Shrapnel Proof Shrouds

We are in Beirut where all the troubles of three weeks ago are already ancient history. The place is quiet and all the more quiet since the EMYR departed a few days ago, pushing for Egypt. It's been very nice to sit here, spend time with my Lebanese step-family , chatting with people and relaxing after an intense month of socializing, touring and relentless moving . We are sitting in the Christian part of Beirut, waiting for, a so far elusive, weather window back to Turkey. The recovery from what has been a whirlwind of sights, dinners and parties, not to mention the stomach issues that can strike in these hot climates, is going very well. Meanwhile Anouck and Céline are discovering new family members and meeting new girls so quickly I cannot keep up with the names, so all is well. 

We stuck to the EMYR longer than I thought we could manage in part because the girls were so happy to have friends, but also because we slowly got used to the pack mentality and met some very nice rally participants in the process. After three years of picking and choosing our times and destinations, it was a hard sell to accept departure and arrival times, but it worked. 

At the onset of joining the EMYR, Joe Saccone met us in Kekova, Turkey to partake in the rally with us. He was wonderful to have onboard. His easy going personality and humor kept us moving while the relentless schedule kept us often tired. We almost convinced him to come with us to Syria and Lebanon, but as planned, he left us in Iskenderun, our last port in Turkey.

The benefits of traveling with a rally in these regions are many. Aside from creating a concentration of like minded people, the rally makes sightseeing easy by providing access (at a hefty cost) to tours. It also kept us from committing navigational blunders that could get us on the wrong side of the Syrian or Lebanese navy. While the rally must be an organizational nightmare it is also an ongoing compromise and  effort from participants, with some people being more involved than others. Aside from a memorable late night in Syria helping a couple of boats with crossed anchors while a torrent of raw sewage was released, we found ourselves on the low end of the helping spectrum. Designated group leaders and ad hoc volunteers did an amazing job keeping the procession of 80 boats and 260 people going. Luckily, aside from one day, we never met adverse weather.

We visited more places than one wants to hear about. Some of the photos are on the website. The highlight for me was Krak de Chevalier, Palmyra and Alepo in Syria, as well as Balbeck and an amazing cave in Lebanon. That said the urge to complain like Céline about "too many old stones" started cropping up in my mind. There is only so much sightseeing one can do in four weeks. The whole thing became a whirlwind of bus seats and restaurants with a plethora of ruins and a couple of mosques mixed in.

Most interesting to me has been Lebanon, with it's amazing mixture of cultures, religions, huge social disparities and war hardened population. The country is a tremendous compromise in the midst of centuries old cultural and religious boundaries. To cap that off there are the 400,000 Palestinians living in camps while the Lebanese population is only 4 million. Given the balancing act, it is no surprise that US and Israeli heavy handed policies are not in Lebanon's favor. 

As we drove through a Hezbolha controlled area of Lebanon to reach Balbeck, the posters of Sadr and other Shia strongmen made it clear that peace in Lebanon is tenuous at best. The handwriting is figuratively and literally on the wall for Christians. Some people speak about the problem in terms of demographics, but others seem less confident in the ongoing peace and seem to view the calm more as a lull. As I was speaking to a Lebanese who owns a 55 foot catamaran with a rotating mast I was telling him about the synthetic shrouds that hold our mast up as a good alternative to his 17mm steel shrouds. "No good" he said to me. "If you look around the marina you will see lots of boats that have repairs due to shrapnel, and I think the synthetic would not hold up to shrapnel." You know that when people choose their shrouds by their ability to resist shrapnel, they are expecting something more than the sunny breezy days we are currently experiencing. 

All the best to everyone