The Long Winding Road
Posted at 11:03 PM, Jul. 1, 2010
The day of so called relaxation in Port Said passed quickly as we dealt with various customs clearance issues and battled the very hot temperatures (around mid 40’s) and kept up the liquid intake. The final night was yet another formal dinner on a hotel balcony overlooking the entrance to the canal. I certainly would not recommend Port Said as a holiday destination – in fact I would not recommend it as any destination – pass through and do not stop!
The formal dinner on Sunday 26th June followed the usual format of speeches thanking local dignatories and the shipping agents handled the clearances, the flag ceremonies where each country represented in the rally have a flag bearer who generally make a speech at each of the dinners. Then dinner, dancing and local entertainment.
The fleet lined up and exiting the Suez Canal
The following morning was departure time and again we exited the canal in line while it was closed to shipping for 30 minutes or so. Now we like to keep the boat pretty tidy and clean but I was surprised to see that attitude taken to the extreme when a woman on one boat (that shall not be named although mentioned in the last posting) got the kitchen dish mop out to clean the mud off the anchor. The forecast was for 10 – 15 knot NW during the day dropping away to nothing overnight. We were the last to exit and immediately hoisted the main and genaker in light winds while most of the fleet motored off into the haze. Jim & Carola on Koza and Goran & Birgetta on Kenavo were determined to sail also. Slow going for a couple of hours or so but we could see that the pressure was slowly building and once it got over 10 knots we started to get going – when it got to 15 knots we really started trucking along and over the next 6 hours sailed past the entire fleet (nice feeling) until we were around 5 miles ahead of the next boat - with Kenavo dropping their red genaker as the wind moved ahead 20 degrees. Jim called us up on the fleet channel to ask when we were going to drop the A sail. But sailing at 70 degrees apparent at 9.5 to 10.2 knots average that was not going to be in a hurry. We did drop it on dusk so we could have a comfortable dinner and beer and then it was a two sail reach until about 0100 hrs and then 7 hours of motoring into Herzliya in Israel.
Passing Serafina at 1o knots.
The Israeli navy were very active during the night and bathed us under spotlight from 20 metres away and did not respond to radio calls – after a while they must have been satisfied as they went off to look over another yacht. But interesting to have a gunboat nearby with their guns pointing your way!
Herzliya is a very good marina near Tel Aviv and safer than Ashkelon (where we were going to leave the boat) as it is beyond the 42k range of the rockets out of Gaza. The marina is surrounded by very smart hotels and within the complex is a large and very up market shopping centre with all the major brands well represented. We have booked a berth here for 2 months and we are quite lucky as the marina is full because most Israeli’s are not cruising to Turkey this year because of the high tension between the two countries.
The rally wrapped up on the evening of Monday 28th June with the final formal dinner – more speeches (including a good speech from the NZ flag bearer from Bruce off Kiwi Volant), good music and a good DJ. It has been interesting to see the trend in the content of speeches as the rally has progressed – really lead by the key rally organiser Hasan from Turkey, as he is very forthright and this theme has been picked up by several others. The rally is promoted as a means of developing sailing in the eastern Med but in light of recent events (the supply flotilla and the death of 8 Turks) also with an emphasis on the efforts of the rally to promote harmony in the region.
In the matter of the pin in Bruce’s arm this has now been extracted by his brother in law (a vet) but whether it will be turned into ear-rings Olive remains to be seen. At the end of the day the rally is about people and a very perceptive observer commented that the rally consisted of the French group (18 boats), the rest of the participants and Group 6 – the latter being our group. Our group leader by his actions was not a leader at all but rather was concerned that his Amel 54 ketch was not the largest or most expensive (nor anything like the fastest) boat in the rally so he therefore focussed on spending time with the owners of the biggest and most expensive boat to the exclusion of pretty much all others. So at the end of 6 weeks he did not know my name (out of 10 boats), nor several others in the Group and when presenting the rally plaque to me commented that it was good we had kept the radio scheds.
Signs in the Israeli desert.
On a positive note we have met some wonderful people that we would hope to keep in touch with and see again. Particularly Jim & Corola (plus Jim & Jenny) from Brisbane boat “Koza”, Goran & Birgetta from Swedish boat “Kenavo”, Barry & Gail (plus Dave and Chris) off Sydney boat “Time Out”, Rob & Sarah off English boat “Serafina” (who we hope to see in NZ in a year or two) and of course the other NZ boats – Rupert and Kristen off “Rumpus” and Bruce and Amanda off “Kiwi Volant.”
On the negative side we have had to lift Savarna out at Herzliya as the repair work on the stern tube did not survive so the only option is to lift the boat out and do a complete repair – there is a very competent repair shop at Herzliya and we are also going to change the system to a dripless bearing system which will be a lot better for the future.
Having to lift the boat out (and all the farewells) delayed our departure for Eilat in southern Israel where we planned to cross the border into Jordan. So it was late morning before our rental car pointed south for the 355 k journey across the Negev desert region to Eilat on the Red Sea. We returned the rental car to Avis, got a taxi to the border, cleared Israeli customs and then walked across no-mans land, with all our bags, to the Jordan border in 47 degrees (hot!), completed the entry formalities and then negotiated with the Arab taxi drivers to get to Aqaba, who seemed intent on ensuring that a visitors first impressions of Jordan were going to be unfavourable!
Pam walking the 1.5 k journey through the rock fissure at Petra.
Eventually ended up at the Hertz office in Aqaba and negotiated a one way rental to Amman (another 380 k’s). Jordan only has a small border with any sea and it is with the Red Sea at Aqaba which is its major port. From Aqaba we drove the 140 k’s north to the World Heritage Site of Petra and found a hotel for the night. Petra was built by the Nabataeann’s and occupied by them from the 1st century BC until the 1st century AD. It later became part of the Roman Empire and was severely damaged by an earthquake in 363 AD before becoming deserted in the 7th century. It was discovered by a Swiss explorer in 1812 and is an amazing place. Entry is by way of a 1.5 k passage through a fissure in the rock before opening out into a town that contained a temple, theatre, a colonnaded street, shops and churches plus tombs carved into the rock. It is the major attraction in Jordan and well worth the driving to visit.
The "Treasury" building at Petra.
From Petra is was a mad dash across the desert northwards to Amman to catch our flight back to NZ with minutes to spare. Certainly the road system is no-where near as well developed as that in Israel.
Waiting for a passenger in front of the "Treasury"
Well we have now ticked off the Middle East and visited, courtesy of the rally, a bunch of places we would not otherwise have visited, made a number of new friends and on the legs to Egypt and back had some very good sailing. Overall quite tiring but with particularly good formal dinners in Turkey at Kemer and Alanya and when we get back on board in late August it will be to sail back to Kos or thereabouts without the pressure of a rigid timetable.
Cheers
Keith