Sunday June 9 – At Sea

Today, we sailed between Africa and Asia and could see land on both sides of the ship.  We are now in the Red Sea making our way to Aqaba with only three of our four engines in use.  Our fourth engine has not failed, but is not needed for the speed we are going to arrive in Aqaba at our appointed time.  The captain made the announcement this afternoon that that the several small ships on our port side were fishing vessels and not pirate ships.

When we went to ballroom dancing today the picture shown was up on the screen for the Progressive Trivia which was just finishing.  We thought that the first question should have been what is the mistake in this slide?  We had a review of all the dances we have learnt so far and at last we felt that we were making some progress.

We caught up with Jess and Marty today.  They were on our first World Cruise in 2010 and also on our Circle Pacific Cruise in 2012.  They have become inveterate cruisers on this cruise line and are now into their fifth world cruise.  They arrive home late August and then leave again in October to go to Africa.  They will then stay on board going wherever the ship goes until it completes its next circle Pacific in July 2020.  Wow!!!

There was a talk on the Suez Canal today.  There seem to have been many changes to this canal over the last nine years.  Last time we sailed through the Suez there was only one canal.  But now, there is a parallel canal 35 km long that was opened in 2015.  Approximately 60 ships navigate the Suez Canal each day.  Five new tunnels running under the Suez Canal are due for completion this year.  Three of these tunnels are located are located 17 km inland from Port Said (two roadway tunnels and one rail tunnel).  The other two tunnels include a roadway tunnel located in Ismailia and one fresh water irrigation tunnel just south of Ismailia.  I did not realise that the Statue of Liberty was built to stand at the entrance to Port Said and not in New York.