Nile Cruise — Transiting the Esna Lock

As you can see from the time above, we’ve been waiting a few hours. Time to get under way again. As I said Monday, before we reached the Esna Lock, we would first pass through a narrow channel on the west side of the Esna Lock Dam. And if don’t know otherwise, you might think this channel is a lock. I know I cetainly did.

But as you approach this channel you’ll notice that there are no gates here. It’s just a straigh pass through the dam as you head toward the canal lock:

The dam is impressive enough…

… but then we approached the second barrier and the canal lock. The two canal locks here are so long that they can each accommodate two riverboats simultaneously. Here’s an example:

In the image below you’ll see the riverboat that preceded us through the dam canal as it heads into the lock. In front of it are two riverboats which you can see are already at a consideraly lower elevation:

Another photo contrasting the differences in height on either end of the lock:

Note the small vendor boats in the photo above. Yep… you can even buy a carpet while you’re transiting the canal. In this next image, we followed that preceding riverboat into the same lock:

Whereupon both riverboats were lowered to the next water level:

After which it’s time to sail once again down the River Nile:

Our total time between pushing toward the shore south of the dam to await our turn until this point would’ve been about 4½ hours. Make sure you wear a hat and use the sunscreen while you wait!

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)