Port Said Anchorage

We are at anchor off Port Said, waiting for a slot in tomorrow's southbound convoy, and the view is one of the strangest of the voyage.

There are perhaps thirty ships out here. Bulk carriers, tankers, car carriers, container ships, all sitting still in the haze at various distances, all waiting for the same thing. It looks less like a port approach and more like a car park that has been left running.

Behind them, low on the horizon, Port Said: a long smear of white buildings and, after dark, an orange glow with minarets picked out in green light. I can see a city. I can see cars moving on a road. I will not be setting foot in it. Passenger shore leave during a canal transit is, Marco explained with real sympathy, not a thing that happens.

Agents came aboard in the afternoon in a launch that came alongside at a speed I would describe as confident. Paperwork was exchanged. Somewhere in that stack was a photocopy of my passport and a form describing me, I assume, as cargo that eats.

The heat at anchor is a different animal to the heat under way. Without the wind of your own passage there is nothing moving at all. The steel holds it. The cabin holds it. The only cool place on the ship is the engine control room, which is air conditioned for the machines, and which I have now visited three times today under increasingly thin pretexts.

Convoy at first light. Container, tonight, is on the pillow. Not near it. On it. I slept on the corner.