SUEZ CANAL, EGYPT APRIL 9, 2008The Suez Canal is a large artificial canal in Egypt, west of the Sinai Peninsula. It is 163km (101 miles) long and 300 meters (984 feet) wide at its narrowest point. It runs between Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea and Suez (al-Suways) on the Red Sea.
The canal allows two-way water transportation between Europe and Asia with out circumnavigation of Africa. Before its opening in 1869, goods were sometimes off loaded from ships and carried over land between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
The canal allows the passage of ships of up to 150,000 tons displacement. It permits ships of up to 16 meters (53 feet) draft to pass and improvements are planned to increase this to 22 meters (72 feet) by 2010.
Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority (SCA) reported that in 2005 18,193 ships passed through the canal producing around $3.5 billion income.
It took us about 13 hours to traverse the canal at a speed of about 8 knots. We formed up s convoy of about a dozen ships at about 3am. We began through at about 6am. I was impressed by the number of military on both sides of the canal. See one of the towers that dotted the banks and a small encampment. One small boat of 3 Arabs in a row boat were rowing parallel to the bank and an army speed boat swooped down on them with sirens blaring. A couple of minutes later a truck on the shore road arrived full of soldiers that piles out to confront these hapless guys in the boat. They really reacted quickly to what I didn’t even recognize was a potential threat.
There were numerous ferrys across the canal for both trucks and cars. There was even a couple of tunnels carrying fresh water from the Nile to the Sinai side under the canal. We have a picture of the only bridge spanning the canal called the Peace Bridge. Since it was built by Japan, it is also know as the Egypt / Japan Peace Bridge. Seems like a few bridges like this built by the USA would go a long way to repair the American image. Maybe we would have a little money for a bridge if not spending on a war.
At dinner that night we also met a couple more Arabs.
