Captain Percival at Sea

"Hello, I'm Captain Percival, the year 2 owl. I usually live at St. Martin's School, but in January 2003, Mrs Grantham decided that James and Georgia's daddy might like to take me on an adventure!"

Here I am in my cabin on the RFA Sir Percivale. The ship was built over 40 years ago! We set sail on the 14th of January from Southampton. On the first night we passed the Lizard in Cornwall.

The ship turned south and headed for the Bay of Biscay. The Bay of Biscay can be very stormy in winter. It is famous for difficult sailing conditions because the deep Atlantic Ocean becomes shallow (or "shoals") where it meets the Bay, and high winds create even bigger waves. In the picture you can see the Bay of Biscay out of owls porthole (ships window).

When we had crossed the Bay of Biscay we passed the countries of France, Spain and Portugal. On the fifth day we were very close to where the African and European continents meet, at the Straights of Gibralta.

We sailed between Spain (in Europe) and Algeria (in Africa). Captain Percival is standing in front of the bridge. Behind him you can just see Africa if you look hard.

	Can you see the Rock of Gibralta behind Captain Percival? This is part of Spain, but all the people here speak English.
Here you can see the bridge where the captain works. The navigator, who plots the rout, also works from here, so he can see where the quartermaster is steering the ship. All the sea charts (or maps) are stored here.
	After the Straights of Gibraltar we travelled through the Straights of Malta and entered the Mediterranean Sea. We sailed east, past Tunisia, Sicily, Malta and Libya. At last we got to our first place of anchor - Cyprus.

The crew of the ship had training exercises here, with speedboats and hovercraft. James and Georgia's dad is an engineer and makes sure that the hovercraft work properly. We lived on this beach for three days. In the background is Limassol, the capital city of Cyprus.

Next, we headed South towards Egypt and Port Said. We had to wait in a kind of ship traffic jam before we could enter the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal streches 160 km (100 miles) between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.

The Suez canal was first thought about by Pharaoh Ramasees, around 2,500BC. Ramases tried to build a small canal between the Red Sea and the BitterLakes. From the lakes he made a canal to the River Nile. The Suez was completed last century by 20,000 men. It is 90 metres (300 feet) wide and 12 - 15 metres (40 - 50 feet) deep.