Israel may not be your typical surfing destination and my initial reaction when i was contacted by Omer of Terra Santa Kayaking was disbelief...surely there couldn't be good waves in the Med. Add to this the bad news recently and i had visions of flying into a warzone...how wrong i was! With the full length of the Medditteranean ahead of it, Israel picks up some suprisingly large waves...in fact Sunday...although messy...was double overhead which made coaching interesting!
Photo (left to right): Kafir (Mr Top Turn!), Avi, Sharon, Omer, Me, Harri (sorry if that's spelt wrong) and in the front...Michael the human fish ;)
I flew out on Friday and stepped off the plane into a climate more like an English summer...with the water even warmer. In the middle of a drought...i was almost guarenteed to have sunshine and hot weather!...but it turned out the Gods had other thoughts and that night the heavens opened as the biggest storm of the for a year hit the coast... strong winds, thunder & lightning and rain so heavy it was like having a hose pipe on...(i'm now considering setting up business as a rainmaker!) Despite the weather which at a 'freezing' 16 degrees was almost too cold for the locals their enthusiasm kept spirits high and we rode the storm out, surfing Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. Evenings were spent eating great food and sampling the local beer :)
On Monday we got lucky...the wind dropped...the waves cleaned up and we had hot sunshine, surfing the day away on nice 4ft clean beach break with a good bit of punch to it. It was the perfect way to finish with everyone able to apply the techniques and skills we'd been practicing.
Unfortunately this time it was a flying a visit so i didn't get to explore the country, but it really is a great place. The hospitality made me feel like i was home, the food is amazing and the culture rich and the scenary breathtaking. And obviously surfing in 20degrees water was great too! A big thanks to Omer and all all the guys for being so welcoming and braving the 'cold' weather for the weekend. I made a lot of friends over the weekend, I was really inspired by everyone's enthusiasm for the sport and will definately be back in Israel soon...so as we say in Guernsey... 'a la perchoine' (until the next time)
Thanks to Adam for taking the photos. Check them out at: http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.dunsky/ChrisHarvey#
Happy Surfing
