Halfway Through the Suez
Position 30:35.096N 32:16.342E 13th October 2012 Our rude awakening was at 3.45am when our grumpy pilot
arrived on board and ordered us to leave. So our transit of the We were surprised to see local fishing boats dotted all the
way along the canal, with only oars for propulsion. When our pilot wasn’t moaning at us to go faster, he
shouted angrily at the fishing boats to move out of the way. It was amazing to see the contrast between the two sides of
the canal, miles of desert and sand dunes on the Sinai side whilst the other
side was lush and green. You can see a number marker, this indicates that we have
travelled 37 kms through the canal , our trip was a total of 77kms to Ismalia. At several places there were links across the canal, a huge
bridge was the most impressive, there were also swing bridges and floating bridges
that are rolled into the water and linked together once the shipping has
stopped for the day. A constant stream of ferries also linked the two sides,
you can see two ferries passing below the bridge in the first photo. We saw no shipping until the flow of traffic reversed and huge
container ships began passing us from South to North at close quarters. As you can see the fishing boats are still floating about in
the middle of the canal, presumably they are used to dodging the traffic ! One of the ships looks to be on route to home. We had a couple of worrying moments when the engine revs
faultered. We stopped the prop and put it into reverse to see a lot of debris
kick out of the stern. It was difficult avoiding the huge islands of weed, see the
photo below, and we think we may still have some debris attached but the water
is a rather dirty to take a good look. We arrived safely and were glad to join the other yachts
moored in Ismalia. Our pilot left with10 dollar Baksheesh (tip), an amount that
we all agreed in advance since they always ask for more. He also tried to leave with various bits of my fishing
equipment in his bag but I confronted him and told him firmly that it was mine
and that he couldn’t have it. We had read a lot of stories about how bad the pilots are
and to some extent that was correct however we didn’t let his continual
moaning detract from the enjoyment of our day. |