Today we are passing through the straights between Iran and the United Arab Emirates. As I write, we can see the coast of Iran from our balcony window. It is a bit too hazy for a photo but as you can see, our TV tells us exactly where we are. The straights are only 40 miles wide and are very important as they carry around 40% of the oil used in the west (from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE). 

It is another sea day as it will take about 33 hours to get from Muscat, our port of call yesterday, to Abu Dhabi where we should arrive at 08.00 tomorrow, Saturday. The weather remains good and we are catching up with our laundry !!  After Abu Dhabi it will be Dubai and then we will be heading south for India.
  

At last, we are on dry land again. This is beautiful country and the locals are gentle, obliging people. We took a taxi tour this morning and are now relaxing at the Shangri-la beach resort. Our table friends (Bill and Claire) have joined us for the day. The photo is taken at the Grand Mosque and includes Bill, mentioned above, and Hamid our driver. I am reminded of my regular visits here in 1981 and 1982 but the place is nearly unrecognisable with all the development since. That said, the place is clean and the public spaces are full of shrubs, trees, flowers and lawns. They seem to be spending their oil money wisely.

Having cleared the Suez Canal at 14.00 on 21st it has taken us three and a half days to complete the transit of the Red Sea. We passed Djibouti on our starboard side and entered the Gulf of Aden at around 20.00 yesterday. (I was reminded of a trip to Djibouti in about 1982 when I was entertained in the officers’ mess of the French Foreign Legion in Djibouti, when we dined on grilled turtle and French rose wine !)

We are now in an area of Somali pirate activity. We have to observe blackout at night and the ship has put anti-pirate precautions in place. Assuming the photos upload correctly (and I have had trouble due to the ship’s slow wifi service), the pictures are: (1) Letter from the Captain explaining procedures (2) Crew member scouring the horizon for trouble (3) Acoustic equipment to deter boarders (4) Hoses rigged and ready to drench would-be boarders and force them back.

The weather is very nice – sunny, around 27c and calm seas. 

Some statistics: the ship is capable of carrying 1,400 passengers. On this sector (Southampton to Dubai) we have only 1,100. When we reach Dubai on Jan 31st, 400 passengers will be leaving the ship but another 400 will be joining for the next sector (Dubai to Singapore, arriving in Singapore on 17th February). We leave the ship in Singapore but she goes on for a short tour of Indonesia before returning to Southampton by the same route – although calling at different ports. There are 350 passengers on board who are on for the whole voyage, 91 days  !!

  The Suez Canal is around 120 miles long.  It connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea and saves ships bound for Europe or the Americas from the Middle East and Far East, many thousands of miles going around South Africa (Kids, have a look at a world map).

We entered the canal at Port Said at 03.30 and we exited in Port Suez at 14.00. We were in a convoy of  southbound ships and had to pause at a wide point in the middle (actually a lake) for a northbound convoy to pass.

Now we are in the Gulf of Suez which shortly becomes the Red Sea. At last the weather has seriously improved and should stay sunny for most of the rest of our journey. The sunset this evening over the Egyptian shore was beautiful.

Still cool, the sun attempts to come through from time to time and it’s not raining.  Photo shows sprinkling of snow on the mountain. Memories of visiting the a palace of Knossos 25 years ago ! Sticking to the sights of Heraklion today. It is very quiet being “off season”. Tonight we start heading south and by Thursday will be passing through the Suez Canal. The Egypt call has been cancelled for security reasons so we will have 8 (yes eight) consecutive sea days.  I will not do a posting every day but in any case will definitely be posting at our next port of call which is Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman in 9 days time. 

We were at sea on day 10 so no posting for day 10. Cold today in Athens. Took a taxi tour to all the notable sights which we haven’t seen for over 30 years ! We had a very nice lunch at a small restaurant in the famous Plaka district. Tonight’s we sail to Crete where we will not be much warmer; such a shame after beautiful days in Portugal, Gibraltar and Spain. At least it wasn’t raining today !

 A wet and dreary day, although the sun did come out in the afternoon to allow some photography. Valletta is built from yellowy/pink limestone which looks lovely in sunshine. We visited the cathedral (very baroque and ornate) and wandered around the whole of Valletta. The weather did not encourage us to go beyond the city but we saw enough to persuade us to return for a few days. 

After 3 consecutive port days we have had 2 sea days.  The first, Thursday, was wall to wall sunshine, around 17c; a perfect day for relaxing on deck. Today, Friday, has been overcast, cooler but still a calm sea. We have had some good lectures, movies etc to keep us amused. The evening entertainment too has been of a very high standard. Tomorrow we will be in Malta – more on that in the next posting.

We had a wonderful day in Malaga (Spain) yesterday. We visited the cathedral, the Picasso museum the Alcazar and Roman amphitheatre remains — oh and a cafe for coffee.  The place had an air of prosperity (who said Spain was bust ?) and the streets were clean – no sign of litter.  The buskers were amazing including a Russian tenor who just stood on a street corner and sang beautifully, un accompanied and un-amplified to an audience of 4 or 5, absolutely stunning.  
 

We left Lisbon on Monday evening and made our way South. At breakfast time on Tuesday we altered to an Easterly course in order to line up with the Straights of Gibraltar (the westerly entrance to the Mediterranean Sea).  By  lunchtime we could see the North African coast from our balcony – our cabin is on the starboard, or right side of the ship.  We tied up in Gibraltar at 4.00 pm and by 4.30 we were sitting in a minibus for a tour of Gibraltar the highlight of which was the WW11 tunnels inside the rock. Our driver gave us a very comprehensive tour including the Barbary Apes; there are over 400 of them in the wild on the rock. I had not been to Gibraltar for about 30 years — wow, what a change.  It used to be a pretty shabby, run down place.  Now it seems to be thriving with lots of reclamation, new buildings and much improved infrastructure.  There was a flamenco show on board later on, one of the guests referred to it as a flamingo show, I’m not quite sure what he was expecting !