Ko-Ko 5th - 11th June

EMYR 5th June - Mersin, Turkey to Lattakia, Syria.

We left the harbour at 6.pm on the 2nd of June and we had a good wind at the beginning of the evening - 12 to 14 knots SW and that gave us a wounderful beat for a couple of hours. The Najad 570 is an excellent boat to sail in these winds.

After sunset the wind calmed down and we were motoring for the rest of the night. After 101 nm we came into Lattakia Marina – also called the Syrian Yacht Club.

A lot of rubbish was floating around in the harbour and many boats had plastic and ropes in their propellers so they had to be towed in. We had some lovely day trips while we were in Syria. First we went to Ugarit where they first created the alphabet, then to Aleppo a very different city from Lattakia. This was a very Islamic city and most the men and women had traditional clothing. We saw the fantastic Citadel - 1000 years of history and they had one of the biggest Souks (bazaars) in the world – 14 km long!

The next day we went to Damascus to visit the Umayyad Mosque and the whole city had a wonderful atmosphere. On the way back we went all the way to Palmyra to see one of the important cities on the silk road.

What a history and what a place to visit!

EMYR 11th June - Lattakia, Syria to Jounieh, Lebanon.

On the 9th of June we wanted to leave the marina in the early afternoon, but due to all the rubbish in the harbour it was not so easy to leave! The other Najad 490 in the EMYR rally, Balder, caught a big stone in his anchor and he needed help to get it out - and when we were ready to leave our anchor came up with a 5cm broad webbing band. We needed help to cut it loose and we thought that all these problems possibly gave a good extra income to the harbour workers...

Again we had a nice sail – 12 knots from SW and we made 12-14 knots for some hours.

We had a lovely sunset but sadly the wind turned and we had to start the engine again. We had a calm night and after 108 nm we arrived in Jounieh, Lebanon at 11 o`clock in the morning. And what a nice marina – and they even had an Olympic size swimming pool!