Suez Canal

[agprice22]

Question: can small boats traverse the Suez Canal? I saw the documentary of the 14 year old Decker (?) girl doing the solo circumnavigation, and I wondered why she didn't use the Suez Canal instead of rounding Africa. The first idea I had was Piracy. Apparently, piracy has reduced Suez traffic by 10%. The next idea was civil unrest in the region. Too many bullets and rockets would ruin my day! I gues I am ok with a couple!

Any info? Anyone ever done it? Anyone sailed the Panama Canal?

Thanks,

Andrew

 

[capta]

Yachts can transit the Suez. It's quite an adventure. The hard part about using Suez in a westward circumnavigation is sailing up the Red Sea (check out some pilot charts). Also, these days, there aren't too many places one can stop for fuel or provisions. When we did, it the Sudan, Saudi and Egypt were relatively peaceful, unlike today.

 

[Joe]

Tania Aebi described it in her book "maiden voyage" saying that after sailing around the world she felt the most dangerous part was all the ship traffic in the eastern Med. and Suez.

Laura Dekker's route was kept secret from the time entered th Indian Ocean until she had passed below Madagascar, near her destination of Durban, RSA. Besides the piracy worries... the crowded seas can be very stressful to a solo sailor. The route around the cape made more sense to Laura and her advisors.

There are so many guides, video logs, blogs and books written on transiting the Panama Canal.. it would be worth your while to simply google the subject. OR... you could read Laura Dekker's blog, right about here http://www.lauradekker.nl/Basis.aspx?Tid=5019&Lid=13&Lit=VIEW&STARTPOS=425

Tania Aebi's book is fantastic.... she's still very active in the cruising world. http://www.taniaaebi.com/PBooksWriting.html

 

[agprice22]

Thanks, Guys! Pretty interesting stuff! So many challenges exist to cruising, solo or not.

Thanks,

Andrew