Great Bitter Lake
The natural lake at the midpoint of the Suez Canal used for convoy passing, anchorage and pilot exchange.
The Great Bitter Lake is the natural saline lake near the midpoint of the Suez Canal, and the reason the canal needed no locks: its depression, with that of the Little Bitter Lake and Lake Timsah, gave the alignment a ready-made deep section at close to mean sea level.
Operationally the lake has been the canal passing place, anchorage and inspection area. When the canal ran as a single lane throughout, convoys met and passed here, and the lake still serves as an anchorage for vessels held for inspection, for casualties towed clear of the channel, and for ships waiting on a convoy slot.
The full article will cover the lake bathymetry and anchorages, its role in convoy scheduling before and after the 2015 second channel, the Yellow Fleet years when fourteen ships lay trapped here from 1967 to 1975, and its use as a casualty and inspection anchorage.