The Pacific Princess anchored in the Gulf of Suez about 6:30 pm on March 29th. We had to wait for inspection by Canal Zone inspections and for all of the ships in our convoy to get in place. The Suez Canal has been widened in the past couple of years by adding an new parallel canal way in the center and North end of the the canal. This allows both a North bound and a South bound convoy to travel the canal at the same time but their timing must be coordinated so that they pass each other where there are two waterways. Our North bound convoy was scheduled to embark on the transit at 4:00 am on March 30th. We would be the first ship in a convoy of thirty four ships.
As it turned out, we were not given the go ahead to begin the transit until just after 5:00 am. So, when Frances and I got up at 6:00 am, we had not entered the canal proper. Frances showered, dressed and went up to the 11th deck to take pictures. By the time I was showered and dressed, she was back. So, we went to the cabin of some friends for breakfast. They had a balcony suite where we could watch the whole transit.
We entered the canal about 7 am and reached the Bitter Lake by 10 am. As we traveled the fertile lands of the Nile were on our left and the sands of the Sinai Desert were on our left. Shortly after exiting the Bitter Lake were reached the widened area and our convoy was piloted to the right into the new channel. Parts of this channel were lined with dredging boats and barges to carry away the sand as they continued to work on the widening project. Also, we often saw heavy equipment on the shore, either digging sand from or near the shoreline or piling rocks along the shoreline.
Around noon we began to see, above the sand dunes to our left, the tops of ships passing in the opposite direction. We also saw the railroad bridge that crossed the original canal. The bridge would swing open to allow ships to pass but now, as trains could not yet cross the new channel, it was always in the open position. We passed the last ship of the Southbound convoy just as we re-entered the main channel of the canal and just before we reached the Egypt / Japan Friendship Bridge which is the only bridge which spans the canal. (There is also a tunnel that goes under the canal.)
We passed a number of ferries that took both people and vehicles across from Egypt proper (Africa) to the Sinai Peninsula (Eur-Asia).
Finally, we reached Port Said at about 3:00 pm and entered into the Mediterranean ending our transit of the Suez Canal …
