Pyramid Day

We exited the Suez Canal just on dusk yesterday and made our way across 200-ish kms of the muddied Nile delta in preparation for Queen Mary 2's final Maiden Call for the cruise, Alexandria. Many of us had booked 12-hour tours into Cairo to see the Pyramids etc. and had risen early to get breakfast and be ready for the bus transfers first thing.

Upon waking, the ship had a bit more movement than we'd experienced for the previous 5 days. I was surprised as she is normally solid as a rock and it hardly felt like we were at sea all the way here.

While I was tucking into a plate of the sweetest watermelon in history, I could see the skyline of Alexandria on the horizon and felt my excitement for the day rise in expectation. Ten minutes later I noticed the Alexandria skyline pass by again ... and again ten minutes after that. I'd been up since 5am; clearly the lights were on but nobody was home as it took me a few minutes to realise we were going in circles in rough water.

"Good morning everyone. This is the Commodore," began the announcement. It didn't bode well. We learned the authorities in Alexandria had closed the port due to gale force winds. This is bad for large ships because basically they are a wall against which the wind will blow, making declicate berthing manoeuvres far more risky than usual.

We circled for two more hours hoping for the weather to pass but no luck. By 10am we had to say farewell to Egypt and make an early start for Greece without ever saying hello to the Pyramids. To quote Mick Jagger: "You can't always get what you want..." and sadly that was true today. The image at the top of this post is a fraud but I'm sure I would have taken a shot just like it if we'd gone ashore.

This must have been a real blow to the Egyptians. To put things in perspective I heard that more than 50 buses had been waiting for us on shore. QM2 carries more passengers than 2x average sized cruise ships. That's a lot of lost revenue for both Cunard and the locals. So it was lose-lose-lose all the way around.

I was disappointed, of course, but there's no point yelling at the wind. And besides, now we will have an extra day in Athens - a place I haven't been to yet. And to quote Mick again: "But if you try sometimes, you might get what you need".

So, Stephen Wong, it seems our bet is still on. You may yet get to see the pyramids before me. I believe our original bet was made in 1997 so let's hope it won't take us another 10 years to get sorted!