35:32.5N 35:45.8E

Thursday 3^rd June

Long hot night motor sailing spent avoiding several other yachts that did not seem fully aware of our presence, but then a lot of boats only have two on board and they must be getting tired with all the shore activities as well as the longish overnight passages.

We crossed the Syrian border just before 5.00am and as required we called up the Syrian navy and reported our presence, course and destination. The rules here are very strict and we are not allowed to sail within 6 miles of the coast until exactly 90 degrees off the port we are heading for, at which point you turn and head straight in without deviating from the 90 degree line.

As dawn broke, we set up the two fishing lines and were rewarded in under 20 minutes with a bite. We slowed down and played the fish and were duly rewarded when we landed a 6.5 kg tuna. Lesley had not dealt with tuna before but with Sarah reading from the book and their combined culinary skills, she quickly gutted and sliced the fish into 14 thick steaks which were in the fridge within an hour. The only real casualty was one of Sarah’s favourite small sharp knives that went overboard when we were emptying one of the buckets of blood and bits and the small amount of cleaning water that hit Sarah’s side of the bed!

The next excitement was when we picked up a load of plastic sheeting round the prop, but unlike one of the Danish boats earlier in the night who ended up diving to clear their prop of 20 metres of plastic , we were able to free the debris by using plenty of bursts of reverse.

As we drew close to Lattakia the news we dreaded came in that the small harbour that should have been cleared of boats was still full. Somehow the news of our earlier arrival had not been fully understood by everyone! We all slowed down whilst the committee boat frantically tried to clear spaces for us all. This of course set back all the arrival times and despite this information being clearly broadcast over the radio to all groups and all boats, many seemed not to understand the situation properly and steamed on merrily. The end result was loads of boats arrived at the entrance too early and joined us and the others who were due in first in a giant wheeling pack of yachts, either holding station or motoring gently round and round much to the consternation and confusion of the Syrian navy gun boat and an unarmed coastguard boat.

We were called in quite quickly and edged our way in using a stern anchor (for the first time ever on Serafina) to end up with our bows between the bows of the Najad 570 (Ko Ko) and a new Amel 54 who were moored stern to the quay. We actually took the spot originally allocated to a large Canadian yacht (Nauticat 48) but they had got a rope round their prop and were aground having got their approach slightly wrong! We ended up with a 54ft Aussie boat on one side of us and a 45ft Beneteau with a Kiwi crew on the other.

We were then boarded by Customs and Immigration officials complete with black boots which we were not quite brave enough to ask them to remove unlike the fearless Chris on Scott Free. The customs man wandered through Serafina looking at things at random and bore a striking resemblance to the new head of state of Syria! With the paperwork completed we were welcomed to Syria and allowed ashore with special passes whilst our passports were taken away to have visas added and stamped. While the others tidied Serafina away, I set off to the ‘Yacht Club’ office to sign up and pay for the two trips we had chosen to do whilst here. This turned out to be a good deal more complicated than we assumed as quite a few things had changed and there was a distinct lack of information, though no shortage of rumours.

The rest of the fleet was still coming in and there was no shortage of excitement as various boats called in with problems, the most extreme of which was a gearbox seizure which had resulted in water pouring in through the stern gland. Not sure how genuine some of these breakdowns are sometimes, as they always seem to right themselves after the boat has been given a nice early berthing slot. In this case the yacht could not be brought in to the quay, so they had to anchor in the middle of the little harbour and on reflection it was a pretty good place to be. Our position tacked on the outside of another row of yachts is just about tenable provided it stays calm and there is someone here to keep an eye on things, but the catch for us is that we, along with the boat crews around us are all heading off on a two day trip by road to Damascus.

Nothing happened in the afternoon as we caught up with sleep and rest, but arrangements were made to take 9 of our best tuna steaks over to Scott Free who would provide the BBQ and salads and most of the drink etc. We had a great evening and retired finally to bed feeling that this fishing lark wasn’t so bad and we now know that if we catch lots more, we will eventually cover the cost of the rods reels etc!!