The Negev Desert - Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful adventure with the Elrons south to the Negev Desert – to a place called Suka Ba’Midbar, near a town called Mitzpe Ramon. It was a remote place that a 4x4 would have been useful for! The cars made it although at one point all passengers in our car jumped out after a slight “bottom out” and we ran the rest of the way to camp…cross country. The other car’s passengers joined in for the fun!

 

We had two “cabins” – huts made from wood and leaves and mud - one for Matt and me and one big one that everyone else crashed in – mattresses and blankets for everyone! The little one was cozy and the big one was like a Bedouin star shaped hut with beautiful fabric swaths hanging from the ceiling. A large wood burning stove got things warmed up and it was really cozy. Everything was “environmentally friendly” – power coming from solar panels and water closets a basic but nice out house or the desert itself. Water from jugs and spit your toothpaste out the door.

Meals were really yummy and prepared by the staff in the main “house” and a big bell was rung for meal time – then everyone would come out of their huts from various hills and valleys around the area and trek in to eat. To top it off, 6 HUGE but friendly dogs roamed the place and made us feel very safe.

One of our side adventures was a wonderful hike through Nekarot Canyon. Amir told us if there was a sudden and big downpour, we’d have to head for high ground fast as flash floods can be very dangerous in there. As it was, it was a gorgeous sunny day and the hike was not strenuous. The scenery was beautiful! We made a welcome stop for a humus and bread snack about half way – then lay on the rocks for about a half hour…how tranquil it was. Ross, Gaya and Jessie went off exploring and Itai found a quiet spot with his iPad.

 

Canadian Llama (they are extra large!)

 

Alpaca



Amir and Yael also took us to an Alpaca Farm which had both Alpacas and Llamas and we learned how to tell the difference. They both have very beautiful faces and don’t spit unless really mad and only at other Alpaca’s or Llamas. Yael, bless her heart, bought some wool and her mum, Ruthie, knitted a beautiful scarf for me (although Jessie says it’s for both of us), which was ready when we arrived back from Egypt.
We have now seen the north, central and south of Israel. I’m sure we’ve only scratched the surface but it is really feeling like “home” for now. Come mid-February I am sure we will find it hard to get moving again.

 

Christmas in Jerusalem

Marina talking to the Monk at the
Church of Visitation in Ein Karem



Mary and Elizabeth and some Christmas decoration
at the Church of Visitation

What an experience! We had a wonderful time over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Jerusalem with our friends who live here: Amir, Yael, Itai, Gaya and No’am (alias…the Elrons). The Elrons have the local knowledge so we were taken to many special places.
Israel is physically such a small country – the drive to Jerusalem took less than an hour. We hope to find time to go back and explore some more. But before getting to Jerusalem, we stopped in a lovely old town called Ein Karem. The elevation was higher than we had experienced on the coast, and it was quite a bit colder than we are used to (I actually had to switch to long pants! Ross didn’t though). We wandered the old town which was lovely and walked up to a beautiful church called the Church of the Visitation. We learned from a monk the history of the church and the chapels.

Marina enjoying some Israeli wine!

Our group runs on its stomach so we found a lovely Italian style restaurant in an old stone building with good pizza and ice cream side by side. A nice chance to warm up on the outside and the inside. And a chance to have a lovely glass of wine – which by the way, Israel makes some really great wines. Another side trip hopeful is a trip to one of the wineries here.



Dome in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre



Gaya and Jessie at the Stone of Unction




Lighting Candles in the Church of Sepulchre

  We were invited to midnight mass at another church there, called the Church of St. John the Baptist, but it was still early so we decided to keep going to our hotel nearer the Old City of Jerusalem. After checking in to our somewhat run-down but clean hotel rooms, we regrouped and headed towards the Old City of Jerusalem. Once again, food first (5 kids with varying eating habits!). We went to a cool restaurant called the Cinematique for some very tasty “fuel” and off we went by foot to explore the Old City. At this point it was after 10 pm so the goal was to see what we could find for midnight mass.  



Jessie at the Altar in the Chapel of the
Finding of the Cross



We went to The Church of the Dormition where already there was a large line-up of people wanting to get in…standing room only. We made our way in and took a look at the back of the church, which from what we could see was amazing! There were 9 of us and we knew that waiting over an hour for mass would probably not work for everyone so we went back out to explore more and see what we could find. Unfortunately all of the other churches seemed to have already had their Christmas mass so we literally wandered the rooftops of the Armenian quarter of the Old City, listened to church bells ring out, looked at a bright moon and watched the many other people, young and old, tourist and local, religious and not, enjoy the spirit of Christmas Eve in this amazing place.

We eventually made our way out of the Old City and back to our hotel and bed.

Market Day in the Armenian Quarter

Breakfast was buffet style in the hotel and then we took our time cleaning up and checking out. Back to the Old City to see more. We entered through Jaffa Gate this time, and were met instantly by 100’s of people milling about for “Market Day” in the Armenian Quarter. Small alleys with shops on either side, a thoroughfare of people moving in both directions, wall to wall. Tea being served, guys with massive loads of bread carried on trays on their head (no hands!), different languages being spoken everywhere and looking around once again, the vast different nationalities, cultures and religions all around was mind boggling. And smells…mostly delicious and wonderful…all in all a delightful blast to the senses.



More Market Day on Christmas Day

The highlight was the Church of Holy Sepulchre (also called the Church of the Resurrection) which we explored at length. Touching the Stone of Unction and using the oil to bless our “safe travels coin”, lighting candles for past and present friends, looking at all the artwork, tombs and altars in every nook and cranny on at least 3 levels in this beautiful old church. And in the middle a separate chapel for the tomb (or sepulcher) of Jesus. A very long line to get into this one and we were content to look from the outside.

We had divided and conquered as the boys were not so interested in the “marketing” as we girls were, had to make a few memento purchases of course! So we regrouped at the Austrian Hospice (after Jessie, Gaya and I had also thoroughly checked out the Armenian Chapel of St. Helena as well). The Elrons had run into other friends so we all joined for a cup of tea and a snack before carrying on.

Matt and Ross on the roof of the Austrian Hospice

We knew we couldn’t see it all so decided to make sure we got to key highlights and the West Wall was at the top of the list (i.e. Wailing Wall). We walked through to the Jewish Quarter, went through security (literally like an airport), and quietly walked into the area with the West Wall. It was Sabbath and there were many people at the wall – segregated men on the left and women on the right. Most of the men were Hissidic Jews (black suits, black hats and the curly hair at the sides that I don’t know the name of). Jessie, Gaya and I decided to go the wall, the girls wrote a note and stuck it in between the stones and I thought of friends and family here and gone. One walks away from the wall backwards so we did that too.

Gaya and Jessie in front of the Wailing Wall

We regrouped and agreed it was time to head home. An hour later we were back at Tara, with many unique and wonderful memories of “Jerusalem for Christmas 2010”.

Road Trip to North Israel

Israel is geographically a very small country – especially when compared to a country like Canada…in fact, compared to Vancouver Island it is small. Vancouver Island is about 32,000 sq Km and Israel is about 20,700 sq Km. That makes BC about 45 times as large as Israel….wow. That was news to me! And there are only 7 million people living here…the population of BC and Alberta together. Given the amount of time Israel is mentioned in the news I always felt it was a lot bigger! Having said that, it’s really nice for us as we can rent a car and really see the country, from top to bottom.

We started with the north and went to a few places that our friend Amir recommended. Some lovely B&B’s in remote areas (with hot tubs to boot!). We went to the Galilee area and saw the Golan Heights and Israel’s tallest peak of Mount HarMeron at 1208 meters high. There was snow on it - brrrr. Who wants that!?!

Unfortunatly, like all countries, there are the not so beautiful areas and we found one accidentally when we took a wrong turn. Seems there are communities here that are built on land fills that could use a bit of a spruce up.

On the way we drove through the town of Tiberius and past the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is said to have walked on water. This sea is over 680 feet below sea level (note the true Canadianism of mixing meters and feet in one document), the lowest fresh water sea in the world, second to the lowest salt water lake, the Dead Sea, which is on the list to be seen in February when we plan to go to Jordan.

It was nice to get off the boat, sleep in a real bed for a change (with head room!!). But, as usual, also nice to get “home” and back to the boat when we were done.

 The highlight was a long walk in a bird sanctuary which got us out of the car and back to nature. It took us about 2 and half hours and was over 9 Km long. The wind was warm and it was very relaxing.

Sail Track - Croatia to Israel

Here is the big picture in not much detail of our sail track so far.
Croatia - Slovenia - Croatia - Montenegro - Greece - Turkey - Greece - Turkey - Cyrpus - Israel

Mediterranean Winter Arrives with a BANG!

35 Knots for 48 hours, Highest we saw was in the high 40's

We left a day early from Cyprus to Herzliya because there was some big weather coming in – really big weather – with force 8 and 9 winds – up to 50 knots, lots of rain and big-big waves. You now how sometimes you get a severe weather forecast and it never arrives, and other times they’re right on the money … well this time it was maybe a bit understated.



We started Friday with preparing the boat. This includes packing the Bimini away (for the information of those in BC, a Bimini is a big piece of canvas that covers the cockpit and shelters you from the sun …. Something that we have never needed before in British Columbia), and then “sewing” the boat to the dock with a bunch of mooring lines. In the end we had the two anchors off the bow cleats,
a long line to 

This is what happens when your boat isn't well
prepared for high winds. About 10,000 miles
of wear and tear per hour. 

the middle of the boat on the windward side, and then 6 lines off the back in a variety of angles criss-crossing the transom. We also doubled up the lines securing the dinghy to the bow, repositioned the halyards so they wouldn’t chafe, and checked that the sails were rolled up properly.


The other part of the process is to make sure that your neighbours are well cared for too … because if they have trouble, you have trouble.




Late Friday afternoon the wind started to howl. Our wind instruments put it in the low 30’s with gusts to the high 30’s and occasionally 40 knots. It was Scirocco because the wind and rain were accompanied by lots of gritty Sahara sand. The sand gets everywhere and combined with the salt can probably wreak havoc with any moving parts on the deck.


The waves on the outside of the breakwater continued to grow and grow and grow. The wind kept blowing at more than 30 knots for 48 hours. The worst was Sunday night when we 

Marina after 1 minute adjusting the lines.
Sideways rain is powerful

regularly had gusts to 45 knots and by this time the waves were massive – 7-9 meters and regularly breaking over top of the marina breakwater. (Check out this youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UZxLxvAPGk&feature=BF&list=QL&index=1 .While it was surprisingly comfortable inside the boat, not that noisy or with difficult motion, when you went on deck it was crazy. Walking on shore was really difficult and some of the time you needed to lean 45 degrees into the wind. On Saturday walking through the marina I counted more than 10 genoas that had gotten loose and shredded. Countless dodgers and biminis were destroyed, I saw that one boat sank at its mooring, as well as damage to the docks themselves. The marina uses welded bollards bolted to the concrete floats. I saw four of these bollards broken off at the weld – and that is really unusual. The result for a boat right near us was that he lost his side mooring line and spent an hour smashing up against his neighbour until we tied him off again.


I went for a coffee with Schmulik and Ruthie, Yael’s father and mother, and he told me that it was a once in 20 years storm – and showed me pictures of TelAviv that was damaged much worse than Herzliya.


The power of the waves was such that a Russian freighter sank in Haifa and 15 sailors needed to be rescued. My guess is that there will be quite a few insurance claims and that if you want any canvas work done in Israel you’ll be waiting for quite some time. If I had a sewing machine, I’d open up a business.

After the Storm the Sun Comes Out

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.

We’re Going to Get Rid of the Fuel Problem if it Kills Us

After fighting with the fuel system for the last couple hours of our passage to Cyprus, we were determined to fix it once and for all. The first part of solving any problem is understanding it. The fuel tube that sucks up the diesel from the tank is getting clogged with debris from the bottom of the tank. I have been able to clear it before using a metal pushing stick but the last time I did it the metal stick broke inside the tube (doh!). We also filtered both tanks for hours hoping to suck up any of the debris – but it didn’t work … so more desperate measures were required.

One of the tanks in the cockpit

We started by transferring all the fuel out of the port tank to the starboard tank, and unhooked all the hoses to the port tank and physically removed it from the boat. The process of taking the tanks out is about an hour of work removing bedding, mattresses, unbolting supports, unhooking fuel lines, vent lines, and the filling hose. Then we needed to remove the sliding hatch, take down the dodger and bimini, and push the tank up the companionway hatch (Each tank holds 230 litres of fuel and is about 6 feet long, three feet wide and a foot deep) – without spilling any diesel. We carried the tanks ashore where we sluiced clean fuel into the tank and drained it out a hole in the bottom – until it was clean.


A "Diesel Bug" - about 1.5 inches long...and it moved!!

After this process, we ended up with about a teaspoon of debris – mostly plastic shavings, probably from the installation of the diesel furnace. While that may not seem like much, it’s enough to make an otherwise perfectly good diesel engine stop in its tracks. After the port tank, we did the same for the starboard tank that was surprising clean (since our problems always happened after transferring fuel from the starboard tank).

At the same time, we took the fuel pickup to a local welder and replaced the 5mm tank pickup tube with a 10mm pickup tube – so if we still have debris (or ever get it from somewhere else) it will get sucked up into the filters and not get stuck in the tube – or that’s the plan anyway. We also changed the shape of the tubes to remove angles in the fuel pipe, where the plastic seemed to accumulate the most.



The "classroom" while the tanks were being dealt with.

 Several hours later we had our fuel system reassembled and ready to test – unfortunately we didn’t have time to do a test under load before we departed for Israel – so we left on blind faith that we had finally licked the problem – and 24 hours of perfect engine behaviour later, it appears that we did.