What a great day!! We moved into the Suez Canal early this morning, going so slowly so that we create no waves. Our ship is at the head of the convoy.

The canal is interesting - green and populated on the Cairo side, desert and sparse population on the Sinai side. There are military establishments all along the way, a swing railway bridge under construction and a road bridge also under construction. It cost our ship $US1/4 million to transit. It's the 2nd largest income earner for Egypt!

I went along to a Steiner beauty talk and got to be a model for their demonstration. After lunch we went along to the Art Auction and of course we won the raffle!! As well as getting a free poster! The raffle was for a choice of 1 artwork from a selection of 4. They don't know yet whether shipping costs are paid for by us or them.

We spent quite some time outdoors today - the weather was quite pleasant, if a little breezy up at the bridge end. There are a lot of women who really shouldn't wear bikinis - older and bigger than me!!!

At lunchtime I had champagne with Lord Wedgewood and he autographed a little dish for us. I met a lovely lady from Melbourne while I was waiting in line for the signing.

We saw our Brisbane friends again this morning - Allison is 64 on April 16th! We were pleased to get 2 loads of washing done this afternoon, then a nap before our 8.30pm dinner. The ship is moving quite quickly across the sea and the waves make a bit of noise on the hull of the ship below our porthole.