Suez Canal

First the Panama Canal - now the Suez Canal. On the Panama Canal it was interesting watching how the locks operated and watching the jungle pass by. This Canal is more functional than fascinating. The one thing worthy of note is that one side of the canal has flourishing little communities strung all along the canal. These towns actually have green grass and trees. There are even a half dozen large cities along the canal – all on the west side of the canal. Now if you get more than a few miles from the canal it is back to the desert. However, on the east side of the canal there is a sandy wasteland for as far as you can see. This isn’t just for a few miles – we have been on the canal for seven hours and there hasn’t been much more than a goat, camel or watch tower on the Sinai Peninsula side. They say there are 500,000 people living in the Sinai desert, of which we have seen about 25 today. I don’t know where these towns are. The only thing of note on the Sinai side is a unique War Memorial. First, it is unusual because it is the end of a rifle with a bayonet on it. Different. Secondly, they have picnic tables, flowers, and a parking lot, but for who? We didn’t see sole, except a few soldiers protecting it. It is in the middle of nowhere – well really, it isn’t even within driving distance to nowhere. Anyway, it is easy to see which side of the canal you would want to live on. Also, here is a free travel tip. If you ever take the Suez Canal trip going north – be sure to get a port side cabin. Okay, so after hours on the canal you come to Bitter Lake. Lots of fishermen were out there today. Fishing is good and just recently, they have started finding fish from the Red Sea in the Mediterranean. The fish must of discovered the short cut too. As we pasted the through the Lake we saw dozens of huge container ships and tankers at anchor. Apparently they have one convoy going north each day and two convoys going south. There are two points on the canal where all the ships going one direction anchor, while the convoy passes, then it is their turn. About 50 ships a day transit the canal – the average fee for transit is a quarter of a million bucks. So this canal makes billions for Egypt, annually. The canal was dug through about 120 miles of desert connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. There are very few places to cross the canal. We saw a few of ferries, with cars backed up – trying to escape to the green side. There is one underground tunnel on the south end of the canal and a couple of bridges on the north end. I saw one swing bridge for a railroad. That would be interesting to see in action. The overhead bridges have become a limiting factor to the height of the ship that can pass thought the canal. The depth is also is not deep enough to handle the draft of the new super takers. It is hard to believe that they talked about building this canal a couple thousand years ago. In fact, a leg was built linking the Nile to Bitter Lake by Pharaoh but it wasn’t maintained and became unusable. Then Napoleon, in 1798, again raised the possibility of a canal, but it never happened because his occupation of Egypt was short lived. It was the French, in 1854, who finally got permission from the viceroy of Egypt to dig a canal. The Canal opened 1869. The Canal quickly became a commercial success. The Canal was defended in both world wars. Feuding continued over the canal leading to the Suez Crisis in 1956 when Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt when they tried to Nationalized the canal to get money to build Aswan Dam. The Canal was closed from 1967 to 1973 during the Arab-Israeli wars. After that, it has remained open. So that is what we did today – it was so long Suez- hello Mediterranean. At least we hope to go to Cairo and visit the Pyramids. Because of some recent unrest, they are going to decide if it is safe to take tours into Cairo later tonight. There are a lot of military aircraft flying, I guess paroling the canal. However, I think the concern is if there is any rioting in the city. This is my one shot at the Pyramids and Cairo Museum; I am really hoping all is calm tomorrow so we can attempt another killer day of touring. After that, we are in the Mediterranean Sea and sailing on to calm Europeans ports.