Transiting Through the Suez Canal, Egypt
We were up and on the deck by 4am waiting to transit into the mouth of the Suez Canal. We entered at 5:30am. Unlike the Panama, there are no locks; it’s called an artificial sea-level waterway allowing seawater to flow freely through it. The Canal was completed in 1869 and connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. It’s 120 miles long and has a depth of 75 feet. There is a short brick wall with guard towers on both sides (Trump would say, it’s too short).
It was a single-lane waterway until 2016 when construction was completed on a 22-mile bypass to speed up the canal’s transit time by allowing ships to pass in the opposite direction at specific locations. There’s something about sailing on a canal for 120 miles with desert on both sides that leaves you speechless. We exited the Suez at 4:15pm.
