Day 26

Day 26 – Salalah, Oman - Safaga, Egypt. Sunday 10/6/12

Weather – Fine and Sunny 30C - 33C

Sunrise – 6.11am

Sunset – 7.17 pm

Time difference - minus 6 hours ex Sydney.

Throughout the day Sun Princess transited through the Gulf of Aden on a west-southwesterly course following the internationally recommended transit corridor, about 50 miles off the coast of Yemen. At around 9.30pm we chucked a rightie, technical term for altered course, to the north west heading closer to the coast of Yemen. During the early hours of tomorrow morning we will pass the island of Perim Mayyun as we transit the Bab el Mandeb and enter the Red Sea. The island is volcanic and in the prehistoric past eruptions blocked the Bab el Mandeb, causing the Red Sea to evaporate.

Another relaxing sea day aboard the Sun Princess. Sea days are repetitively relaxing, which is very very nice, though they dont provide much to write about :) Donna has been a bit off colour the last few days with a bit of a cold, but she is much better today, and has recommenced her exercise regime with a bit of vigour. Laps in the morning and afternoon, and Zumba, and Line Dancing puts her back in the exercise groove.

I am still dealing with feet blister issues which is really starting to piss me off. I popped the last one last night (yeah I know your shouldn't), but I need them to heal quickly now as we only have another two days and we have a couple of treks ahead of us. I have just nursed them as much as possible over the last week, the early ones have healed, but I still have not been able to exercise walk.

There have been quite a few interesting lectures on board about various things, like planets, solar systems, explorers etc which have been quite popular and well attended. Yesterday I attended a lecture on the Antarctic explorer Shackleton which was really good. In addition they have been looping documentaries on the Stateroom TV, which I dont usually see as I dont spend much time in the cabin as a rule. But today I did watch one on Egypt, which provided a high level overview in chronological order, of the history of Egypt, Pharaohs, Old and New Kingdoms etc, which was really good, and a handy refresher as the next few days are very much about absorbing this on the ground.

The port lecture today was about our next stop, Safaga. I have never seen the Princess Theatre so full. There was not an empty seat available. People were sitting in the aisles, and standing 10 deep at the back of the theatre. Clearly this next port is on everyone's bucket list. The Valley of the Kings is about a 3 and a half hour drive from the port. There are about 1900 passengers on board, and from what I can gather the vast majority are making the trek out to visit this historic site. I read yesterday that about 5,000 people a day, on average, visit The Valley of the Kings. This balloons out to about 9,000 people a day when there are cruise ships like ours docked in Safaga, combined with river cruise boats on the Nile at Luxor.

Our little group that meets for pre-dinner drinks each night has grown a bit, now up to a dozen. A nice way to start an evening, chatting about our hectic days over a few sherbies. Tonight's after dinner entertainment was an Italian lady vocalist. Grazia Quantaro, she was very good. I am hoping she has another show before she gets off .