt, shopping. Tea was just tea… finger sandwiches, scones and sweets. I did love every drop of the two cups of coffee (remember, I’ve been drinking ship coffee for over two months). If you were to book this tea on your own it costs about $150 a person… not even the little paper thin piece of gold on my sweet would make it worth that, but as part of the tour it was quite an experience. We were under a dress code for this tour, long pants, no jeans and covered shoulders, no t-shirts- ok that’s fine, everyone dressed accordingly. But, obviously if you can afford to stay there no code applies; there were many very skimpily dressed women and men in shorts that were obviously guests in the hotel.

The other part of the tour was a boat ride that we thought would take us out through the islands of “The World”… nope, we cruised along and just as we could start to see those manmade islands starting to show above the waves we turned around and started back. Why would we want just a boat ride when we have all been onboard a ship for this length of time??? Everyone was a bit put out.

The best part of the tour was just driving around through the city and looking at the buildings. They are spectacular. Our driver got us to one location quite close to the tallest building in the world for photos… it took me three shots to get it all in top to bottom from that distance. It is TALL!

You can tell this wasn’t my favorite tour but I’ve wanted to see that hotel for about 8 years, now I can mark it off the list; been there - done that.