Sailing Azure

August 28, 2023

Janet and I have been traveling (without the boat) for most of the month of August. We have a 90 day visa to be in Turkey which allows us to be in the country 90 days out of 180 days. We had been sailing locally along the Turquoise Coast of Turkey between Kas and Finike while we waited for our documents from The US Coast Guard to arrive. (They have been painfully slow. When the Turkish Coast Guard and Australian Coast Guard did all of their paperwork in 12 days we were waiting 2 months for the USCG. Maybe they are working remotely!). So while we waited, we submitted our application for a residence Visa in Turkey which would allow us to stay through November and then we got on a plane to Tel Aviv with no real plans except to stay out of Turkey for the month of August. This buys us 30 + days more just in case they do not grant us a residency Visa. So instead of having to leave the country on September 8th we would now need to leave on October 8th+/-. Very confusing but important to manage as there are big penalties for being in the country illegally.

Israel 
We landed in Tel Aviv and spent 5 days in Israel. A truly amazing place. The country is very young. Lots of youth enjoying life and living a good life. I did not know this, but Tel Aviv is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live. We spent several days in Jerusalem which is a 30 minute train ride from Jaffa where we were staying in southern Tel Aviv. Then a short trolley ride to the old city. Their public transportation is amazing. Not sure how a city much older than Boston is able to build a spanking new public transit system and Boston’s system keeps getting slower and shut down. I digress. Janet and I have been walking on average about 8 miles a day wherever we are and it is part of our exercise program but also a way to get to know the streets of each city. I have to say when we were in the Old City I was kicking myself for not paying attention in Sunday school during my youth. Everything that I’ve heard over the years, references in movies, books, stories all came to life as we walked through this ancient city rich in biblical history. We spent days walking the narrow streets (6′, 8′, 10’ wide) and exploring parts of the world I never thought I would see. I still do not understand the place but I am rereading a book called “The Lemon Tree” which a Palestinian friend had given me a when I took my sabbatical in Abu Dhabi back in 2008. A very good book to help explain the story of this place (if you are interested). We spent our remaining time walking around Tel Aviv which is an interesting blend of architecture including the international style out of Germany “pre-war”, art deco and a plethora of other styles which were brought by emigrants from Europe seeking a new life in a new country. The place feels like a blend of Miami Beach (The deco part), The east village in NY and Berlin. An incredibly beautiful city.

We were struck by portions of the city that had not yet been “restored” as buildings feel abandoned and have a post “war” feel to them. Broken glass, peeling paint, dirty, tough, gritty, etc. It is hard to describe but where we stayed in Jaffa would be akin to say Georgetown in the USA with way better architecture and an organic feel. The buildings for the most part are abandoned or completely under utilized. In a city where we saw condos selling for $4,000 + a square foot, twice the price of the most expensive Boston Condominiums. We celebrated our 31st anniversary in Tel Aviv and thanks to recommendations from Bella’s (our daughter) friend, Tal, we had probably the best meal of our lives. Numerous meals in Tel Aviv were some of the best food we have ever had. The people of Israel were incredibly friendly. Everywhere we went people talked with us and were helpful giving guidance and just plain nice. When we first arrived we were a little shocked by the amount of security as there are lots of soldiers with guns. They are not scary and just seem to be walking around the city, riding the trains, etc. plus there are generally lots of soldiers as there is mandatory service where everyone has to be in the military for one year. We both left saying we would like to go back. 

Jordan
Next we flew to Amman, Jordan and rented a car to drive to Petra which is 3 hours south through the desert. Janet works in the afternoon so I do boat stuff or paperwork and sometimes act as travel agent. First lesson in the middle east, read the fine print!

The car I rented was to be a Mini: The web site had a picture of a Mini Cooper which cost a bit extra but as we were going to be driving 3 hours each way I though what the hell. Well when we picked up the car they gave us a mini but it was “like” a mini. A tiny car that was so narrow our shoulders were touching. Luckily I know how to drive a standard as this is all they have in the Middle East. So we left Amman and drove south through the desert. A beautiful but sometimes depressing place as you drive through small villages which look like they have not changed in thousands of years. The poverty is palpable. 

We arrived in Petra (Made famous by Indiana Jones) and checked into the Movenpick hotel which is directly next to the entry gate to Petra. We were able to secure very good hotel rates as August is not peak tourist season. The midday heat is between 100 – 110  degrees but we keep telling ourselves that it is a dry heat! The first day we started at 6:00 a.m. and walked 12 miles round trip through Petra. We hiked all the way up to the monastery which added 30+ flights of stairs to Janets Apple watch on top of the 12 miles. The experience is surreal and indescribable. It is a very hard place in the world to get to but was well worth the effort. The next day we started again at 6:00 and walked another 8 hours and we were able to finish all of Petra that we did not see the first day. We had a late night flight that last day to Cairo and thus had some time that afternoon. So we drove “the back way” to Amman which allowed us to drive along the east coast of the Dead Sea. There were a few times that the car barely made it up the mountains as the Dead Sea is over a 1,000 feet below sea level but the little clown car we were driving made it. 

Jordan had military check points on the roads where soldiers just randomly pull you over. We were stopped a few times and let pass with no incidents but it was a little unnerving. For our return trip to Amman Airport we had arranged a day pass at a hotel where we could use their facilities for the day and access the Dead Sea. Going in the water was a unique experience as you float without effort due to the salinity of the water. A very strange feeling but worth the trip and glad we went out of our way to experience the sensation. We raced back to Amman airport, returned our clown car and grabbed a flight to Cairo.

Eygpt
We landed around midnight in Cairo and grabbed a cab (yikes – never do that again, always arrange a car)to our hotel. We stayed at the Intercontinental next to the American embassy as our research indicated that we should not stray too far from the “expat zone”. We were shocked at the traffic and activity of the city at 1:00 in the morning. The energy in the air, the traffic, the car horns, the motor scooters, WOW. Amazing. A city of 22 Million people where half the housing is illegally-built high rise “apartments” (we would call them tenements – just horrible). Checked in at 2:00 and that same morning our guide picked us up at 7:00 to start the first of two days of tours around Cairo. Janet had found a great tour company and this was the best investment we made. We typically we do not hire tour guides, but in this scenario, our guide and driver were worth every Egyptian Pound. We were able to visit the pyramids ( a dozen or so), the sphnxy’s, numerous tombs, museums, mosques, churches all before most tourists arrived. We were actually able to take photos and not have anyone in our photos let alone thousands of people in our pictures. It was only 107 by lunch.

Our Guide did a great job explaining the thousands of years of history in a way that we could understand. The various Gods, Arabic rule (invasion),  Catholic (Coptic) rule (invasion), the importance of Muhammed Ali, Nassar, etc. A very complex place, with a history that you could spend several life times trying to figure out. Again, read The Lemmon Tree if you are interested in a simple version of today’s world. We had a wonderful time in Cairo, but 3 days was enough. A little too crazy & busy. One day, when Janet was working I packed up the dirty laundry and went out on a hunt for a laundry mat. The city basically has no signals at intersections and the traffic pattern is based on a theory of constant motion. Cars just keep moving forward honking their horns non stop. Pedestrians regularly cross 8, 10, 12 lanes of traffic where the cars do not stop.  I have to say this was the first time in my life a was scared to cross the street. I had no choice. At this point we had almost 2 weeks of dirty laundry and we needed clean clothes desperately. So I came up with a strategy. I would find someone who was crossing the street and I would stay 10 feet next to him. As he walk through traffic I would mirror his moves. The idea was a car could not hit me unless it hit him first. I quickly learned that you need to be decisive and not second guess your movement. The drivers watch you and they expect you to keep moving so that they never have to slow down. “INSHALLAH”. With Laundry complete we were ready to move to our next adventure.

We booked a 7 day river cruise down the Nile. This was a complete splurge on our part but our research said you have to do this if you go to Eygpt. So we found what appeared to be a nice boat. The boat departed from Aswan which is a short 1.5 hour flight from Cairo. We were picked up at the airport and arrived at the boat by 10:00 a.m. that morning. We sat with the boat’s director in the lounge where we were informed that we were the only guests and we could do and go where ever we wanted. They upgraded our cabin which I have to say was one of the nicest hotel rooms I have ever stayed in. The ship sailed north each afternoon stopping at different cities along the way. Each morning we would leave with the guide (a full time guide is on the boat that normally takes care of all 22 cabins but in this case was our personal guide) a chase car follows the boat and picks us up and drops us off at each site we tour.

Again, we were able to visit sites where we were the only visitors. In King Tutankhamen’s tomb, Queen Nefertiti’s, etc. Normally there is a 1 to 2 hour wait for each and thousands of people. A great experience all around. The level of service was wonderful. A good example was that last two days of the trip we were docked in Luxor but the Captain asked if we wanted to eat lunch on the roof deck? He would undock the boat and go for a cruise up and down the Nile for a few hours to give us a sea breeze while we ate lunch. Not a simple task to un-dock and re-dock a boat of that size.  After 7 days I came to the conclusion that I have seen enough of antiquities and was ready to get back to modern civilization. We were notified that our USCG documents had arrived in Boston and Sophia arranged for them to be FedEx’ed to Finike, Turkey via Istanbul customs. So we have a few days before we needed to get back to Turkey and thus decided to check out Beirut.

Beirut
We arrived in Beirut fairly early in the day with only a hotel room booked and absolutely no plans. So as usual, we kind of just started walking and we would stop at a coffee shop and start surfing the web for what to do in Beirut. The city is fascinating and is very similar to Israel. Both countries would hate to hear that analogy, but Beirut was once referred to as the Paris of the Middle East and Tel Aviv revivals Beirut. There is some amazing architecture that resembles historic Paris plus some very new modern architecture. The rest of the city has a post “war” apocalyptic aesthetic that is difficult to reconcile in contrast with the wealth that surrounds it. We stayed in a district called Hamra which is an older part of the city and home the the American University of Beirut established in 1902 and the American Community School of Beirut where Janet’s Brother and Sister-in-Law taught a few decades ago. Both of their daughters were born in Beirut at the beginning of the century. 

So as usual, we kind of just start walking and stop at a coffee shop to surf the web about what to do in Beirut.

One morning we went to the school to take pictures for Paul and Sara where we introduced our selves and asked to take a few pictures (All of these schools are behind big fences, gates, razor wire and armed guards) After repeating the story 10 to 15 times we made our way to the head of school and found Paul and Sarah in an old year book. (They were not showing up in the computer) Three hours later we had been given a wonderful tour, were introduced to dozens of people and given the warmest of welcomes. Again, much like Israel, the Lebanese are incredibly warm people.

We walked to a few historic sites which were in a terrible state of disrepair and fenced off. The Hezbollah do not seem to care too much about the history or tourism for that matter.  We did our usual walks around the city and found some amazing food. The architecture of the city and scale of spaces and the public realm in general has great potential but everything is in a horrible state of disrepair. In 2019 there were riots (protests) where a lot of the city was damaged, the fertilizer warehouse explosion destroyed a large portion of the waterfront and Covid basically decimated the place. Hezbollah has closed all the banks and the Lebanese Pound is worthless. Inflation is rampant and the only currency accepted is the US dollar. It is a 100% cash society. Some locations take credit cards but very few and there is a 7% transaction fee. The city is incredible but dirty, gritty, war torn and filled with great potential. The city only has electricity for 1 hour a day and no running water. Essentially, the rich live off private generators and big tankers arrive everyday to drop off thousands of gallons of water to their buildings which are protected by armed guards. Very bizarre. The urban planner in me wants to fix it all but that will take at least a life time.

Our last day we went to a mall to try and purchase a few western products we needed for the boat but the prices were crazy and it was cheaper to buy in US and send to Turkey, so we went to a movie and killed a few hours before our flight back to Antalya, Turkey.

Turkey
Back in Turkey as of 2:00 a.m. on August 26th. With our USCG Documents in hand we started to revise our local paper work, marina contract and our transit logs with the Turkish Coast Guard. We are now almost legal and in a few days we will be able to sail around Turkey without the worry of being stopped by the Coast Guard. On Tuesday we go go to Kemer (About an hour away) to hopefully finalize our residency Visa and then on Wednesday we set sail west and probably never return to Finike again unless we come back after a circumnavigation. If we do circumnavigate, we know we will be stopping off in Tel Aviv on the other end of our travels 10 +/- years from now.

Sorry for the run continuous stream of consciousness. I keep thinking I will have time to write things down in a clear way but the days and weeks seem to vanish before my eyes.