guest blog by hadas

Last Friday the Optimists went north to the border with Lebanon to paddle in the caves of Rosh Hanikra and round the reefs up there . I had to attend a dental conference and could not go with so I asked Hadas  to write a guest blog for me of the trip, here is her report.


Rosh-Hanikra-near the border with Lebanon is a white chalk cliff face which opens up into spectacular grottos.

The Rosh Hanikra grottos are tunnels formed by sea erosion.

They branch off in various directions with some interconnecting segments.

A cable car takes visitors down to see the grottos, or as we do it, you can paddle through them in kayaks.

We met up in the morning with Udi Edelman 
who manages the northern most kayaking club, and he helped us coordinate the permits for paddling right there on the border with Lebanon.{ due to the less than friendly relations with our neighbours we have navy patrol boats on the border all the time and if we want to paddle there we need to get permission }

He also gave us a bit of information about the area and then our ways parted, while we continued to the small islets parallel to the cost going south until we reached the islet west of Ahziv national park, there we pulled our kayaks out of the water and sat on the rocks for a sunbathing\brunch\swimming, under the relaxing February, warming sun. Who said winter??

The sea was calm with an off shore breeze which allowed us to paddle safely into the tunnels and around the small rock garden in the entrance at Rosh- Hanikra.

All in all a relaxing paddle in a "change of scenery" area,

on beautiful turquoise water.

With the wind and sea picking up a bit towards our return, we ended the day surfing down to the beach, on a dumping wave while every person took part in the safe landing of all the kayaks.

Fun day, great friends, warm sun, what more can one ask for???

All that was missing was the small gas stove for the tea. Another reason why we missed Steve on this day.