April 12, 2019 – at Sea
Today is a recovery day. Clocks back another hour. We are 6 hours ahead of home. 4 days at sea and then we arrive in Naples, Italy.
Lots of stops with few sea days ahead. It will be very busy and then almost a week to get back across the Atlantic. 34 days left sounds like a long time but it will go quickly.
Today we arrive at the entrance to the Suez canal. We anchored outside the entrance and waited our turn. Ships go through as part of a convoy. 2 days notice must be given and inspection by canal authorities takes place while we wait. Cost for our ship? $250,000. We anchored at about 5 pm and will wait until about 5:30 am to proceed. Travel time through the canal is about 8 hours and when we are through we will be in the Mediterranean Sea.
This ship was outside of our room and waiting also. It is a Panamax ship which is the largest that can fir through the Panama Canal.
We had dinner in the Canaletto today with Harry and Linda. This is an Italian eatery that is available to all guests for a modest up-charge. We enjoyed trading stories about our trip into Jordan. Harry sings in the ships choir and Linda plays in a flute choir back home. We had fun critiquing each of the musical groups on the ship.
The evening entertainment was Duo Yalba. They are a pair of multi-instrumentalists. They are fluent in many languages and many instruments. They took us on a musical tour around the world. Playing music from Columbia, Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, USA, and countless others. Each tune featured different instruments. Many instruments were made by the duo. Lots of pan flutes, recorders, some percussion instruments, guitars, violin. The house band backed them up. Great show. Final number? What else – El Cumbanchero!…