The Red Sea

Sunday, Nov. 13:  When we woke up we were sailing along in the Red Sea.  After seeing all these ancient sites and hearing about Moses and others during Biblical times it is really meaningful.  I don’t know why but I always thought of the Red Sea as being smallish…but here we are sailing and we can see nothing but ocean as far as the eye can see.  It is a deep navy blue color, so unlike the Caribbean or Mediterranean is.  At noon with the Captain’s announcement we are basically in the middle of the Red Sea and about 46 miles from the nearest land, which is Saudi Arabia. We had a simple lunch in the Windjammer and back to the cabin to rest a bit.  Other than me catching up on my blog writing and posting we basically did nothing today.  John went to listen to some lecture and then we went to dinner, meeting Stuart and Darleen, Kurt and Camilla, George and Tawny for a fun loving dinner.  We’re glad our waiters Johnny and Joey are good natured!  It was a quiet day at sea and we needed that after the last three busy days.

Tomorrow we will have our “Safe Haven” drill for our trip through the Gulf of Aden.  Yes, there are pirates but we are fast and difficult to board so we will be safe.  We are also taking on “boxes of equipment” which we suspect carry weapons sometime tomorrow on the Red Sea.  They have not said but I suspect we will also get the personnel that can use this equipment aboard as well. We will cross between Somalia to the south and Yemen to the north.  We have no concerns, the captain is very reassuring, plus pirates want easy prey and we are not!  I’m missing my friends and family today…