Friday 21 June 2013 Mediterranean Sea

It is now Friday and having another sea day which we need after a busy day yesterday.  On Wednesday we passed through the Suez Canal, we entered the canal about 7.30am and left it about 3.30pm.  The canal was constructed in 10 years, which seems quick but it was four years later than planned, and it started off being dug by hand with pick and shovel.  It was completed in 1869. The canal is just under 200 km long, most of it is about 200 metres wide, and ship traffic can only travel in a convoy in one direction at a time. There are two points along the canal where ships anchor to let traffic in the other direction pass, one of these is the Bitter Lakes.  At these lakes there were over a dozen ships at anchor heading the same direction as us but we sailed straight past them without stopping which I am sure would have annoyed them.  There are several interesting sights along the canal, the west side has a lot of human habitation whereas the east side is all desert.  There is a large town, Ishmael, about half way along, and lots of agriculture which is irrigated from the Nile about 200km away.  There are only two bridges over the canal, one is a road bridge recently built by Japan, and a railway swing bridge which closes over the canal each night from 9.00pm to 9.00am and lets canal traffic through during the day.

The canal has a long political history with lots of struggles for its control, and twice was closed due to conflict, the first being the Suez Crisis in 1956 and again after the six day war in 1967, when it was closed by mines and sunk ships, and not reopened until 1973.

Over 17,000 ships pass through the canal each year.

Sam had previously passed through the canal when he was 15 but from his recollection there have been many changes along the canal since he was here last.

The next day we arrived in Israel at the Port of Ashdod and did a day tour to Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  This was a full day, we had to meet in the Princess Lounge at 6.15am and got back after 5pm.  In Jerusalem we visited the Mount of Olives, The Garden of Gethsemane, where Judas betrayed Christ, then entered the Old City where we first visited the Wailing Wall, then travelled along the Via Dolorosa which is the route that Christ took from the seat of judgement to His crucifixion on Calvary.  We have been led to believe that Christ carried His Cross to His crucifixion  where in fact He carried the crossbeam and then this was attached to the upright of the Cross.  This is the route with the Stations of the Cross, the narrow streets are teeming with people and lined with small shops.  At the end of this route is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is constructed over the spot where Christ was crucified and where He was placed in the tomb prior to His resurrection.  You can still touch the hole on the ground where Christ’s cross was placed.  This Church has six Christian denominations, being the Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenians, Ethiopians, and two others we can’t remember. The key to the door of this Church is held by a Muslim family and has been held by this family for many many generations, the head of family comes each morning at 5.00am and opens the Church and then comes and closes it at about 8.00 pm each evening.  Our guide was a fabulous fellow a Canadian Jew who has lived in Israel for 31 years.  He was extremely passionate and gave us so much information.  We were also taken to where Helene searched for the Cross in 300 BC she was a very passionate woman and she found the three crosses, the one Christ died on plus the two of the alleged thieves (one of which was innocent of course).   

 

After a lovely lunch including some nice Israeli wine, we crossed into the Palestine area to visit Bethlehem.  There at the Church of the Nativity is the spot where Christ was born, in a cave rather than a stable as we have been led to believe.  This was very emotional for us all, everyone sang Away in a Manger.

All of these tours are done with 1000 at least of your CBFs (Cruise Best Friends), I think there were at least 24 busloads of us but there is no other way of course to do these tours.  Our guide for Israel stayed with us of course for the entire day, but he had to hand over to anor guide when we crossed the border into Palestine, so none of this could be done by oneself.

 These are extremely long and hard days, no slacking on this journey.  Tomorrow is anor day and we are in Greece, Sam and I are doing a half day tour of The Acropolis and a city tour, I believe there are some shops near the port so we may be able to do a little bit of shopping.  We are doing well with our supplies, Sabine’s sister bought all her supplies and gave them to her in Brisbane, thank goodness for that, there is no time to shop after any of these tours or prior.  In lots of the ports we have to all have a face to face with immigration as we leave the ship. 

Anyway we are going to sign off and post this now, then Sabine plans to do her emails. Love to all  Sam and Sabine   XXX