A Slow Boat to Israel

It was in February 1987, that I took a slow boat to Israel.   I had just turned thirty years of age, and was stuck in one of those crossroads of life where I was unsure what direction I was really following.  As a single man, I had only two motives for living:  One was the pursuit of happiness and fun; the other; to keep travelling.

  Since the age of fifteen I had been ‘on the road,' and had already travelled extensively throughout Europe, the Americas and Africa.  Most of my travelling had been with companies in a professional capacity, but I had also ‘worked my passage’ travelling freelance.

  At this particular time, I was unemployed and stuck in a rut when the opportunity to deliver a research vessel from Milford Haven, West Wales, to Eilat on the Red sea in Israel was presented to me.

  How could I refuse, here was an opportunity to do more travelling and earn some good money as well.  Little did I realise that eight months further on, my actions very nearly started another Arab-Israeli war.

  The actual trip itself went without to many problems, but bad weather and small fuel tanks did mean that the trip took longer than anticipated.  Although not of a religious disposition myself, the trip took us forty days and nights, and the biblical reference was not lost on me.

  Eilat, what can be said about this tourist resort on the end of the Red sea. Mainly you can say it’s hot -- very hot.  In the summer months, normal daytime temperatures reach 40c and more, while evening brings a desert wind called the ‘Hamsin,' which instead of bringing cool air to refresh bodies boiled by the daytime sun,  sends a constant furnace like blast of hot air over the sweltering seaport.  With desert on three sides, and the sea on the other, Eilat can give one the impression of being trapped in an oven.

  I had arrived towards the end of March, when the summer heat had not taken its grip on the town.  Temperatures were a pleasant 25-30c, and the evenings were cool but not to cold.  In effect, this was the perfect time of the year to visit, and as such, I enjoyed my first couple of weeks in Israel there. As this was my first visit to the Holy Land, I decided to stay for a few months and look over the country.

            With the onset of summer, and the subsequent rise in temperature to 35c+ I decided to go up country and tour a little.  A short spell on a Kibbutz, and a pleasant working stay on the Sea of Galilee, saw the summer out then it was back to Eilat for the winter.  In return for general care taking duties, I was offered accommodation on the boat I had delivered in spring. This was to prove a disaster.

            In order to understand fully the circumstances that led up to the ‘incident,' as it was later called; we need to return to Wales the day before I sailed.  I was attending to some last minute checks, when a port official approached me and asked for a small favour. 

“I have some out of date pyrotechnics,” he explained.  “Would you be so kind and drop them over the side on your way down south.”

            “No problem,” I replied and then took possession of a box of various rockets and distress flares.  I immediately found a locker, stored them away and promptly forgot them.

            Cut back to Israel eight months later, and I have arranged a party on board the ship to celebrate a girlfriend's birthday on November 5.  Attending the party, were an international group of friends and associates, and as the party progressed and we got steadily more drunk, I remarked that this day was known in England as ‘Bonfire Night.'  It then became necessary to explain to some of the guests, that in 1606, a certain gentleman by the name of Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the British Houses of Parliament.  To celebrate this act of early anarchy, a quaint custom had developed whereby an effigy of Mr Fawkes was burnt on November 5 every year, along with a firework display.

            When I mentioned fireworks, I remembered the pyrotechnics.  “Who fancies a firework display,” I asked.  Naturally, with everyone a little worse for the alcohol, there were no sobering voices objecting.  I then proceeded to the locker in which the soon to be offending items were stored.

            “PARTY TIME,” I cried out when I returned.  In took no time at all before I had an array of distress flares, star shells and locative rockets assembled before me.  Before continuing, It must be said that one of my great weaknesses in life is my compulsive nature.  When I get an idea (especially when I am half cut), no amount of logical thought process will dissuade me.  Without a moment's hesitation, I picked up a star shell, pointed it upwards and pulled the tab.  All eyes were raised as a green rocket shot up into the air, and then exploded over the night skies of Eilat.  I immediately selected the next ‘firework’ which was a distress flare, and that followed a similar course to the heavens a few seconds later.

            Before I could fire off a third, we heard the alarms.  Sirens split what had been up to a few minutes ago a calm peaceful evening in Eilat.  These were immediately followed by searchlights and more flares (defiantly not mine) lighting up the sky on the Israeli - Jordan border one mile away.  Next came the gunboats.  We looked to sea in horror as four Israeli war ships, lights flashing and sirens wailing were steaming towards us -- in what could only be described as an extremely menacing fashion. 

“PARTY OVER,” I screamed, “everybody get the hell out of here before the military arrives.” Needless to say, the party very rapidly dispersed.  I also left the ship and headed for a bar, not wanting to be around when the authorities came asking questions. 

It was while I was there, quietly sipping my beer, that the enormity of my actions finally registered.  Here I was, in a country surrounded on all sides by neighbours who would gladly exterminate them all, its military was on a permanent war alert, and its citizens living in a constant state of fear and anxiety.  The last thing they needed was some drunken goyim firing rockets and flares into the night sky.

For the next few days, Eilat was awash with rumours about what had happened.  One of the stories I heard was that there was an attempted incursion by Palestinian fighters over the Jordanian border (apparently, they were all killed by Israeli security forces).  One really spectacular rumour was that terrorists had hijacked a boat, filled it full of explosives and set it on a crash course for the port.  The one I told people abut, was the least likely to be believed.  It was about a drunken group of people who had set off some flares as fireworks in a party.   No one would listen, for as I was constantly told: “Nobody in their right mind would be dumb enough to pull a stunt like that in this country." 

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