JORDAN AND THE WEIGHT OF MY OFFICE

I stepped out onto the bridge wing while anchored at  Aqaba and used the binoculars to gaze at Israel and the city of Eilat. It doesn't look like much but in contrast to Aqaba there were many fires on the beach and you could see the bars and restaurant lights lighting up the hill behind where the people were having a good time. Naturally, we didn't go there.

We'd done our minesweeping earlier in the Red Sea and came back later as ships do and shared the hospitality of the King of Jordan and his Navy. Oddly enough, although we spent a week or more in Jedda, the King of Sauds never invited us for dinner. I'm sure it was just a scheduling thing. And yeah, even then, Yemen was a thing. As we used to say, the kind of thing one could wipe off one's shoe.