Position 29:56.837N 32:34.377E

Transiting the second half of the Suez was a more pleasurable experience than the first half, we had a lot more traffic to entertain us and our pilot was calm, quiet and polite plus he took the helm for the whole trip leaving us free to take photos and enjoy the experience.

I am most probably going to bore you all now with numerous photos of the canal and the various shipping however this blog is dedicated to our good friend John Turgoose who is our Guru on shipping.

John and Sue (with whom we shared various boats for 17 years when our families were growing up) joined us on Blue Magic to transit the Panama Canal and we have missed John’s running commentary about the ships, their cargo, owners and destinations !

Once again an early start at 5.00am and we watched the sun rise over the sandy banks of the canal.

We followed Andy and Michelle on ‘Kerching’ so that we could set our own pace since our engines struggle with keeping our speed down to 5 knots.

The pilots were pleased as they like to arrive early to start their trip back to their families in Ismalia.

There wer six of these fuel tankers in a row, the guys on the deck dressed in yellow and wearing hard hats are dummies – presumably strategically placed to deter pirates during their passage through the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden.

The channel markers at the intersections look like sign posts. The distances on this half of the canal were marked in Arabic – this says 87

There was a noticeable increase in military activity throughout this half of the canal, the tanks below were being shipped from one side of the canal to the other on floating platforms.

The yachts behind us had to stop to let them pass.

There was also a high defence wall along the whole stretch with military out postings and armed personnel to ensure no one approaches the canal.

The soldiers waved at us as we passed.

We are now comfortably moored at the Yacht and Rowing Club ….. next blog Port Suez !