More Sea Days

Today is the day we should have been visiting the Valley of the Kings but due to the political situation in Egypt all Egyptian ports have been cancelled.  In their place we were to visit Ashdod, Israel (for Jerusalem and the Dead Sea) and Crete.  We have been following the news and watching the alerts for Israel and I have to say we were a little concerned about going there.

This Morning, the Captain announced that due to the situation in Israel we would no longer be visiting Ashdod but would be visiting Athens twice over the next few weeks.  Whilst this is disappointing I have to say that we are not surprised and it was expected.

This meant that between leaving Male (The Maldives) we now have a total of nine sea days before we reach Crete on the 10^th August.  As a result, many of the passengers are foreseeing problems with the return through the Suez Canal and the ports for Petra (Jordan) and Oman.  In fact we have informally re-named the ship The Flying Princess, in memory of the Flying Dutchman, the ship that sailed and never landed in a port.

Since leaving The Maldives we have crossed the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and the Red Sea.  We are currently sailing along the Gulf of Suez with Egypt (and oil rigs) in sight on both sides.  Tomorrow we will navigate the Suez Canal and enter the Mediterranean Sea. 

The first three days out from Male was a little ‘rough’ Joan and I were sitting on deck 14 watching the wave from the swimming pool reaching higher than the large Movie Screen.  Needles to say, the pool was closed very soon afterwards.  Then we went indoors to the front of deck 14 where we had lunch whilst watching the waves crashing into windows directly in front of us, not all passengers were able to make the dinning rooms on those days and even some of the crew were feeling a little off.   Seems like we have our sea legs at last.

Regardless of all this, the sea days are being spent productively and are being enjoyed by all.   We have joined a great group of people to form a trivia team and have so far won 5 times.  Most people struggle to win once.  We are also working on our suntans around the pool, going to shows and cinema between meals.  In fact we are beginning to wonder where the days have gone.

Tomorrow as mentioned, we go through the Suez Canal and I am assured there will be several picture opportunities, which I will post as soon as I can.  Over the next few weeks however posts to this blog may be either rushed or late due to a very hectic schedule of ports.  I expect that like other cruises we have done, some of the ports will start merging into one another in our minds.  All the more reason to take good photographs!