Great Bitter Lake Association, unique in all unusual aspects!

In June of 1967, a convoy of 14 freighters was underway in the Suez Canal going to the North, when a war broke out between Israel and Egypt. As a result, the canal was officially closed and the ships had to anchor in the Great Bitter Lake. Within three days it became clear that the canal was going to be blockaded for an indefinite amont of time due to the mines resulting in sinking of vessels. The hostilities named as the Six-Day-War, meant almost eight years of forced isolation for the ships, imprisoned in the Great Bitter Lake.

The Ships were

• 'MS Nordwind', Germany.
• 'MS Münsterland', Germany.
• 'MS Killara',  Sweden.
• 'MS Nippon', Sweden.
• 'MS Essayons' ex 'Sindh', Norway
• 'MS Agapenor',  England.
• 'MS Melampus', England.
• 'MS Scottish Star', England.
• 'MS Port Invercargill',  England.
• 'SS African Glen',  USA.
• 'MS Djakarta', Poland,
• 'MS Boleslaw Bierut',  Poland.
• 'MS Vassil Levsky',  Bulgaria.
• 'MS Lednice',Czechoslovakia.

In October of 1967, all 14 captains and crews got together aboard the British ship ‘Melampus’ and founded the 'Great Bitter Lakes Association'. Its main purpose was to promote and cultivate friendships, mutual assistance, and joint undertakings. 


All 14 vessels were provided with ‘Mailed on Board’ rubber stamps of uniform appearance, showing an anchor with ‘14’, double stripes symbolizing the Suez Canal, GBLA initials, and the ship’s name. Later on they identified the individual ship teams, when the vessels were placed together in groups. In the background, a label with ships at anchor.



Though the crew was engaged in maintenance work, however, there were plenty of leisure activities, among them the production of their very own ‘local postage stamps’ - actually, labels without postal validity.

They were affixed to envelopes and enhanced with ‘Mailed on Board’ stamps. Real postage had to be added, either Egyptian stamps or meters. Denominations such as ‘pennies’ and ‘cents’, above, shown on some labels, were purely decorative. Yet, some covers are known to have reached their recipients ‘franked’ with the locals alone and considered very rare and collectible.

Among the crews’ leisure activities were frequent meetings dedicated to card games, movie nights, and athletic competitions. October 1968 saw the ‘Bitter Lake Olympics’, coinciding with the Olympic Games in Mexico City. Crews from eight nations competed in 14 disciplines, among them fishing, sailing, acrobatic jumping, and soccer. Hand crafted medals were the awards. Life boats became equipped with sailing gear, and a ‘Yacht Club’ was founded - commemorated with sail-themed labels. Some of the handstamped commemorative cachets of the Bitter Lake Olympics I have is displayed above .

The ships complied with mailing requests from all over the world. To please collectors, the reverse of covers were serviced with all available stamps of all vessels. The result can be observed in this cover I have.  On Sundays, everybody used to meet aboard ‘Nordwind’, brought the rubber stamps along, and worked together in a small ‘ships cancellation office’.  Constant winds blew desert sands upon the vessels. Seen from a distance, the entire fleet had a yellowish appearance. Hence the nickname 'The Yellow Fleet', a designation also shown on a number of locals. 


The spring of 1975 saw the re-opening of the Suez Canal. On May 24, 1975, both ‘Münsterland’ and ‘Nordwind’ returned to their home port -- the only two of 14 vessels that were able to sail from the Canal under their own power. Some 30,000 persons greeted both ships upon arrival in Hamburg. ‘MS Münsterland’ finally completed a round-trip to Australia that had taken more than eight years.