Israel
Posted at 9:31 PM, Jun. 22, 2010
Well this is another late night blog writing episode as we are currently en route from Ashkelon (Israel) to Port Said (Egypt). This passage is 124 miles and we left at 0830 hrs this morning (Monday 21 June) and the whole rally fleet is to meet at a designated waypoint just off the Suez Canal entrance at 0530 hrs tomorrow at which point we proceed in convey (fully dressed with code flags) down the Suez Canal for a few miles to the Arsenal Basin off the canal which is controlled by the Egyptian Navy. Then rally news is that quite a few boats have opted out of the Egyptian legs as they are quite long relative to the other legs so we are down to 36 yachts.
Bedouin camp in the Israeli desert.
But to back up as the last post had us on an overnight passage between Jounieh (Lebanon) and Haifa (Israel). It is getting noticeably hotter – both in temperature and military presence if that is possible. The fleet had a designated “gate” of about three miles wide being two waypoint positions that we had to pass through as we crossed the border from Lebanon to Israel. The naval presence was significant – quite clearly the Israeli’s guard their water space as much as they do their lands. During the night a navy warship would broadcast lat and long positions and ask the vessel at the position to respond. This would be followed by significant questioning, with extensive use of the phonetic alphabet (Dave one of the rally heads made extensive use of Italy for a while rather than India!), that could last for up to 15 minutes. The naval vessels do not show up on radar which is somewhat disconcerting. We were intercepted by two naval ships on separate occasions to which we had to respond and then as we approached Haifa a police boat collected our passports for inspection, we were then followed by the police on jet ski’s and then watched through high powered binoculars as we approached the marina – and all these guys carry big machine guns. No place for boy racers! On top of this surveillance helicopters overhead most of the night.
Arriving in Haifa - Bahai gardens and temple in middle.
The passage was a combination of a good sail for a few hours at the start, motoring overnight into a light headwind and then wrapping up with a good sail in to port. Basically we sailed most of the way.
This is the only stop in the rally where we are hosted by a yacht club – in this case the Mt Carmel Yacht Club situated off a creek up past the main docks and is a conventional marina. In this case the boats rafted up in the fairways up to 20 boats deep so the locals were not going to take their boats anywhere while the rally show was in town! Fortunately we scored our own berth which was good for a 40 ft boat so we had ropes everywhere seeing as we were well oversize. The day of our arrival was also the occasion for a rally dinner accompanied by speeches by a cabinet Minister, the mayor plus others and a cultural show of dancing provided by a children’s group.
Haifa is a city of about 500,000 and is spread out over the slopes of Mt Carmel and is on three levels – as one might imagine the upper level is home to the wealthy and chic cafes etc as well as the University. From the sea there is a stunning view of the Bahai gardens snd temple which stretch from the top level to sea level – they are beautiful and world renowned.
We have had a smooth passage to date with no problems with the boat but the old saying “bad news comes in three’s” proved correct. Main station VHF ceased operation, leaking about 6 litre an hour through the fitting where the shaft exits the hull (not the stern gland), the main 24 volt alternator packed up and the in-line blower fan in the engine room ceased working also. So on the day of our arrival (Tuesday 15th June) Chris headed off for a couple of days to photograph the World Heritage site at Akko, Pam headed off the following day on a tour of historic sites and I stayed on board to work with an engineer I had met at the dinner to manage the repairs process – pleased to say these guys are pretty good, alternator back within 3 hours plus a new blower that I installed, VHF repaired (a bit of soldering on a circuit board) in 30 minutes and the leaking repaired by mid afternoon so at the end of the day nothing major.
In the meantime Pam was visiting such renowned places as the Sea of Gallilee, driving past the Golan Heights, visiting Nazereth and lunching at a kibbutz.
Where Jesus was baptised by John The Baptist on the Jordan river.
That evening various members of the Mt Carmel Yacht Club very generously hosted rally crews at their homes. A group of ten of us were entertained by Giora & Tamar Reder (he is a former commodore) at their home for dinner preceded by a drive around the sights of Haifa. It was a most enjoyable evening.
The short stop in Haifa was followed by an 85 overnight passage down the Israeli coast to Ashkelon a full scale marina located about 25 k’s north of the Gaza strip – which is a long narrow coastal strip by the way. Again another passage characterised by some good sailing for a while and then motoring.
Ashkelon seems to be a pretty dreary dormitory town with a growing population and many tower cranes going flat out building new apartment blocks. It seems there is a conscious decision to build the population in southern Israel. Temps getting hot – i.e. 43 degrees yesterday! We took a tour to Masada (which is a hilltop fortress where 966 Jews fled Jerusalem and then held off the Romans for three years before finally surrendering – but killing themselves beforehand although 7 women and children escaped to tell the story). And all this in AD66.
The long walk/climb to the fortress at Masada
A very impressive place and overlooks the Dead Sea – to which we then drove and all had the mandatory swim.
Pam survives the Dead Sea!!
It looks like water, you walk in it like water but when you lie down in it you simply do not sink. The river Jordan runs from the Sea of Gallilee to the Dead Sea but in fact does not reach it as the river dries out. After this a visit to the plant that makes all the impressive range of Dead Sea products (creams, shampoos etc) and then a drive north to Jerusalem skirting the West Bank settlements.
The motto at Masada is “ Masada shall not fall again” and up until the 1967 six day war all the soldier recruits climbed to the top and swore this as there oath. All males have compulsory military service for three years (women two years) and then a month a year until the age of 40. The psyche of the people is very much that we want peace but always accompanied by very strong views about this being the land of the Jews. Although the six day war resulted in Israel tripling its geographic area they still believe surrounding areas (e.g. of Jordan) should be part of Israel. The biggest issue though is the Palestine one – the Gaza strip is 45k’s long, 10 k’s wide and houses 1.5 million people. The average pay is USD2 a day and there is 40% unemployment. While in the West Bank settlements there are 2.5 million Palestinian’s of which 43,000 a day cross to Israel to work down from the 75,000 a day reported a few years back. It is difficult to see how Israel itself with a population of 7.2 million can box the Palestinian people in for ever and deprive them of so much.
The wall between Israel and the West Bank settlements.
The country has got an excellent infrastructure, it is good to see people taking a pride in their environment e.g. lawns are mowed, gardens maintained, little rubbish around, etc. A great change from the countries we have just visited although with the extent of irrigation we did wonder at the sustainability of the water supply in the long term. We did see a report though that 10% of the GDP is funded by the USA – this amounts to USD3 billion annually. In many ways a very impressive country with highly educated people but always at the ready to fight for their perceived rights so the question of what the long term holds in terms of peace with their neighbours such as Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, the acknowledgment of the Palestinian demands for a separate country and the sustainability of their treatment of the environment remains to be determined.
Have had a great sail today having left at 0830 hrs this morning from Ashkelon after Customs/Immigration cleared us for departure at 0200 hrs. The first 62 miles we knocked off in 7.5 hours but with dusk the inevitable happened and we are now motoring past a huge offshore gas platform so will give it a wide berth.
Cheers
Keith