<p>There are ALWAYS mids at sea. I read the report on this, it sounded just like what my son described when he went through it: civilian ships swarmed by small boats. It drove him nuts, and then the boat guys want to board the ships to sell stuff. The Panama is not like that. He goes through the Panama frequently now but only went through the Suez once during Sea Year–his ship did go through the Suez in the fall but he had already gotten off. It’s pretty scary through that it’s claimed that someone was killed, hopefully it won’t provoke and international incident.</p>