A very good friend of mine is a sea captain; her license reads "Any Ship, Any Sea", which is the highest grade you can get. She has captained everything from an antique three-masted sailing ship, to cargo vessels like the Ever Stuck.

Her commentary on the back story was truly enlightening. The perspective of an actual cargo ship captain. She was subtle - one does not speak poorly of others in the same role - and left out the blame and armchair analysis. She just went with facts.

Like the fact that every captain knew the date the ship would float again. It was a full moon. The highest tide for a month (after which the tide drops massively), and if it didn't get afloat that night, it wouldn't for at least a month. Probably more, because it would have burrowed deeper into the bank over a month of tidal action. So there was no other option than for the Egyptian authorities to do the pre-work to ready themselves for that tide, and call in the big tugs who had to travel several days from various places around the planet to get there and pull during that one tide.

Being a sea captain is fascinating to me... half ancient alchemist of Mother Nature's forces, half modern technology engineer, and half bus driver.

Did I mention she's also a 5-foot tall redhead with a full body tattoo of an octopus embracing her?

Yeah. She's kinda awesome.