Friday, April 14, 2023 – Day 114
Entering the Suez Canal.
After leaving Safaga, Egypt we sailed a full day further to the northern end of the Red Sea, entering the Gulf of Suez. We dropped anchor about 11 pm to wait our turn to enter the southern entrance to the Suez Canal for our trip into the Mediterranean Sea. The Suez Canal was opened, after 10 years of construction, in 1869.
The next morning, well before sunrise at approximately 5:30 am, we were to begin our transit of the canal. These schedules are just estimates. But Jeff being a lover of all things nautical and wanted to experience the actual entrance to the canal. So, he got up before 5, went up onto the observation deck to be out there by our estimated time. You would think he’d be the only person out there, but no, he was not the only crazy person up there! The actual time of our entrance into the canal was closer to 6:15 am. I, who had gotten up a little before 6, showered and made my tea, and walked out onto our balcony at the exact moment we were sailing past the entrance marker. Pure luck on my part!
Much like the Panama Canal, ships que up to transit the canal. In the Suez Canal three convoys of ships are allowed each day, two southbound and one northbound. We would travel in the northbound convoy. The canal is some 121 miles long and takes about 11- 16 hours to travel its length. Since 2014 when the ‘new Suez Canal’ was opened, ships can travel in both directions via passing areas in Ballah-Bypass and in the Great Bitter Lake. The convoys are coordinated so that they are hit the narrow sections, where traffic goes only in one direction, at just the right time. An average of 51 ships total per day travel in the 3 convoys.
Since the Red Sea/Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean Sea are essentially the same level, the Suez Canal has no locks to navigate.
First in line, the front of our convoy.
A Warship was at the front of our convoy, being followed by a tug. We were just behind the tug. In the haze to the top left of the picture you can just make out the oncoming ship traffic heading south in the by-pass.
Cargo ships following us in our convoy.
As you can see in the pictures, the southern end of the Suez Canal is desolate. It is the strangest sensation to be traveling on a body of water only to see barren sand as far as the eye can see.
Monument to the Workers of the Suez Canal.
The excavation took some 10 years, using forced labor until 1864 to dig out the canal. Some sources estimate that over 30,000 people were working on the canal at any given time and that more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed over the course of the construction period. It is estimated that tens of thousands of laborers died, many of them from cholera and similar epidemics.
Prior to the opening of the Suez Canal, ships sailing from Saudi Arabia to the US had to go all the way around the Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost point of Africa. Now, going through the Suez Canal saves that ship 2,700 miles or 5 days traveling, at optimum speed. An efficient container ship burns about 63,000 gallons of fuel a day, so that ship saves over 3.15 million gallons of fuel over the 5 days. Our brand new, super-efficient cruise ship burns about 1 gallon every 75 feet. No wonder people were so driven to find a way to get the canal built!
The town of Ismailia, built for the workers constructing the canal.
Once again, armed guards were a common site. Every half mile or so, on both sides of the canal, an elevated guard tower was manned along the walls that separate the canal from the surrounding landscape. The towers face the water of the canal.
Sometimes the towers are on a high point in the dunes. That’s a long walk up those steps and it must be so, so hot in those towers during the summer! As we sailed slowly up the canal, a military vehicle drove parallel to us, between the guard towers, blowing a whistle as he approached each tower, the guard in the tower answered with a whistle. Kind of low tech, but it seems to work for them.
Another guard tower, on the right of the picture, this one near one of the few towns along the canal.
Semi-trucks crossing the canal by ferry.
Trucks lined up to cross via the ferry in the picture above.
Swing bridge under construction across the canal. To the right of the picture, in the foreground before the bridge sections, are launches that can launch pontoons into the canal to quickly build a bridge.
This swing bridge will serve a rail line.
The only suspension bridge across the canal.
As we approach the exit to the Mediterranean, the Nile delta begins to bring water to the area and farming becomes possible.
Salt ‘pans’ and piles of harvested salt in Port Said, Egypt at the northern end of the Suez Canal.
Dovecotes seen on the shore of the Suez Canal.
Dotted with wooden pegs and hundreds of holes, the towers provide shelter and breeding areas for the birds, mainly pigeons, to nest and raise their young in the harsh desert environment. We saw these structures in the northern canal zone where the Nile delta allows for agriculture. Pigeons were found in human settlements in Egypt and the Middle East and were raised as food and a commercial crop. You’d find it on a menu as squab (young pigeon).
Here we are exiting the canal and entering the Mediterranean Sea. Our transit took us about 12 hours. It was an awesome experience. Not as technically spectacular as the Panama Canal with its locks, but an amazing engineering feat none-the-less!
The long history of the canal is fascinating. In more recent history, on March 23, 2021, at around 07:40 am] the Suez Canal was blocked in both directions by the ultra-large container ship Ever Given. The ship was enroute from Malaysia to the Netherlands when it ran aground after strong winds allegedly blew the ship off course. After running aground, Ever Given turned sideways, completely blocking the canal. The incident occurred in a section of the canal where there is only one channel.
The ship was re-floated 6 days later on March 29th. Within a few hours, cargo traffic resumed, slowly resolving the backlog of around 450 ships. It took until April 2nd to work through the backlog of ships.
All went smoothly on our day to travel through the canal!
Now we are off to Haifa, Israel. We will have 2 days to explore Israel. I am looking forward to sharing with Jeff some of the sites I got to visit in June/July last year with a group from our church.