Walking Speed

Simien, Ethiopia. October 2012

Simien mountains is a large mountain ridge, sitting on the northern part of Ethiopia. For generations, this mountain ridge was protecting  the only non colonized country in Africa. It is a beautiful place for tracking, with wonderful  scenery and very wild nature. Simien has been a great attraction for walking safaris for years now, but even when you come to northern Ethiopia to visit the historical sites, without any wishes for too much walking, it is a well worth place to visit.

When we bring groups to Simien we take them for short walks, escorted by an armed ranger and a local guide.
I find that when guiding people on walks, I sometimes need to save them from themselves. Many times it's luck of experience, others will be too competitive, but the majority of people that I have guided walk "ahead of themselves", walking much too fast for their abilities. It becomes everyone's problem on high altitude.

During the last trip in Simian, we had a young energetic local guide named Yonas. We were already 2 guides in this trip, myself and Binyam, a great Ethiopian guide, but entering Simien you must have another guide.
Yonas was great, he was very informative and very helpful, but he was also very young, fit and energetic. Few of the people in the group could very well be his grandparents, but as much as I tried to slow him down, he was walking too fast and I saw that too many people are trying to kip up and will finish their strength too fast for the length of walk we were planning.
Binyam was trying to slow him down by telling him, then by walking near him, but nothing helped. Yonas was just too fast.
I then asked Binyam to help the people on the back and walked behind Yonas to be the one that set the pace. After several minutes of quiet walking Yonas turned to ask if I was trying to slow him down.

"Not you, but the clients, you are much too fit for them", I answered.

"By the way", said Yonas, the way he liked to begin ever sentence.
"This is my top maximum slow speed"…..  

Talking About Weather in Israel

Sdot Yam, Israel. October 2012Israel is quite a dry country. If you hear people talking about weather issues, it's normally about the luck of rain, the heat during July- August and humidity.
At Optimist Kayaking club, weather conversations are quite common as wind and high waves might be a problem. But once a year the weather is the thing we fear the most.

Every year at about November there is an annual Kayaking Symposium. Guides arrive from various places in the world to teach and kayakers gather to learn as much as they can. Long days in the water, a good chance to improve skills and great energy all around. Bad weather might become a major hassle in a week like that. 
One  would like to have wind on the wind classes, but not too much wind.
One would like no wind for the Greenland rolls classes.
For rescue classes, energetic sea is great.
But no one would like to have rain.

This year the Symposium had perfect weather. The water are about 26 degrees, the sun was there, but not too strong, the wind was there for a short visit, we felt ourselves lucky.
Not a day after the Symposium has ended an impressive thunder storm came for a visit and liked it enough to stick around. It was advertising strong rain for days and finally all hell broke loose on Thursday evening.

Friday morning paddling looked like a group of kids were sent to play in the rain. We were waiting to see what happens with the wind and stood by the sea. It was raining so badly that we run to the warm water to wait and finally boarded our kayaks and went out. The colors were changing by the minute. It was like paddling in a painting.

We felt ourselves lucky once again, to be out in weather like this. And for not having this a week ago…

Day Dreaming

Manyara, Tanzania. April 2012

I think we all find ourselves day dreaming. Some more than others, some stages in life more than others, but all in all we can recognize the gaze, the unfocused eyes, the look that sees things the surrounding doesn't. Tasty food we haven't eaten for a while, a job we wish to have, things to do during our holiday, a relationship we missed….it's endless.

While guiding in Tanzania with my brand new camera I enjoyed studying my expensive new toy and explore it's abilities. We had quite a good tour with huge herds of Wildbeasts in the southern part of Serengeti, good sightings of lions and Cheetas, but no doubt that the photo I enjoyed taking the most although a bit missed, was this Baboon in Lake Manyara N.P- day dreaming. I don't know what he was thinking about but it looked like it was a nice fantasy…

My First Big Crossing

Croatia, March 2012

The weather is quite nice. Horrific Yugo winds that were delaying us on the Island of Vis for 2 extra nights are over. 

We get up early, make sandwiches, bottle of water with Mg in it, eat a big breakfast and set to cross to the 'neighboring island' Sušac, 40 km away.

The program for the crossing;
 2 hours paddling, 15 min break with a bite of Halva. 2 hours paddling, half an hour break with sandwiches and Mg drink. 2 hours paddling 15 min break and on to the island and around it.

Peter Bray crossed the Atlantic – a 4,800 km journey in 76 day.
Freya Hoffmeister on her 13,790 km journey around Australia, crossed  the Gulf of Carpentaria-575 km in 8 days.

I'm only heading for a 40 km crossing and not alone, but it's my first big crossing and to me it feels quite a challenge.

While getting into the rhythm of paddling my mind wanders. I can see my paddling buddy ahead of me and I know that he is there in case anything goes wrong 

The Island of Vis disappears behind us and Sušac is still out of sight.

In my mind I start comparing big crossings into crossing another sea.

The sea of life. 

We don`t always start our journey seeing the place we are aiming for. Sometimes we think we see, sometimes something else catches our attention and might take us on a detour.  And so we move on, but time itself cannot get us anywhere. It must be us that move ourselves, we must paddle. 

At times, the paddling is more important than the accurate direction.

Sometimes we cross the sea of life alone, sometimes we feel alone although there is someone there for us. But even at times that we feel very much together, it is up to our own strength and not anyone else's.

In the end it's what we choose to do with the time, it's what we do with our minds.

Every now and then we need to check if we are still on target.
Looking back never helps. If anything it takes us off track, out of focus, and gives us a hell of a pain in the neck.

The Dead Dead Sea

Dead Sea. February 2012

We left the club at dawn, pale red lines in the sky were already announcing the coming of the sun. Leaving  the Mediterranean coast, we climbed up to "the Jerusalem mountains" (about 700 m altitude) and went down to the Judean desert and the great rift valley. We actually drove the width of Israel, with 2 coffee breaks, 2 kayaks on the roof, and it still took about 2.5 hours. When we say we have a small country…we mean it.
Going down to the Dead Sea is a beautiful drive. Across the Judean desert, the last few rains left  hints of soft green grass covering the northern side of the hills. Down to Sea level, minus 100, minus 200, signs of the altitude lead you to the lowest place on earth, the bottom of the great rift valley. Lowest and getting lower by the year. In fact, the Dead Sea is a meter lower every year. Still beautiful turquoise water, still in a spectacular location with the walls of the rift valley closing from east and west…

The name is taken from the salinity of the water, making it impossible to for any living creature to survive in it. It's uniqueness is also it's curse. Being so fertile with phosphates, the Dead Sea is serving both, the country of Israel and Jordan, being the number one origin for export in both countries. Being such dry countries, along with drying up the sea for its minerals, we also prevent the good water of the Jordan river from arriving at the Dead Sea. The result: a drop of a meter a year in the Dead Sea level.  It is not only the Dead Sea, but it is a dying sea. It's ecological problems screaming to the sky. We might need another Sodom and Gomorra to save it.
However, still the Dead Sea is a unique place to paddle in. When the sun is out the water is a beautiful turquoise, when it is behind the clouds all is grey and in areas of shallow water it's a strange green. Layers of salt cover  the one meter drop of the previous year, enabling snow like photography.  And the high cliffs of the Judean desert are the best scenery to paddle in. Paddling in a postcard.

We paddle in the Dead Sea every year, this year along with comparatively warm weather, we also had a short shower to wash away all the salt. A perfect day in a spectacular place and back home on time for the Sabbath dinner.

Paddling the Sea of Galilee

Movie- Paddling the Sea of Galilee

Every year Optimist kayaking club goes to check the level of the Sea of Galilee. You can't feel truly an Israeli if you don't do that, it is the country's national sport in the winter. News will talk endlessly of the level of the sea, every little boy knows from an early age that it's been years that the level is too law and you don't take long showers because the Sea of Galilee will get dry. We also check the level, annually, but we just do it with our Kayaks.
Mind you…the Sea of Galilee is just a small fresh water lake, one of the rift valley's lakes that gives Israel much of our drinking water, but we like to call it 'SEA'. In a small dry country like ours it is sort of a wishful  thinking.
So, the level is high this year due to several weekends of good rains. One in which we were suppose to paddle and had to cancel.

We waited another week, and it was a cold and wet week and finally, headed north with our Kayaks. The weather was perfect, Friday was calm and warm and Saturday started with heavy eastern wind that made us change our plans. Instead of circling the Sea of Galilee all the way south, we rode the wind back to our vehicles on the other side of the sea. What an amazing weekend it was!!!

Sea of Galilee, Israel. February 2012