Book Ship To Skip Bahrain

The world's largest floating bookfair making its maiden voyage to the region has cancelled its trip to Bahrain. The Logos Hope visited Oman, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and was due to arrive in Bahrain from Qatar next week. It had planned to dock at Khalifa Bin Salman Port and open to the public from March 3 to March 8. A cultural music and dance concert, Melodies of Manama, had also been planned on board the ship in collaboration with the Bahrain Music Institute on March 5. Organisers said it was a difficult decision to make but due to the situation in the country and following advisories given by embassies they felt it was best not to visit Bahrain at this time. However, they said they planned to visit Bahrain again at a later date. Logos Hope was expecting to attract up to 50,000 people from Bahrain, including schools and the public.The Bahrain trip was to follow those by its sister ships Logos and Doulos, which have come to the country six times since 1971. Logos Hope, a much larger vessel, houses more than 7,000 titles and has around 400 people from 40 countries, including a school living on the ship. The book fair on board Logos Hope offers titles covering a range of subjects, including science, sports, hobbies, cookery, the arts, medicine, dictionaries, languages, and philosophy. Logos Hope is operated by GBA Ships, an international, charitable organisation registered in Germany. In almost 40 years of service, the organisation has welcomed 40 million visitors up the gangways in more than 160 countries and territories around the world.