The color commentary for our transit was supposed to begin at 5:30 in the morning but they didn’t pull up the anchors until after 6. I got dressed and hit deck 10 to walk and there were a bunch of people up there already taking pictures. We started into the canal, and the captain was right, we were the head of the convoy. Not sure why he thought us being able to travel faster would put us at the front of the line, because it appeared that everyone did the same speed and we stayed evenly spaced through the canal.
Our transit took about 9-1/2 hours, all daylight. Here’s some fun facts about the canal and I’ll follow that with pictures.
The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway that connects the Mediterranean and the Red Sea and did not require a lock system. The construction began in 1859 and was completed in 10 years. It would have been completed earlier but they had to deal with labor issues and Cholera. It is 120 miles long and begins in the Mediterranean at Port Said and ends at the Gulf of Suez at Port Suez. Initially, an average of 56 vessels per day transited the canal at an average cost of $400,000 to $700,000 per vessel. There are 3 lakes on the route – Lake Manzala, Great Bitter Lake, and Timsah. The water flows north in the winter and south in the summer from Bitter Lakes. The canal is the property of the Egyptian government and was nationalized in 1956. Under the Convention of Constantinople, it may be used “in time of war as in time of peace, by every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag.” Egypt closed the canal at the beginning of the Six Day War in 1967 and it remained closed for 8 years. In 2014, the canal was expanded and widened to speed up transit times. The expansion allowed an increase to 97 vessels per day. In March 2021, the Everygiven, a container ship, was caught in a sandstorm while traveling northbound and ran aground. The ship blocked the canal for 6 days. The Suez Canal authority was compensated $550 million for damages and helping dislodge the ship. It’s interesting to me that a captain gives over control of his vessel to a pilot but the company, not the pilot, was found liable for damages.
It was a beautiful daytime transit and the temperature easily rose into the low 90s. There were armed guards stationed approximately every 1/8 to 1/4 mile the entire length of the canal. During the transit we noticed a police car pacing us for the first couple of hours of the journey. We also noticed a helicopter on 2 separate occasions and 3 fighter jets flew over in the afternoon.
At the beginning of the journey, we took on the pilot before we entered the canal. Once we entered the canal another pilot boat put someone else on board and immediately after that another boat put more people on board – I’m assuming the last group were security for our transit past Somalia, although it’s been a long time since I’ve heard of any pirate issues in that area. Stay tuned, but I’ve already seen some tough looking guys around the ship 😊 Now, time for pictures.
