Ship Me Somewhere East of Suez

Ship me somewhere's east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst…

On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin' fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China
'crost the Bay.

Connection to work on the new Channel

 

Ferry Boat timing passage between ships on the Canal

Amphitheatre and police station

My Uncle Shelby made rare visits to my grandmother’s home where I grew up; my grandmother would always ask him to serenade us with his beautiful baritone voice.  His concert song of choice was On the Road to Mandalay.  Maybe that’s when I first developed a taste for the exotic and a longing for faraway places.  The Suez Canal is not just a transit between seas, it’s a metaphor.  Like the name Casablanca, Suez evokes thoughts of international intrigue, romance, and drama.  We’re currently parked at the Southern entrance surrounded by ships of various sizes looking ghostly in the morning mist.  Our Captain raced to get to the starting gate a full day early, and it’s paying off.  Delays caused by the widening of the canal have caused a back-up of traffic and had we arrived on time tomorrow, we possibly would have totally missed out next port of Haifa.

6:30 a.m. – We awake to see the pilot boat directly below our stateroom and think our passage must be imminent.  After breakfast on the fantail, we stake out a good position in the Looking Glass forward to watch our departure.  Nothing happens.

12:00 noon – Having waited at anchor since 3:00 a.m. this morning watching a line of ships depart southbound from the channel, we have finally boarded the pilot and are given the number 2 position in the northbound convoy behind a US Navy ship and a large container of automobiles.  We approach the canal slowly with sand bars on our starboard and the surprisingly large town of Port Suez on our port.  There are two southbound convoys each day and one northbound.  The plan is to reach Ismailia sometime around dinnertime and exit the canal completely sometime around midnight.  The famous Azamara White Party, which had been scheduled and cancelled in the Red Sea because of weather is now scheduled for this evening.  We enjoy a leisurely lunch on the pool deck while watching Port Suez pass on the port side.

2:30 p.m. – We reach the first large lake while attending a lecture on the Israeli/Palestinian Arena.  A military helicopter flies overhead carrying missiles and we wave at the soldiers as we pass by one of the checkpoints which have an armed soldier standing on top of a dune every 100 yards or so.   

4:16 p.m. – Wide expanses of sand on either side.  Naptime (even explorers have to rest sometime). 

5:00 p.m. – Time for a sundowner on the balcony as we watch the construction of the dual waterway.  It’s quite a project, costing over $8 million, and just a little behind schedule for a 2015 opening.  The wide expanses of sand have become dunes from the excavated canal.  As we pass Ismailia on the port side, we, on the starboard, are privileged to see some sort of tourist attraction including a huge amphitheatre, an enormous phallic symbol, and a ferry full of merrymakers going home.  We also got a change of pilot in Ismailia.

7:00 p.m. – We head for dinner in Aqualina, the specialty dining room and sit down to dinner as darkness falls and we pass under the Friendship Bridge, a great suspension bridge to nowhere built in conjunction with the Japanese.  One side ends in a large town; the other sends travelers off into the great expanse of the Sinai Peninsula.  That was our last memory of the Suez Canal as we concentrated on the great expanse of food before us, made a short visit to the White Party, and finally toddled off to bed.