May 23 & 24 Two Welcomed Seadays

 When we woke up in the morning, we had exited the Gulf of Aqaba and we were just entering the Gulf of Suez. 
It wasn't cloudy but there must have been sand swirling in the distance, making it difficult to see the shore line and the oil rigs.
We spent the day doing next to nothing but the crew was busy prepping for the evening's event. Actually, THE event of the cruise, The White Night, held on the pool deck.
These are the people that went to the Taj Mahal with me.
And here's Michael joining the conga line and he's not even drunk.
This was a yacht parked close to us. Maybe he was trying to join our party.
 Think that was Venus under the moon.
And sometime during the night, we entered the Suez Canal. 
There are no locks in the canal. There are two channels...one for each direction.
When we woke up in the morning, we were in the Great Bitter Lake.

The cargo ships are lined up and waiting in the lake for their turn, to enter the channel, single file.
We had a tug boat shadow us, for most of the trip down the channel. It would blare it's horn, if any little boat came to close to us. 
This pile of sand divides the two channels.
Here, we are entering our lane.
Ship on the other side leaving the channel to enter the lake.
 Fishing is not permitted, nevertheless...
There was a long line of trucks waiting to get on this floating bridge. Didn't see it happen, but it is 350 meters long and it rotates on its axis to join up with another floating bridge on the other bank.
The Mubarak Peace Bridge (built primarily by the Japanese)  is further down the river, that connects Africa to Asia and the Sinai peninsula to the rest of Egypt. Only opened in 2001.
(People boarding a ferry to cross the river)
Just after the bridge, is the city of El-Qantara el-Sharqiya, 160 km northeast of Cairo and 50 km from Port Said (the end of our voyage on the canal), with a population of approx of 100,.000.
The entire population of Egypt, is just over one hundred million but the people only live on 6% of their land.
Passing Port Said and into the Mediterranean.
The ship had to pay $260,000 (or 410.00/person) to go through the canal. Apparently, this is not a fixed sum. Captain said that there were negotiations re the amount to be paid .


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