Before the Suez canal was built, ships had to take a massive detour, sailling all around Africa in order to get from Europe to Asia.
But were there any attempts to use the shortcut provided by Suez canal before the canal was properly built? What I have in mind is, for example, ships coming from Asia unloading at the port on the Red Sea, goods then being transported overland and being loaded up into different ships in a port on the Mediterranean.
Was anything like that ever attempted or considered?
The Red Sea and Gulf of Suez are a natural spot to transport goods moving between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, considering the narrow strip of land there. There are a number of routes that might be followed, all of which were probably used at some point, and all of which present some natural obstacles. The current outlet of the canal at Port Said lacked fresh water until the Sweet Water Canal was completed in 1863. Instead, ships offloading in the Gulf of Suez transshipped goods across the desert to the Nile, where they were carried to the Mediterranean ports by barge.
In ancient times, there was a canal linking the Nile to the Gulf of Suez, following the Wadi Tumilat. This may have been attempted by Darius I, and four stelae have been found documenting this achievement. Aristotle mentions it, but says Darius failed to complete the canal. Pliny the Elder notes that Ptolemy II also attempted to finish it, but failed because of the water level differences. Diodorus, who visited in 59 BC, tells us that Ptolemy II completed the canal with a lock to account for the water level. Under Trajan, a second branch of the canal may have been dug to improve the water supply. The canal appears to have silted up in the mid-seventh century, repaired around AD 641-2, and closed again in AD 767. It is likely the canal was only operational part of the year, when the Nile was in flood.
However, there are difficulties sailing up the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez. The Gulf, in particular, is rather narrow. Prevailing winds blow down the Gulf into the Red Sea, and ships heading north would have to tack back and forth across the narrow waterway. Further, winds in the southern 2/3rds of the Red Sea blow north to south from June to August and reverse from October to April. Then there were pirates from the Arabia side of the Red Sea.
Because of this, a few ports existed on the west coast of the Red Sea. Goods discharged there would be shipped by caravan to the Nile, where they could be loaded on barges and sent downriver. Nile travel is facilitated northward by the current, and upriver by prevailing north winds. This route was not without its own perils. Water stations had to be dug and maintained across the land route. Large barges could only travel half the year during the flood. Routes from the southern portion of the Red Sea met the Nile before the first cataract at Aswan, and so would have to portage around one or more cataracts. The port at Bernice was probably chosen because it is almost the same latitude as Aswan, shortening the land route and connecting to the Nile downstream of Aswan.
Carol A. Redmount, "The Wadi Tumilat and the Canal of the Pharaohs", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Apr., 1995).
G. W. Murray and E. H. Warmington, "Trogodytica: The Red Sea Littoral in Ptolemaic Times", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 133, No. 1 (Mar., 1967), pp. 24-33.