Last night we changed time zones for the second time. We are now eleven hours ahead of the time at home. This is the fourth of five sea days in a row. We had breakfast in the Colonnade then spent the morning in the suite reading, writing and relaxing. We passed through the Bab el Mandeb Strait at the bottom of the Red Sea this morning. Islands of Yemen were visible off the port side from our suite. When we went to breakfast, we sat on the starboard side and cou...

Another lazy day at sea. We changed time zones last night and are now ten hours ahead of time at home. We also crossed the Tropic of Cancer overnight and are now in tropical waters. We got up at 4:15 a.m. to watch the Cowboys play the Eagles on Sunday Night Football. Probably shouldn't have bothered since they lost in overtime. I did the laundry while the game was on so I didn’t see all of it, but it was good to get that out of the way while the machines w...

This was a quiet day at sea circling from the Suez Canal through the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba so we can dock in Aqaba, Jordan in the morning by 7:00.

Today, we transited the Suez Canal from north to south, from Port Said to the town of Suez. The ship entered the canal about 5:30 in the morning while we were still asleep, although the captain had announced yesterday that we had an 8:00 a.m. time slot scheduled for entry. We expected to be anchored outside waiting for our time by 3:00 a.m., and I guess they wanted us to go in early with at least one other ship, a cargo ship I could see behind us. Ships go throug...