Once again, this morning we woke up early and had breakfast in the Lido Café. This was a perfect venue to sit since we entered the Suez Canal at 6:00 AM this morning. We ate breakfast outside so that we could view both sides of the canal.
One of the sides of the canal was mostly desert other than a few military outposts that we would see from time to time. These small outposts would house one or two men from the military who provide security for the canal. On the other side of the canal we mainly saw lush green landscape that had been irrigated along with a variety of buildings from homes, to hotels, to small towns with mosques. At the aft of the ship we could see some large size ships cruising behind us.
There were areas of the canal that were divided by land and had shipping lanes on both sides. At one point you would see a ship coming the other way which appeared to be on the desert as all you could see was sand on both sides of the ship.
After breakfast, we went to the Fitness Center for our daily workout. Anne Marie worked out on the treadmill and Keith worked out on the elliptical machine. Anne Marie continue to feel better and is just about back to normal. We each worked out for about an hour and fifteen minutes.
After our workout, we went back to the Lido Deck and sat outside with a cup of coffee to take in all of the wonderful scenery all around us. It is hard to believe that only two and one half months ago that we were transiting the Panama Canal and a few weeks later that we were cruising around Antarctica. We have been to so many places in major areas of the world in such a short time. This is one of the marvels of cruising. While we don’t see the type of depth that one would see on a land based vacation, on a cruise of this length we are able to visit so many areas of the world in a short period of time without encountering all of the challenges of flying in an airplane. Unlike traveling by car, train, or plane, a good portion of our traveling occurs in the evening hours when we are asleep other than those days when we spend the entire day at sea. Of course, during the sea days we are able to attend lectures, and participate in a whole diverse set of activities.
After spending additional time taking in the scenery around us, later in the morning we attended a special program that was put on for those passengers who are on multiple segments or the full World Cruise. As has been the case with the other programs, we had a great time and it provided yet another opportunity to socialize with our fellow passengers.
Following the program it was time for Team Trivia. Today, we finished in a tie for second place. After the trivia, we had lunch with the same couple that we had lunch with yesterday. We had a wonderful time with them.
This afternoon we walked on the promenade deck so that we could continue to look at the scenery all around us as we continued to transit the Suez Canal. After we went inside we took care of a few errands and then viewed the canal from our room. At one point it looked like it had become foggy but we realized that it was not fog, but a significant sand storm.
Before dinner, we attended a Catholic Mass. We had a wonderful dinner in the dining room. We had pre-ordered our entire meal and had a Caesar Salad, which was prepared by our headwaiter tableside and then we enjoyed a wonderful entrée along with a special desert of Saint Honeré cake. Thanks to Judith for recommending this very special cake to us.
This evening we will turn the clocks forward one hour as we are once again moving into a new time zone.
We are scheduled to arrive in the port of call of Ashdod, Israel in the morning and we are scheduled on a full shore excursion called Eternal Jerusalem. This will be our first time to Israel and we are looking forward to tomorrows visit.
Keith & Anne Marie
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