The northern part of the Red Sea is dotted with oil rigs, so we spent most of today navigating through the various oil fields. Some of the fields were just on the horizon and others were only a couple hundred meters away.

On one side of the ship you could just see Saudi Arabia on one side and Egypt on the other . As the day went on and we entered the Gulf of Suez, we went to having 'mainland' Egypt on one side and the Sinai Peninsular (the triangle shaped part of Egypt that connects to Israel and Jordan.

Along the southern and eastern coasts of the Sinai Peninsular there are quite a few coral reefs and several towns where the main source of income is dive tourism. It is also an area of high religious significance with St. Catherine’s Monastery being the oldest working monastery (I think).

Other than working our way closer towards the Suez Canal, the other focus of today was watching the ‘big game’ via satellite on the big screen. Depending on your preference, this could have either been game two of State of Origin or the Socceroos’ game against the Netherlands. Both events had a good turnout with those partaking in the State of Origin festivities donning blue or dark red leis. While I’m fairly sure the players were unable to hear the messages of support that were being hurled at the big screen, this did not stop many passengers providing their own two cents and ensuring that anyone within a several mile radius would be aware that either ‘QLD waz robbed/NSW played dirty!’, or ‘Bout time NSW/we deserved to win’ . As neither Mum nor I are league fans, I can’t say we were sweating on the result. That said, I was encouraged that for the first time in many years, QLD lost the series and someone else gets to take home the trophy, I mean the same team winning every year can get a bit boring. It was also a little bit funny to see a little bit of panic set in when we lost the satellite signal about 20 seconds before the game ended. As we were unsure of the final outcome for a few minutes, people kept asking each other ‘what happened, did NSW win?"

After the footy, it was time to regroup, review the rules of soccer and ready ourselves for the all important game where yellow played orange. Once again there was a good turn out of passengers, some of whom had partaken in the free face painting that staff from the kids club were doing. Once again we encountered satellite issues and watched the national anthems, shaking of hands and the opening minutes through weak signal and loss of signal messages. Thankfully the signal was restored only a couple of minutes in and we were able to watch, while basking in an Egyptian sunset and until halftime (as we had to go to dinner) Australia give the Netherlands a good run for their money.

After dinner we continued our day of sport by watching Spain being decisively beaten by Chile.

Tonight we’re expecting to reach the anchorage point for the Suez Canal northern convoy, with our transit to begin at around 6:30am.

Finally on the trivia front, we were once again good enough to be a sudden death playoff – and once again we got the question wrong.

Fun fact:
In Nevada, it’s illegal for a man to buy a round of drinks for more than three people.