Stardate or carbon date?

On Saturday my good friend, whom I met while working for this new company Assaf, brought us to the Sea of Galilee.  The Sea of Galilee is in the middle

of Israel (north and south) and on the Israel, Syrian and Jordan boarder.  We drove to Tiberias and along the shore of the Sea.  A long time ago this Tiberias was a big vacation spot in Israel as it was on the water.  However, over the last few decades the sea has evaporated leaving a lot of land between the hotels which were once on the Seas beaches.  Now the big place to vacation in Israel is Elat.

As a part of this evaporation however a few young scientists were walking along the sea’s edge and found some wood sticking up out of

the mud.  They began to dig and when they did they had found a treasure.  As they dug in the middle of where the wood was sticking up, as they removed too much mud the sides of the wood would cave in.  Also, as the wood began to dry out it would disintegrate.  They brought a team of people in to look at what this structure may be and how to preserve it as they try to unmask it.  A team of researches did a number of test on the wood as well as nails in the wood and came to the conclusion that this was a 2000 year old boat.  (Now some people believe it is the boat that Jesus sailed on in the Sea of Galilee – me, well, I would need a bit more proof – but none the less – this was an awesome site to see a 2000 year old boat.)

After 10 years of careful digging, keeping the wood wet, spraying the boat down with foam so it would not disintegrate, and then floating the boat to land to be preserved it now rests in a museum in Israel.  Pretty cool and I thank Assaf for bringing me to this place because he knew my passion for boats.

Later that day Assaf, in true form, brought us out to eat.  Eating with Assaf is truly one of the best experiences I have ever had.  We went to a Lebanese place and ordered enough food for an army.  Our table was full of little dishes with tons of great food.  We had a great day.

100' below the Red Sea

After sharing this experience with one of the original developers for Storwize, Shai, he told me that he does a lot of diving in Israel.  Here is a photo of a boat he took while diving in the Red Sea.  Shai provided me with a brief story of the boat:

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“(mosquito) Yatush – Wreck dive:

The origins of the name ‘Yatush’ (mosquito) is the type of boats working in the past in the Dead Sea.  For some reason this name stuck to this boat although this is not a ‘Yatush’ type boat rather a ‘Netz’ (Bertram).  The Israeli Navy bought it from the USA but turned out to be unfit for the Israeli Navy operations.  As a result, a few years later, in 1986, the little boat was sunk at 30m and is now one of the popular wreck dive sites in Eilat.”

Thanks for sharing this Shai.

So far this has been my only boating experience in Israel but I am sure I will be back for more.  On top of that, I am home now and it is a great weekend – time to head to the Donna Julie II.

Captain Steve