More from Beirut

Israeli fighter jets over the marina! That aside everything is great . I walked up the hill past a lot of military checkpoints but they weren't interested though I did have a black car pull up beside me on the way down asking me what I was doing.They were fine and buzzed straight off. The American Embassy at the top was my destination.It's mad. 43 acres of prime hillside with fortress yank being built in white concrete.apparently including a hospital ,school and everything else a bloated american needs to feel like its at home! Have to say very stylish, even the guard towers lean at an angle with bomb proof glass and prismic shaped body. you've got to ask why the effort? I was a bit cautious about taking pics but worth a look. 

The other day I visited a great ruined Phoenician city, Byblos Not great with ruins but these were very picturesque and all sorts of mixed history including the keep having housed a Turkish garrison into the 1800's.My art shot of the Colossus of Byblos came out pretty well I think,

 

Todays activity was the Grotto at Jeita. This despite the pictures on the website including a telecabin ,train ride to the top cave and slightly naff statue was unbelievable.Massive inside ,biggest stalagmite in the world! really considerately displayed and protected( that's the whole area) the most extravagant formations I've ever seen and probably one of Lebanon's biggest tourist sights.Pretty empty ,just a few people then the lower gallery which has the boat ride.Upstairs the end of the walk way was closed off as people suffer from lack of air apparently. The big shame is no photos ,hence no algae from excessive lights and LEDs ,even though I had one phone on me the other had to be locked away,I couldn't bring my self to flout the rules.The pictures I've seen don't nearly do it justice.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/jeita-grotto

looking up the valley ,not the best picture,but  at the bottom loads of water coming out of the hills .As the info says provides drinking water for over 1million people around Beirut.

Also watched a super yacht being relaunched in the marina.Novel because it is supported on metal truss's then the whole platform sinks in to the water and boat floats away.

$4 falafel feast for 1! I had to doggy bag it. That's up to date.Flight booked to Jordan Friday ,taxi arranged for 4 am, first night in Amman and the Jordan roving tourist pass which included visa fee waiver purchased.Unfortunately I notice that I put 23rd as my birthday on the thing hoping that they won't look too close.

BFN.

Middle East at last !

Beirut.What a place . Definitely one of my bucket list destinations as a place heard about and seen on TV since prep school.Like most places if not more so ,people are really friendly ,helpful and the difference is they haven't all got their hands out!

Leaving Ayia Nappa was straight forward although about 5 hours out I had a chunder , up came satsuma, banana and beef jerky. Apart from being a land lubber for 2 month,s coffee apparently is a common catalyst along with  < 2m swell at about 6 sec interval made for a rocking horse ride. Although it was a minor spurt it does leave you effected for 24 hrs and sleep was going to be one of the issues

 

As is my usual intention to use the engine as little as possible, thankfully the wind only dropped on a few occasions but came back and during the night I was doing 7.3 kts for about 6 hrs ,this is a cracking cruise rate for my old tub.

The other minor issue was that at about 2am I lost GPS which gives ground speed and position .The weird thing here was that my nav phone lost it as well. Was I in a black spot, had the satellites gone down or been suppressed who knows , but to arrive in a strange country with out a chart or position on my gadgets is definitly not good.Any how it came back and no further issues.

Having arranged an agent one would expect at first radio contact at destination for the recipient to be aware of my details and hence not have to phonetically spell all information over a garbled radio to an Arab, three times to different people! that was a pipe dream. I bobbed around for 3 hrs at 5 am 12 miles out waiting for permission. In the end I gave up and started towards my marina .They did come back to me at some point but I could'nt make out what they were saying so arrival at the marina was going to be even more of a chore. As it happens every thing was fine .

The view of Beirut to my right coming in was brilliant through the smog and snow on the mountains a head was equally inspiring.

There was the usual buggering about concerning berthing as I don't go stern to unless there's dingy assistance and all I got was a young bloke on a moped who didn't speak English or French my second language! Then he tried to get me to go down a channel which was too narrow with boats mooring lines coming out to the middle.Very hard to explain that if it went pear shaped as it was going to, reversing and extrication was going to be chaos so to clarify everything I raised my decibel levels and I was moved to the maintenance pontoon where they were polishing and sanding.I turned the decibels up another notch and piled in to the office where Pierre and a girl who speaks great English found a spot along side. Skilfully controlled, I arrived where I am now which is safe, secure and although it doesn't have moorings lines to the channel, it is definitly the best option,The other advantage is that because for no apparent reason there is a lot of rocking ,I will maintain sea legs which I lost in Cyprus.

Next day I bused into Beirut which was every thing I expected .Debris from the explosion 5 years ago still not sorted because of insurance investigations- what a surprise.Buildings damaged in the civil war and fighting since. Ultra modern new buildings.Everything runs on dollars. The biggest US embassy building is just up the road from my boat ,which ironically and not surprisingly offers security from Israeli attacks but not from Hezbollocks as this is the christian area and they seem to stay down in the south ,easier to poke the Israeli bear from there.

 I also visited an Armenian church where chatting to an Armenian I learnt about their Genocide around 1915 and how popular the Turks are to them!The little monument was quite thought provoking and brings home how nothing really changes in the world just the gadgets to make life easier but don't really.

Usual hassle with sim cards ,passport checking to buy one and admin but everything seems doable and the locals just want to get on, so good luck to them.

Off up the coast tomorrow, argument with the agent planned ,then see if I can get a flight to Jordon for a few days.This is infinitely better than Egypt was going to be!

Buildings damaged by the bomb blast in 2020?

Buildings in down town Beirut.

Civil war damage.

my spot in the marina, Dbaye.

Time to Move on.

Well the sea gypsy has recharged his coffers by not spending much and staying in a lovely cheap marina but there is a distinct lack of activities here. I have done a few tourist things, I've been swimming in the sea regularly which is clear fresh and clean but as Confuscious said dormancy breeds lethargy!

Nigel came over to visit so we drove around, ate a lot and installed my new telly.He was quite heavily laden when he arrived with TV, Amazon fire stick, sausages, bacon, battenburg , salt and vinegar peanuts, mulligatawny soup and a hydraulic pump! Pretty impressive smuggling and obviously I was very grateful for the effort and bacon sandwiches.I decamped to his hotel for a couple of days which was funny.

I've been trying for at least 3 weeks to get to Lebanon or Egypt and have just gone round in circles.The Egyptians need a good hard kick up the jacksey ,what a bunch of monkeys.Long story short Lebanon , through talking to some people in Larnaca with their contacts is next stop.I have secured a berth and an agent and intend to depart in a couple of days. Only one way to find out the truth .Is it safe or not ,worst case scenario I do a U turn and speed away at 5 kts. I shall report once I'm tucked up in my berth.Personally I think the Israelis are the liability out side of Lebanese waters but we shall see. 

That's about it. Visited a quite impressive Roman ruin outside of Pathos.The Romans don't really float my boat though. Went to a car boot sale on the beach ,mostly tat and old English refugees on the stalls.Did buy a soldering iron, new in its packet for pennies!

The boat in the picture landed on our beach about 3 weeks ago.19 Syrians piled off .I didn't see them but went to look at the boat .Some one had already robbed the wheel, thieving rats.On market day a crane turned up to remove it from the beach. I've scrumped a few satsumas,a lemon, grape fruit and one Pomelo in my time here all very juicy. Such a shame its left on the trees and no one eats them.

There we have it. Bye bye Ayia Nappa.

A few pictures from the mountains.

I hired a diddy car for a few days for a road trip. Scenery up my end is a bit bland but headed towards the Troodos mountains via a road very close to the unrecognised by the world Turkish boarder which was good to see. 

Stayed in a great little hotel in Pedoulas and had the best trout ever, cooked over charcoal.

Views across the village which unfortunately was limited by low cloud and rain! But the place had a ski resort in South America feel to it.As it was booked full the next night I was heading off to a local monastery and intended to find some where else to Kip. 

 

Signs being Greek to me I followed a picture sign that looked ecclesiastical to a church in the valley bottom which wasn’t even there let alone open. Unfortunately the rain had caused rock falls along the road and despite caution I managed to cut a slit in the tyre which when pumped full of tyre glue sprayed over the road. A phone call and 3 hrs later tyre repair man turned up with new tyre. Very efficient and I was in the middle of no where some might say €350 was good value I disagree but was trapped. All repaired I headed off to the monastery.  

Very impressive  with massive statue of Cyprus’s founding father also a fine collection of saints bits and pieces stored in ornate boxes - not to be missed. Due to low cloud the views were non existent!

Plan then to head south and find a stop. My route took me to a small mountain village where I set off the churches alarm by parking in front of it then chose a road with a proper sign on it .

 Hmmmm; this road then turned in to concrete then gravel then track with rock falls , sheer drops and slippery gravel pot holed surface. I’d gone too far to turn back but after 10 k’s I rounded a bend and there was a tree! 

 Had to reverse a few hundred meters then do a 7-10 point turn. Thankfully there was a road sign at a small junction I hadn’t seen pointing to a closer town . I should mention that fuel was very low and I’m not adverse to driving on fumes and the light was going. First obstacle was a ford which didn’t look too deep , then just hairpins , ruts , cambers and boulders . Twice I got out to clear rocks and acknowledged that if there was another tree hurdle no way did I have enough fuel to get back to the road and in the dark driving was unwise. So the pressure was on to hit civilisation or sleep in the car and walk the next day if I had to. Aware that tyre man had let my tyres down to stop further cuts and I was grounding out on bends this little mountain rally was performed in an automatic Suzuki swift. It smelt of oil and brakes but got me to a proper road which transpired to be less than 5 k’s from where I stayed previous night and more importantly, though I hadn’t seen it there was a petrol station!! Home safe and sound.  

Today the sun was out and Olympus was visible so I drove up there. Icy roads snow ploughs were clearing which makes it sound like there was loads  of white stuff but not enough to ski. Enough to make the tyres slip around though 😃

Back to the boat today but not before the hire company told me I could only go an hour over or they would charge another day. This was the road rally section and she had the audacity to go over the scratches and dings like it was a pristine car when I picked it up! I had taken photos and she bollocked the dwarf who handed me the car for not annotating better. Now I wait to get my deposit back but she did give it a clean bill of health check though. A fine little break.

TAF’s

Back to civilisation.

If that sounds a bit patronising, I only mean that’s it’s nice to go into a food shop and see brands of stuff which you know how they will taste . Clothes shops that have stuff other than Helly Hanson and Nike fakes and not every restaurant is a kebab house. This is a square croissant filled with cream!

An M& S which sold short bread 😋 and ladies shapeless underwear! The underwear shops in Turkey strangely were pretty saucy !

Exiting Turkey was fine , the agent which is a legal requirement did bugger all but they didn’t query my black water sucking regime (toilet tank) which although you’re sat in a marina and not on the boat needs to be done every two weeks. Heavy fines imposed and mine is a portable one in any case, but as said no problems. 

Ahead was about three days and my longest non stop trip. I left on NYE so had new year somewhere off shore from Fethiye which was novel if not very exiting. Soon settled in to my routine of doing nothing but decided that I should have meal times in stead of constantly snacking on Haribos and cake. Sleep is always a bit of a problem as other ships are in the vicinity. I didn’t see many, some way off, but twice I had to jink my course and pass behind quite close. The other good thing was apart from a rain shower the wind was favourable and good strength , so had both sails up for quite a way. Arrived at the West Point of Cyprus with only a quarter tank of diesel used. Unfortunately that’s when the wind just died and had to motor the next 90 miles! My best 24 hr leg was 124 miles . Total distance 345 miles.Pretty knackered I decided to stop for a couple of hours using the sea anchor just off Akrotiri . Some food and a kip worked but the swell was ridiculous with no wind so headed off again arriving 11.30 the next morning at Billionaire’s ville AyiaNapa. 

1/5 the price of Marmaris this was one of my better decisions. Brand new, great facilities, the marinaris want to keep helping , probably because the millionaire’s won’t lift a finger to do anything, it’s a bit embarrassing but funny.

 Getting back into swimming in the sea but although it’s far from UK water temp it’s still a pain to actually get in. That’s my motivation I’m becoming a pussy lard arse. Apart from that going to hire a car € 39 for four days!! I think it will have 4 wheels. Interesting they do you for going below a certain speed on the motorways here, great idea don’t think we’ve got that yet.

Ayia Napa , full of tattooed E heads in the summer is devoid of anyone . Everything seems to be shut up for winter but that’s not a problem. Except the girlie bars are closed as well , wouldn’t go in there anyway. One visitor coming end of month. Any other takers? Next stop Egypt hopefully but not yet.

                           Troodos mountains

Turkish Cyprus 

Tonight’s village.

Can’t not visit a hill top chapel