Suez Canal

7th April 2009 Arcadia started her transit of the Suez Canal at 06:30. We awoke around 08:00 hrs and looked outside our stateroom window to see nothing but desert gently gliding bye. This is a truly an amazing sight, from our balcony we sat for 1 hour and watched the world go by as we sipped a cup of tea. For a short period after 10 we had a few spots of rain and then the sun came out, big time. The bridge was giving a commentary as we proceeded through the remaining 89 kilometers at a speed of just over 8 knots. The cost for this 1 way passage is £150,000, so it is not cheap. The benefit to P&O is that the passage should take 11 hours instead of two weeks sailing until we arrive at the Mediterranean port of Said where we pick up the passengers who left this morning to visit the pyramids. If we had tried the same journey by sea it would have taken over two weeks. As the ship burns 20,000 galls per hour this short cut is beneficial all round. The journey has been better than we thought, very peaceful, and the countryside very varied. On the Port side (Egypt) it was very green and built up in places, but on the opposite side Egypt/Israel border quite barren. Finally we arrived at Port Said around 18:00 hrs departed at 20:30 hrs and left the Middle East before heading out into the Mediterranean for our destination on Good Friday 10th April Civitavecchia, Italy