Situation Normal

Well if you have been following the news, and you know where I am in the world, you know that right now I should be heading to Mumbai, India. Well you can breath again, we are not. We are currently in Dubai for a second day, and we are not going to Mumbai due to the current terrorist activities. Hopefully later today we will know if we are going to the rest of the ports in India.

Long cruise update

For those of you that are following where I am at the moment, it is now our third day at sea. After the suez canal we went to Sharm el Sheik, Egypt. I was onduty and had a lot of work to do, I didn't get off. The following day we were in Aquba, Jordan. Most crew really wanted to see Petra, but they wouldn't let any of the crew go. Never really got a good answer why, lot of rumors. I did take the shuttle into town, so at least I could say I have been. Not much really, so just a bit of McDonalds and back to the ship to work. I did take a picture of the sign, just to show people what McDonalds in Arabic looks like. The next day we were in Luxor, Egypt, well actually the port is Safaga, and Luxor is 3 hours away, but that's were all the tours went. I got lucky and was able to go with them. I would have to say the Pyramids are great to see once, but Luxor was much better. The two main places that they took us was Cheops Palace (don't think I spelled that one right), and the Valley of the Kings. No time to go to the Vally of the Queens. It was also nice to see how lush and green the farm land around the Nile is compaired to all of the dessert you see near Ciro. Well one more day at sea to go then we will be in Oman. If anyone is worried about Pirates attacking us, don't. They won't go after a ship with this many people, besides we are scheduled to be protected by a bunch of Navy warships once we get into the Gulf of Aden tomorrow. I hope to be able to get a few photos. Oh and if your also wondering I will be heading home on December 15th.

Congradulations Dad on your new Job!

Suez Canal

Well the Suez is definitely a lot different from the Panama Canal. First of all no locks, and a lot of desert. We entered the canal at around 6 am and then made it about half way when we had to stop to let the northbound traffic pass. So all the southbound ships were tied off to the shore. It was kind of wired being moored to the the sand dunes. we sat all day. Finally around 8 pm we continues on. We finally left the canal around 2am. Very long and boring day. The Panama canal is much better.

Asia here we come

Well Europe is almost in the past, I say almost because we are still in the med until tomorrow morning. The cruise started off very nice, because we were scheduled to leave Italy later then we normally do, the ship scheduled a bus to Rome for us. I haven't been able to get into Rome at all this contract so I took advantage of it. I have seen most of the big things before, so I wanted to go to the Vatican again, and not be rushed. As we were walking up to St. Peter's we wondered why we saw so many people, then we realized the Pope was speaking. Although we didn't understand him, as he was talking in Latin and was very far away you could still see him on the giant screens.

We have spent the last two days at sea heading to Alexandria. We made a brief stop off their this morning to let the passengers going to Ciro off. Then we left heading to Port Said. We should arrive their around 9pm and the Suez authorities have told us to stay docked till 3am, then we can get into line to go into the canal in the morning. It isn't like panama, you are not given a time to go through until you arrive and they put you in line.