Larnaca, Cyprus to Herzliya, Israel

We set off a little behind schedule because I needed to take a taxi to retrieve our passports from the central office, but was pleasantly surprised that the total cost of spending 4 days in Cyprus was 50 Euros … about one day at Kemer … and there was no cost for entering or exiting the country.The drag of leaving on a passage this time of year is the amount of darkness you need to deal with. It gets dark around 4:30 and light about 6:30, so we have some 14 hours of darkness and 10 hours of daylight to work with. We are looking forward to the reverse of that formula in the spring and summer.


Exiting Cyprus, Larnaca in the Background




Gaya, No'am and Amir Chillin' Out

As we were leaving Larnaca the sea was a little lumpy, probably from the storm that was coming. The waves continued to get bigger, though they were smooth and there was very little wind. By the time we were clear of Cyprus the waves were 2-3 meters tall and the boat’s action was very wobbly.

What goes on down below...

 The kids were downstairs watching movies and playing games, Marina and I were prudently upstairs keeping our eyes on the horizon. Amir came up after an hour or two looking a little green. He felt worse and worse until the inevitable happened. We scrounged up some Gravol and Amir felt better lying down and hanging on. Our experience has been to get topside if you’re feeling a little queasy … because you need to stay ahead of sea-sickness. If it catches you then it’s a devil to get rid of. Amir found that out that it’s a tough way to get an abdominal muscle workout.


Gaya and Jessie on Shift

 The crossing itself was pretty uneventful. We encountered a number of ships along the way that we were tracking with Radar and AIS radio. Ross and I were on deck when a giant container ship that we were crossing within about a mile of, radioed and asked us to change course to avoid a collision. We obliged and watched a 250 meter long container ship go by at about 20 knots.Yikes.

The rest of the way was a lot of same-old-same-old, checking for shipping every 10 minutes on Radar, doing hourly position reports, checking the engine and other systems, then back up top. Marina and the Girls – Jessie and Gaya took the 8pm to midnight shift. I slept in Jessie’s room, Ross and Itai watched the Simpsons with No’am.


Itai and Ross Off Shift

 At midnight I relieved Marina and the boys stayed up with me from 12pm to 4am – well actually Ross made it to 2:30am, Itai to about 3:30. Our transit was on December 7/8 and we had a new moon (which is another way of saying there was no moon) so the stars were amazing. Phosphor was in the water and we could see fish swim beside the boat along the way.
Israel is a bit different than other countries to enter – I guess it’s because they’re under attack from so many places … but that means that entering Israel requires some care and attention. At 50 miles out you must radio Customs with vessel and crew information, then you do the same with the Israeli Navy. We’ve been told that you must enter into Israel 90 degrees from the shoreline (e.g., directly in from offshore) but this wasn’t the case with us. We continued to Herzliya until Marina encountered a ship doing seismic testing looking for offshore gas, and needed to alter course a few miles out of our way.

Our Check Out Ship

Then the Navy radioed us and came to take a look at the boat. A gunship circled us at about ½ mile distant, they had a cannon on the front of the boat and a manned 50 calibre machine gun at the back. Thankfully they kept the machine gun aimed skyward, but they circled the boat looking at us and identifying the boat before giving us the A-OK to proceed to Herzliya.



The Girls on the Bow

At Herzliya we tied to the customs dock and proceeded to enter into Israel. They sent a customs person on board to do an inspection and ask a bunch of questions, then all of us headed to Passport control. While the passports were being processed, I went to the Marina office and signed up for moorage for the next 6 weeks. By the time we were done with the Marina office, we were checked into the country – a very thorough but pleasant process.


In Quarantine on the Dock at Herzliya

The marina is massive about 600 slips. We went back to the boat and backed into the slip – about a mile away from the mall at Herzliya – which has hundreds of shops, a great grocery store and a bunch or restaurants. Now we’re settled in it’s time to start planning the next 6 weeks of touring around Israel, Jordan and Egypt.