Tuesday, April 13th, 2023 Queen Victoria, Suez Canal, Egypt

Updated: Jul 4, 2023

During the past 24 hours the Queen Victoria has steamed south down the Gulf of Aqaba before rounding the tip of the Sinai Peninsula, at the top of the Red Sea, and then making her way north up through the Gulf of Suez. I spotted the ship’s security team fiddling with a strange looking device mounted on the handrail of the promenade deck; the LRAD was a disc about 3 feet in diameter and about 3 inches thick, mounted on a gimbal. I tried to chat to the guy setting up the device, he was polite but not forthcoming with any information about the device. A little googling revealed, as I suspected, that it was a “sonic beam” device; while it can be used for communication it’s primary use seems to be defensive – it produces a directed, loud, “beam” of sonic energy that can be aimed at potential pirates. Overnight our ship formed up at the head of a 20-vessel convoy in preparation for our transit of the Suez Canal and at daybreak we began to approach the entrance. The Suez Canal is an amazing 120-mile-long sea-level waterway that connects the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea; dug out of the sand by the French, it opened in 1869. The Queen Victoria majestically led the convoy at a slow pace as we began the all-day event. Heading north, the first section of the canal allows ships to pass only in one direction; the eastern bank opens into dessert with not much to see, whereas the western bank consists of some small towns and agricultural fields – I assume the water in the canal is salty, or brackish at best, so there must be some kind of irrigation system from some other water source that allows for crop growth. The western bank is also lined with a rudimentary boarder wall, with elevated guard posts at regular interval – close inspection revealed a sleepy guard in each watch tower. A few times I noticed the west bank was lined with several sections that would make an amphibious bridge, not unlike the famous Mulberry Bridges used in the D-Day landings – I can’t find any explanation for these bridges. After about two hours we entered a system of lakes, the first was the Little Bitter Lake which led to the Great Bitter Lake. Here the waterway is very wide and allows for two-way traffic, we also saw many small fishing boats. A very narrow promontory extends into the larger lake and is the location for a row of very exclusive mini-mansions, many with their own boat dock – it reminded me a bit of Miami. The transit through the Bitter Lake system took about two and a half hours and then we entered the northern section of the canal, much of this bit allows two-way ship traffic as there are two canals running parallel to each other – in some sections only a very narrow spit of sand separates the two canals. It must be a constant battle to keep the canals deep enough for large ship traffic; we passed many gigantic dredging craft hard at work pumping silt from the bottom of the canal and out onto the banks. Around noon we passed the large city of Ismailia on the western bank, founded in the 1860’s during the construction of the canal – it’s also the location of the Suez Canal Authority and we were able to see the compound of the headquarters close to the canal. The tops of large container ships could be seen heading south in the adjacent canal lane like gigantic floating metal islands. Soon a large modern road bridge loomed in the distance, we remembered this from our previous transit, and immediately after the bridge came Kantara City. The last time we passed this way there were large speakers set up and aimed at the canal with someone reading the Koran, it was just a little bit spooky – but there was no such set up this time. The city was mostly high-rise apartment buildings with many mosques and markets and the view from the ship enabled us to see right down into the streets, it was almost like being there. By 4PM we began our passage into the Mediterranean Sea with Port Said off to the west – lots of docks and a fairly dense large city, there was even a very nice beach right at the mouth of the canal. We really enjoyed our transit of the Suez Canal, it’s very different from the Panama Canal – not least because it has no locks, but also it has a very distinct cultural feel to it; it’s carved right through Egypt, but the boarder walls create a sense of separation and tension.

Despite being on the balcony for most of the day, and in the shade, I somehow managed to pick up severe sun burns on my face – ah!