At Sea in the Red Sea

We are sailing into the Red Sea this morning. Yesterday we spent most of the day on our balcony as the ship hugged the coast of Yemen. We saw whales and dolphins playing near the boat. It was great. I tried to get a photo but never did. We also were viewed occasionally by some sort of US military aircraft.

At one point several small power crafts came toward our side of the ship and we learned that the security guys were immediately on the deck. We have been assured that the security folks that came on board in Phuket are trained Israelies. They walk around with the ear pieces and two of them have knap sacks. They do watch everything going on and I think that is good. While we were in Oman day before yesterday, the Seabourne Yacht that did meet up with the pirates in Somalia was in port. Gave us a thoughtful pause.

The day was lazy. I watched a cute movie "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and Jim wandered the deck and read in the Library.



We had a great time in the evening watching the sunset in the Horizons Lounge at the front of the ship. We usually go up there for sunset after we have played our Team Trivia. We are having fun with Trivia- learning lots of facts and also learning a lot about human nature and what some folks will do to "win."

This morning we got up early to watch us sail into the Red Sea through a passage that is 14 miles wide. We could see the coast on both sides of us as we sipped coffee and ate wonderful pastries. We learned from someone who was up really early that one of the security guys and a crew member were on deck 5 all night long with fire hoses at the ready in case we were approached by anyone strange. Nice to know someone is watching. Especially since there was this trouble today in Egypt.

Nevertheless we are having a wonderful time and looking forward to another day at sea today. We'll be in the Red Sea for three days before we get to Safaga and have our Luxor visit.