One Year In - Suez Anniversary
Trip Start
Dec 05, 2007
1
28
Trip End
Dec 05, 2008
Where I stayed
MV Aenne Rickmers
Suez, Red Sea and Sinai, Egypt
Friday, December 5, 2008
Gulf of Suez N 28° 39.6' E 33° 01.4'
We started engines at midnight and headed north, to be woken again shortly after by the general alarm (false alarm). In the morning, we were just entering the Gulf of Suez as I got up, with Hurghada hidden behind an island to port and Ra's Muhammad - the tip of the Sinai Peninsula - to starboard. The mountains of Sinai were visible throughout my walk and most of the day: a rugged landscape of rock and sand interspersed with small settlements and oil terminals.
By early evening, a southbound convoy was passing us and we anchored off the port of Suez at sunset among a motley collection of ships, as the local fishing fleet headed south.
As today is the anniversary of my retirement, I feel some reflection is appropriate even though this trip is still in progress; I'll put it in the "Incoherent Ramblings" blog later. I think I've had good value out of my first year: apart from travelling most of the way round the world, visiting New Zealand and learning about containership life, I have also visited Portugal and Turkey for the first time, walked in the Jura, climbed 26 more Munros and sundry other mountains in five countries, taken several thousand photographs and learned quite a bit more about operating my camera. I've seen six continents (but set foot on only four, so far), three oceans and more than seven seas.
Dave Burdett used to tell us that "some people have twenty years experience but many people have one year's experience twenty times"; I think I've improved my average!
