Bridge over Troubled waters

Sunday 20th June Day started badly when the hire car broke down as Trevor and
Lesley were taking Bruce to hospital for the latest in the saga of him having
the pins removed from his broken elbow. Once they had been given a fresh (and
larger) car they also took the opportunity to do some food shopping as we have
been warned that supplies will be harder to come by in Port Said. Very hot and still day which made doing jobs around the boat
very unpleasant, but who are we to complain when we are enjoying unbroken
sunshine day after day. Sarah set to with a view to repairing the scratch in
the side of Serafina but was delighted to find that the scratch looked a good
deal worse than it really was and although a fuller repair will be needed, the
marks polished out fairly easily. It is one of those strange truths that whenever England beat
Australia at any sport, you can never find an Aussie. Well this lot had nowhere
to hide, but they tried hard enough to avoid us never the less. For the most
part they suddenly feigned any interest in rugby and a total denial of the
score last night when England thoroughly thrashed Australia 21 points to a
miserable 20. But these are the same folk who all knew the score last week
within minutes of the final whistle. Roger took things to an extreme I
felt when he arrived at the dinner dressed as an arab. He certainly avoided
being recognised as an Aussie, but the security guards were very unimpressed. Security is of course a big topic here and it is very
unnerving to see all the young men carrying automatic weapons all the time. The
ones who have the magazines strapped to their weapons are off duty, and the
loaded guns belong the people on duty, uniform or no uniform. We have become used
to all the military traffic, airborne or otherwise, but very few of us missed
the sound of very heavy guns being fired in the afternoon. In the evening we had another presentation evening with
drinks and a big buffet dinner along with a very impressive display by two
costumed Brazilian dancers who were accompanied by three drummers. The speeches
were as usual a little predictable with the mayor particularly keen to thank us
for making the considerable effort to continue with our rally when there was so
much tension in the area. The recurring theme was that the arrival of so many
yachts representing 18 countries means a lot to them here and as part of this we
were invited to listen to ‘Bridge over troubled waters ‘ and perhaps
adopt it as a theme ourselves. Sadly this spirit of goodwill and understanding did not
extend as far as their police and immigration service as they refused to allow
us to have our passports back until after midnight which was slightly less than
helpful as we are mostly setting off tomorrow morning for Egypt (130 miles)
around 5.00 am. Not the perfect start to a long night and day, particularly as
we have also been warned that the temperature is going to be higher by 8
degrees tomorrow and very little wind is forecast. Only 36 boats are making the last two legs of the rally,
with many just staying here in Ashkelon and using this as a base to explore
Jordan and Jerusalem etc. which is what we plan to do in a week or two. These
boat crews plan to take a coach up to Herzliya which is a way north of here and
where the rally finishes on the 28th June, to join us for the final
dinner and presentations. It is obviously a shame they do not wish to complete
the rally they signed up for, but understandable that many crews see the 24
hour trip to Egypt and the 24 hours back, only a few days later as a bit too
much. |