That is correct. In 1979/1980 the Ike and our task group had to traverse the “horn” to go from Norfolk to Iran.
I’m not certain why the carriers stopped using Suez. We were on decent terms with Egypt we even had Liberty there in 79 I think it was. The riff with Isreal was short lived. Intrepid was the last carrier before the Six Day War to go through. I haven’t looked to see if a Forestall class and later went through it earlier or not. If they could the Kitty Hawks should have been able to also. It could have been a Cold War issue or construction for super tankers accommodations had began about that time.