Being a very chilly morning, we stayed in bed a little longer than usual, but we’d no sooner enjoyed a hearty breakfast, when our first visitor arrived for the day. That was the little old man returning to collect the money we owed him for the produce he’d delivered to us yesterday, bringing with him the first of two gifts he gave us; Egyptian rusks, which he explained needed to be enjoyed with tea. Over a cup of coffee he told us all about his wife and gave us a few tips on transiting the Suez Canal, specifically interactions with the pilots. His second gift was a packet of Egyptian dates, indicating that this was a thank you for our hospitality.

Our second visit was Captain Heebi and a Health official, the latter to ask us a few questions regarding our general health and to provide our Health Pratique, while our agent confirmed all the arrangements for our transit of the Suez Canal tomorrow and answered the questions we had. The one aspect he did stress, though, was that the second half of our transit would be cancelled if a warship gets scheduled to transit.

He also wanted a video of himself with the Captain to confirm what she thought of his service, a standard event he does with all the Captains, which he posts on Facebook, but it was a bit of a novelty to be dealing with a lady Captain on this occasion.

After lunch we spent some time preparing for our transit, including cleaning the cockpit and helmstation again, as well as washed all the ropes that were used to secure the jerry cans, two of the jacklines, one of which won’t be needed on our next passage and all the blocks used with our downwind sails, since these won’t be needed for a while either. The amount of desert sand removed from these few items was ridiculous.

Elaine’s last cleaning task was to wash all the handrails around Paw Paw, as a temporary measure, so we’re no longer covered in desert sand every time we walk along the decks.

The last visitor was the marina “manager” who arrived for his baksheesh. The laugh, though, even after Roy had given him a number of new and used t-shirts yesterday, as well as all the jerry cans we no longer needed, and all he’d done for us was tie the four mooring lines to Paw Paw when we arrived, he had the audacity to ask for more than the USD$40 we gave him, not the smartest reaction when dealing with someone like Roy, who didn’t mince his words in telling him that we’d given him far more than his service deserved and that he wasn’t getting a penny more. Unbelievable! This guy was relentless!

Being so close to the canal, it’s hard not to notice the ships passing by; a bit like a television screen being left on with the sound down, that has one constantly looking at it, but today we happened to see the first cruise ship transit; we haven’t seen one of those since Rebak Island Resort and Marina, where a number of cruise ships sat at anchor for months on end when the pandemic first erupted in SE Asia in March 2020.

Our day ended with another helping of the Turkish soup Kandiba had given us, before climbing into bed for an early night.