Waking up about noon (it's the usual time after the 00:00 to 4am watch), I'm going to enjoy my first coffee on deck, I couldn't believe the scene, on our Startbord side a highway, on Portside: the desert.

We've to make a stop and give way to a convoy coming from the south (it'll take until 7pm) , just beside us some dunes, and it's a weird spectacle to see the ships from the other convoy passing by: it's like seeing a ship sailing into a sea of sand....

Pep, our Chief Mate, is putting on the board the schedule for the helmsmen. We're steering the vessel manually through the canal. I'm due to be on the wheel from 09:00pm to 10:00pm and from 01:00am to 02:00am.

I come on the bridge for my first shift, Pep hands over the wheel to me with pretty simple orders: " just follow the ship ahead and stay in between the red and green buoys", well sounds easy, basically don't try to park the ship on land!!!

So here I am, steering a 72m long vessel in the Suez canal, I can tell you that it takes at least the same amount of energy and concentration as driving a RIB in the Southern Ocean in front of a whaler, and the Esperanza do not react as easily and fast as the Billy G. for instance.....

This first hour just flies, and at 10pm I hand over the wheel to the next "driver".
It's 1am now, and after some rest, I'm back on the wheel, realizing that I'm going to finish the journey in the canal, bringing the Esperanza into the Red Sea, it's for her and myself the first time there...

The pilot is beside me, giving me from time to time the bearing I've to follow, and after a pretty intense hour and a half, we're reaching Suez, the exit of the canal.

The pilot disembarks, and Frank our captain, comes to me and says: " you can put on autopilot now". I stay few minutes in front of the wheel, staring out of the windows, and realizing that I'de been "driving" myself from the Med to the Red sea by the Suez Canal.

It's 3am now, I'm off to bed,I'm flying