day 90, at sea, suez vids 2

This is a summary of the three videos I had to leave out because they were too big to upload.

Something interesting is that the Suez Canal splits Africa and Asia.

The French under Napoleon were the first to survey how the canal might be built. Originally the thought was to connect the Red Sea to the Nile but this was later abandoned. Anyway, the French engineers concluded that there is a 10 m difference between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea and so the idea was scrapped. Later, British engineers proved that they were wrong and that there was no difference. The French got permission and built the Canal with Egyptians for 57,000,000 pounds. The British focused their efforts on an overland route and a railroad and initially ignored the canal because they didn't think it would work.

Later when Egypt got into financial trouble, the British bought the canal for 4 million pounds so maybe things worked out finally for the British. They kept it until 1955 when Egypt nationalized the canal and triggered the Suez crisis. The British people never forgave Prime Minister Anthony Eden for losing the canal.

Asmalea is a city halfway along the canal on lake Tisman or Crocodile Lake. Also something interesting Mom heard is that the water goes north for part of the year and then south for part of the year.