I am impressed.. though Kubi will probably schedule the first flight for a Saturday...

Water Authority Worried: Kinneret Too High

  -- INN

It's nice that this is our problem instead of it being too low.. now if they would only lower the price back down to pre-drought prices...



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Donate to the Schneider Hospital so I can run the Schneider benefit marathon..

Right after Tisha b'Av we went on our annual family trip up north. This year my family did not want to camp out, so we rented an apartment in Tiberias. The apartment had all the amenities a person might require (beds, fridge, freezer, showers, air conditioning, etc.), so it definitely made the trip much easier, albeit more expensive. Staying in the city was much different than camping. We met people in the shul who were very nice and friendly. There was the ability to get fresh bread at the bakery and stock up on some items at any of  the many minimarkets that dot the Tiberias landscape.

one of the homes nearby had this landscaping done..

the view from our porch

We planned all the hike parts of the trip to be centered around water.

On Wednesday afternoon, after settling into Tiberias, we went down to Nahal HaKibbutzim. Nahal HaKibbutzim is in the Bet She'an area, by Emek Hamaayanot, right near Kibbutz Nir David. From the parking lot of Nahal HaKibbutzim, you arrive at the end of the hike - after a 3 minute walk, if that much, you arrive at a pool of water within a stone wall. Right beside it is a beautiful picnic area. You can walk along the dirt path which is alongside the river and decide where you want to jump in to the river and hike through it towards the end. Start as far back as you want, or as close to the end as you want. Oh yeah, entry is free of charge.

Nahal HaKibbutzim

We walked a bit and jumped in. The water was deep and refreshing. The smaller kids hung on around my neck at that point, because it was too high for them to walk on their own through the river. It was a lot of fun, and the river got shallower fairly quickly. As soon as the kids were convinced they weren't going to drown, they ventured to walk it on their own.

There are some points where the river is broken up by a path crossing. The river continues to flow via large drain pipes. these drain pipes have become water slides. They were so much fun, we went through them repeatedly about a dozen or so times before continuing the hike. Eventually we got to the end and then just enjoyed swimming and splashing around in the square pool area.

I thought this was a cool picture..

Eventually we decided it was time to go. We went back to Tiberias for dinner and relaxation. Eventually we decided to go down to the Tiberias boardwalk for a light show and to see what was going on. The light show, Tiberium, which seems to be posted on many websites, did not happen.

However, all was not lost - right on the boardwalk where Tiberium was supposed to light up the lake was an opportunity to do some Geocaching. Checking the Geocaching website, we found there was an item stashed somewhere on the boardwalk fairly close to where we were. After getting the clues, we went searching, in the dark. Eventually one of the kids figured out where it would most likely be, and sure enough we found it! The cache was a small container containing a log of everyone who has found it. We added our name to the list and placed it back in its hiding spot.

the cache

After that we enjoyed the bustle of the boardwalk. it was a happening spot. There was even a Korean song and dance troupe putting on performances (they were not all that good, but it was fun). The sellers were hocking their wares, the tourists were buying, or just looking, and the boardwalk was a lot of fun.

Thursday morning we got a slightly later start than originally planned. We decided to try another geocache that was located in Tiberias. This one was stashed somewhere in a little park. After searching the entire park, eventually we gave up without finding the item. It was getting hot, and we all wanted to move on. Maybe next time.

After some pit stops, it was time to finally do the hike we have been trying to do for 4 or 5 years. Each of the last 4 or 5 trips up north we have planned to hike the Nahal Meshushim, the Hexagonal Pools, in the Southern Golan Heights, but it has proven to be elusive. For whatever reasons, we kept canceling that hike in favor of other hikes. This time it looked like we were finally going to conquer the elusive Meshusim.

And sure enough we did.

Nahal Meshushim is part of the Yehudiya Mature Reserve. There is an entrance fee, but it was fairly reasonable compared to many of the other hikes we have done. The hike is listed as easy for families, and it mostly was. The hike is about 1.5 kilometers down the mountain. The mountain path is cut into stairs, albeit crooked and uneven, making it relatively easy to hike down. Up would be a bit harder. It took about 25 minutes down, and the attendants at the top warned us that by 4 PM everyone must be out of the water and on their way up the mountain.

Meshushim - the Hexagonal Pool

The pool was amazing, with the rocks shaped into hexagons. The edge of the pool was shallow and good for the kids and for relaxing and cooling off. It gets deep pretty quickly though, so don't swim out too far unless you are prepared for and aware of that. I swam out to the waterfall with my older kids. It was tiring, especially closer to the water fall, as the current is strong, but we sat on the rocks by the waterfall and rested up before swimming back. After that we just sat in the shallow end of the pool for a long time and just enjoyed..

Eventually we left and had lunch at the picnic tables near the entrance. We had actually planned to from there to the Majrasa hike, which is fairly nearby on the northeastern side of the Kinneret. Majrasa is another water hike in which one walks through the river. At this point we changed our plan since we had hiked the Majrasa a few years ago anyway. We decided instead to go to a spring at the bottom of Moshav Migdal called Eyn Nun.

Eyn Nun was simple - not a hike. At the bottom of Migdal there is a path right off the road. You can drive along that path right up to the spring. We bought popsicles at the minimarket at the entrance to the path and then went to the spring. It was a nice pool of water. We sat in the grass eating our popsicles and then the kids jumped in and fooled around. There are picnic tables near the pool, if you want to plan your meal there..

After a debate of what to do next, we eventually agreed to try to make a stop at what has become an annual stop for us on our trips up north. Eyn Ayyoub, also known as the Hidden Waterfall.

We had heard Eyn Ayub was inaccessible due to the heavy winter rains, but we wanted to try anyway to see. We drove back up past Kfar Nachum (Capernaum) and pulled over to the side of the highway. We went down the stairs towards the Kinneret. and sure enough the water of the Kinneret was really right up to the edge. The "waterfall" was mostly inaccessible - no more rocks to sit on, pools of water to splash in, and no place to just relax and enjoy - to get there you would have to swim around the brush and swim up to the waterfall.

for comparison - in 2008 there was plenty of rocky coast between the waterfall and the Kinneret

the edge of the waterfall in 2013 - not easily accessible. that rocky coast is now the bottom of the Kinneret

We decided to hang out there anyway - we found a spot on the few feet of "beach" and went swimming in the Kinneret. About 30 or 40 meters out in the water was a rusty metal pipe sticking out - we swam out to it and saw that it was part of a garbage can - in years past the Kinneret was so dry that this was a garbage can on dry land - and after our bountiful rainy winter, even two months later of hot summer, the water of the Kinneret was still so full and the coast so far inland that the garbage can was just a metal pole in the distance. Amazingly enough, the entire way out was mostly shallow. Even at the point of the garbage can we could stand with our feet on the floor of the lake, though it was already starting to get deep. We did not go any further, but then stayed more in the shallow end right off the coast.

That was our trip up north for 2013 - the Wet North...

The Kinneret Is On It's Way To A 20 year Record High

  -- Channel Two News

yet somehow the water prices just keep going up. They were initially raised when there was a water shortage - it was both an issue of supply and demand and a method of encouraging people to use their water more efficiently and to waste less. Somehow, prices always go up out of need but never go down even after that need has been filled.

Pesach time annually brings out the OCD in most of us. Besides for the level of cleaning and preparation we do, we also have the craziest of stringencies and things we are each careful about, with each year intriducing newer and crazier stringencies.

This year's winner, so far, by my nomination, is the newly formed "Chamtez Police" division of the Tiberias Religious Council.

While many religious towns and cities have arranged with Mekorot (the company responsible for Israel's water distribution) in recent years to receive the water supply from cisterns rather than from the Kinneret during Pesach, not all have and not all can. Some continue to receive their water from the Kinneret.

What's the problem with receiving water from the Kinneret? There is no real problem with it, but it is an extra level of avoidance of chametz, out of concern that a tourist might toss some bread, or other chametz (eg. might spill some beer), into the Kinneret on pesach. While chametz is able to be nulled before Pesach,, by having a majority against it, on pesach itself chametz cannot be nulled by a majority.

So, while the bread thrown into the Kinneret before Pesach is not a concern, the bread thrown in on Pesach is a concern to the neurotic among us. So, communities make arrangements with Mekorot to change the water source for the duration of Pesach. A different way around this problem is what some people do by collecting water before Pesach in large containers for use over Pesach, and not using water from the water company at all during Pesach. I cannot even imagine how this would work for a large family for an entire week, but some people do this.

Tiberias, receiving their water from the Kinneret, and with their ever-growing religious and haredi communities, is getting even more neurotic about the water concern this year. The religious council has recruited and appointed "Chametz Police" to walk around the Kinneret, on Chametz Patrol, looking for tourists who might be throwing their bread or beer into the water. They will be distributing pamphlets to different areas, explaining what the issue is and asking people to be careful and not throw their bread into the water. (source: NRG)

It is a bit of a ridiculous attempt, considering there is absolutely no way they can keep an eye on everyone the entire time. No matter how many of these guys they recruit who will be willing to walk around different areas, there is no way they can see everyone all the time, and there is no way they can be everywhere all the time. And it is not just the Kinneret, but all the rivers that dump into the Kinneret. And if they are this concerned about it, then even missing one person or one incident is the same as missing 100 people or 100 incidents.

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Headline Of The Day


-- NRG

Because of the years of drought causing the Kinneret to dry up and sink to very low levels, an "island" of sorts had appeared in a section of the Kinneret as the low water allowed the exposure of some land. Because of the increased rainfall this winter, that "island" is almost gone as the water is nearly covering it completely.

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Baruch Hashem we have had a winter blessed with a bounty of rain. The level of the Kinneret is continuing to rise to levels we have not seen in many, many years (it should continue to rise  fut fut fut!!!).

I wonder, though, considering that the water prices were raised due to the sever water shortage we were suffering after years of drought, will the water prices now be knocked back down after our particularly rainy winter?

What I have noticed is that gravity does not apply to prices, as neither does the rule "what goes up must come down". When it comes to prices, while they might be qick to be increased for all sorts of reasons, they rarely come down, and when they do it is very slowly.

What say you?



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This is cool - swim across the Kinneret? They must be pretty happy the Kinneret is still at a very low point.....

Would you like to participate in a unique event and help a very special facility?
Crossing the Kinneret Swim-A-Thon

Please forward to others, thanks - swim4sadna@gmail.com

Dear All


YES – I am organizing For the first time, a women's only fund-raising Crossing the Kinneret Swim-A-Thon but I need help –firstly I must find more swimmers ASAP ……please send this to anyone that could be interested in participating or helping ……

There is an annual Kinneret swim –every September but it is always on a Shabbat –here we are offering the same routes women only and on a Wednesday –a much smaller and intimate event with all the professional needs taken into account.

So hopefully we will make a real good splash of this and most important help fund 2 more sheltered homes in Sadnat Shiluv –

My son Elchi is already living in the 1st apartment and loves it …

More details to follow – please keep the dates ……...

Hag Kasher Ve Samach

Vivienne

Help us Build a Hostel for Special Needs Young Adults

in Sadnat Shiluv, Gush Etzion

For the first time, a women's only fund-raising Crossing the Kinneret Swim-A-Thon

You are invited to join us for the 3.5 kilometer/1.5 kilometer swim or sponsor a swimmer.

The event will take place on WEDNESDAY, 16th JUNE 2010.

Starting time 6 a.m.

Fee to cover participation, sleeping accommodations and transportation

Advance registration until April 15th is essential to enable us to arrange transportation and sleeping accommodations.

If you are unable to join us but want to be a partner in building our hostel, please make a donation.

Donations are tax deductible.

Reply to vivienne@nusoil.com

--- INN

the recent rains pushed the Kinneret above the lower red line for the first time in nearly two years!

When summer vacation comes along, there is only one place to go touring. Everyone heads "La-Tzafon" - to the north. The Israeli ritual ha everyone spending their summer hiking and vacationing in the northern part of the country, around the Kinneret generally. Everywhere else is too hot, and even though the north is hot as well, at least there is a little bit of water in the lakes and rivers there to cool off in. And nights up there are slightly more pleasant than many other parts of the country.

So, LaTzafon it was for us too. We packed everything up, tents, sleeping bags, gear, food, ice chest, and even some clothes and headed up north for a few days of camping, hiking, bbq'ing spoiling meat as the ice chest doesn't do much after the first day (yeah, we added bags of ice, but it isn't the same), and running out of underwear and t-shirts.

We took this trip fairly easy. We planned nothing in advance. Absolutely nothing. Not a schedule, not an itinerary, not any specific hikes. Nothing. We just figured we would go and play the whole thing by ear. We had not even planned where we were going to sleep. I had asked a couple of friends who had been up north the week before what they did, and noted down their suggestions. I lost the paper, but remembered a couple of the ideas.

On our way up, we thought we would just camp out in the same site we camped last year. Sure enough, the radio tells us the site is closed because of suspicion of some poison in the water as they found some dead fish washed up ashore. So we decided to go further north and stay the night in Churshat Tal.

Churshat Tal is a place I have only heard good things about, and I have lots of friends who have stayed there many times. It is also known as the "Hilton of Campsites". We got there at night, and we were tired and had to get settled and still eat dinner. I did not even realize that beside being a great campsite, it is a national park with its own great attractions to spend the day. I only realized that as we were leaving the next day on our way to hike. So if you go out to Churshat Tal, you can feel comfortable going there and planing to spend at least part of a day there hiking and swimming in the Park itself.

The place was pretty crowded. We drove through until we found a quieter stretch of grass with not too many tents crowded on it, and not too far from the bathrooms. As we unloaded our tents we realized our good fortune that we were also pretty close to the rivers that run through the Chursha.

According to the map, there are two rivers - Maayanot Dan and Maayanot HaBanyas that run through the Chursha. They both originate from Tel Dan and the Banyas waterfall. The water in these rivers, even as far away as Churshat Tal, is freezing cold, and great for the kids to cool off in, even at night as I was getting dinner ready.


After dinner and after getting the kids dried off, and after roasting disgusting marshmallows that had some yellow banana-ish streak running through them, we finally settled down in our tents for the night.

In the morning I woke up early. It is tough to sleep late when camping. You get the sun and heat. You start hearing everyone else's noise. etc. So we had a minyan for shacharis. Churshat Tal is a very generally popular site. You get every type of Israeli staying there, so there were more than enough religious people to make plenty of minyanim at different times of the morning.



After that the kids got moving, we had breakfast and packed up to go. I had not planned on spending so much money on just camping - Churshat Tal is a national park so the cost is fairly high - much higher than camping on beaches (and I did not know about the attractions there until later, so I did not take advantage of that), and my 5 year old kept insisting that we go to the Kinneret, so we decided we would go that night to spend camping somewhere on the Kinneret. That meant packing up all our gear - tents, air mattresses, sleeping bags, etc.

We headed out and tried to go to Nahal Iyyun. After some technical difficulties, the kids decided we should go to the Hatzbani which is right across from Churshat Tal. The Hatzbani, a.k.a Nachal Senir, is a great river with a rocky bottom and a strong current. Unfortunately, because of the drought, the amount of water is nothing like what it used to be. We went there last about 7 years ago I think and I remember the water at points up to my chest. Now the highest it got was just over my knees. The current is still strong, so it is still a good hike.


With the Hatzbani, you can choose to hike through the water, or along the path next to the river and only go ni to cool off at different points along the hike. We all decided to go through the river. Even my five-year old did fine, holding my hand during the ,ore difficult parts. We did about half of it through the river, and then they wanted to hike along the side. It is difficult to walk on the rocky bottom, especially in crocs and sandals, so after a good first half, they wanted an easier second half.

When we got back to the parking area, we decided to eat lunch there in the picnic area. We got out our food and settled in. They have a little stream (part of the river I guess) running through the main area, and my kids were playing in the water there keeping cool on a very hot day, while we rested a bit after lunch.

Then we drove around a bit, heading southward towards the Kinneret. There are a bunch of spots along the Jordan River where you can pull over and jump into the river to cool down and relax. We saw a sign and decided to go in. It turned out the spot we picked happened to be the ending point for a "whitewater" rafting company, so it was a bit of a busy spot. But we still had a good relaxing time in the cool waters of the Jordan.

Then we continued down to the Kinneret. Somehow we decided we would try out the Kinar. They have a hotel but they also have a beach with campgrounds. We got there and it was pretty cheap so we decided to stay the night. It was only mid-afternoon, but my kids did not want to head out to any other tiyulim. So we settled down there and went down to the Kinneret.


It was a windy evening, and the waves were reasonably strong. The kids had a good time jumping and crashing the waves. After an hour or so we went back to our tents to make dinner. After encountering a scorpion near our tent, we decided to move over. I think we actually scared him more than he scared us. We decided not to kill him, so as not to invite all his friends to his funeral, but he scurried away as we moved a couple of rocks he was trying to hide under. Despite his departure, we still moved our tent to a different area.

After dinner we went back to the Kinneret. Then it was early to bed. Kinar is a religious beach, and I think 100% of the people there were religious, so getting minyanim was not a problem.

At night we were woken up a few times by Israeli Air Force planes flying overhead heading north. I checked the news and it did not seem to mention any war going on, though for some reason Netanyahu was threatening Lebanon, and supposedly amassing troops near the border. I still don't know why or if that was even true. The planes definitely disturbed our sleep though.

In the morning I woke up early again and caught a vasikin shacharis. We had breakfast and packed everything up. The kids didn't want to stay there the next night, though we left it open as a possibility, so we packed up all our stuff just in case.

That day we headed out to a water hike in a stream called the Majrasa. It is a just a few minutes form Kinar, a bit north of Kinar, along the Kinneret. This was a great hike, especially for little kids. The floor of the river was flat and not rocky, making it an easy walk. The river is calm and refreshing. The waters of the Majrasa stream originate in a number of others streams - they dump in from the Meshushim, Yehudiya, Daliyot and some others.



After the Majrasa, we went to another water hike on the north-eastern tip of the Kinneret called Nahal Zaki. Zaki is from the same range of rivers and waters as the Majrasa, but has a completely different style to it. It is a very rocky hike through a river that has a decent current in some parts of it. It was tough to walk because of the rocks, and was pretty slippery.We all made it through ok and sat in the pooled water at the end just relaxing after what really was a hike we had to work hard on.

The kids by then had enough of hiking for the day. They had no energy left. We decided we would go into the Golan. They wanted to see the Bereishit fruit packing plant I had told them about after I had seen it with my wife in December. It is a really cool operation they have going there, and we decided to make the drive up to see it.
Bereishit factory is just outside of the Moshav Merom HaGolan (they also have fruit picking activities, I think, in the moshav), which is fairly far north in the Golan, but we had nothing planned and the kids didnt want to do the [easy] hikes I offered them, so off we headed to drive through the Golan.

On the way we found a beautiful park to stop in and have lunch. The kids played in the park, and we ate and relaxed a bit. Then we were back on our way. We finally arrive and are told that the visitors center is closed. They are in between seasons right now and have no fruit to pack. They expect to reopen in about two weeks, we were told.

So, we drove back down towards the Kinneret. We ended up sending much of the afternoon driving through the Kinneret. The kids enjoyed seeing all the army bases, jeeps, tanks, and cows, so it wasn't so bad. We eventually got back down to the southern Golan. They still didnt want to do any of the hikes, so we drove into Avnei Eitan to look around. Avnei Eitan is a religious moshav in the southern golan. I went into the supermarket to buy a couple of things, and my kids went into the nearby cattle barn to feed and taunt some cows.

Then it was back to the Kinneret. We stopped at the "Ayn Sheva" waterfall that dumps into the kinneret. This is a waterfall of the side of the road - you park and walk down. Go into the waterfall, and it trickles into the kinneret. If I am not mistaken, it used t not be a waterfall - it used to dump right into the kinneret beneath the surface, as the kinneret went right up to it. Over the years, the shoreline of the kinneret has receded and now it is pretty far away from the water coming into it, and a waterfall was formed a number of years ago...
\

When we had enough of that, we headed back to look for a place to stay, and sure enough we saw Chof Amnon was open. It turns out, they told us, they were never even closed. The Health Ministry thought of closing them, but found nothing in the water so left them open. We stayed the night, planning to extend the trip another night. I planned a couple hikes for the next day and we went to sleep after dinner.

Overnight, some Bedouins stole a bunch of backpacks - from us and from a large group of teens touring. The fence does not surround the whole area, as the regional council is developing some "shvil sovev kinneret" - a path that completely encircles the kinneret, making it easier for bikers and hikers to make the trip around the kinneret fully, and also making it easier for the local Bedouins to sneak in during the night. The kids no longer having any change of clothes (thankfully nothing valuable was stolen), along with my waking up not feeling well, decided it for us to call the trip complete. After searching high and low for the bags, having the police come down, and all that, we packed it up and went home.

Oh yeah - how could I forget. We brought along a can of "canned cholent" to try for dinner one night. Here it is. I must say, it was fairly decent, and we had expected it to be horrible.

Human Super Soaker Amazing!!!!!! - The funniest movie is here. Find it

We could use this guy to fill up the Kinneret! No more water shortage!

This morning on the radio they were talking about an interesting topic that comes up every few years. Tradition tells us that when the Jews entered the Land of Israel, the Well of Miriam which accompanied us through our wandering in the desert and provided our water, went into the Kinerret.

I don't know if it is one of those legends like the Loch Ness monster and BigFoot, but every few years we hear a report about someone who claims to have discovered the location of Miriam's Well within the Kinerret.

So today on the radio they were talking about another study regarding the search for Miriam's Well. I did not really understand what they were talking about, but I found an article about the recent discovery....

Here is the article in Hebrew... It mentions some of the traditions held by locals as to the location, as well as some legends of how divers would try to enter the underground well they thought was it and they were not able to... very interesting stuff, but I don't know what finding the well does for us (other than just for the historical aspect of course)...