Sea turtle egg-laying season at the Mediterranean coast

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Something told me, late last night,  to post my turtle pictures.
And today I wake up to discover that today is WORLD TURTLE DAY!!

It is now turtle egg laying season along Israel's Mediterranean coast, but sadly, this sea turtle didn't make it.

My town's touring group visited here in March and we saw three dead ones.

Each year about 300 sea turtles are washed up onto Israeli beaches after being harmed by marine waste, fishing nets, hooks, boat motors, etc. 

Now, during the spring and summer laying season many volunteers and park rangers come to the beaches to assist and protect the endangered sea turtles when they come ashore and later, when the hatchlings hatch from the eggs.

The Israel Sea Turtle Rescue Center does good work.
You can see their videos and photos on Facebook at  המרכז להצלת צבי הים .

When the coast was less built up, less urbanized, the females would swim ashore, lay their eggs in a sandy nest, and immediately return to the water by following the moon's reflected light on the sea.
But the beach we visited is close to the big Arab town of Jisr az-Zarqa.
The turtles now often get confused and turn instead toward the light of the town and lose their way.
That's why volunteers are needed.
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UPDATE May 23:
See also photos, video, and info about Israel's turtle rehab center:
https://www.israel21c.org/nursing-sea-turtles-back-to-health/

And more information from this good article:

Under cover of darkness in May and June, female sea turtles make their way from the waters of Israel’s Mediterranean beaches to the seashore, where they dig nests and lay dozens of eggs. In August, the hatchlings start cracking their way out of their shells, and begin a perilous trek to the relative safety of the water.

Israel is home to loggerhead, leatherback, green and softshell turtles – all endangered due to decades of hunting, pollution, manmade dangers and habitat disturbances caused by human activity. The newly laid eggs and the hatchlings are quite vulnerable to predators and the hot sun. Left on their own, only a few survive.
Since the mid-1980s, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority has been sending out rangers and volunteers in the summer months to move nests to protected beach reserves or incubation farms.

(Linking to Camera-Critters,  ABC Wednesday and Our World Tuesday.)
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Red flag at Jerusalem Beach

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A pigeon lady feeding the birds in Tel Aviv.
You can enlarge the photo to see her bread bag.  

Where I'd like to be today -- Tel Aviv's "Jerusalem Beach."

It was a windy day when I took these pictures on June 27.
The red flag flew at our Mediterranean beaches to signal dangerous water conditions. 

Shabbat shalom from the hot dry desert today.
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(Linking to Skywatch Friday and Camera Critters.)
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140 beaches open today

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Yay!  Good news for beach-goers!
Swimming season officially opened today at Israel's 140 public beaches.
Lifeguards will be on duty until October 3. 

Like at this beach and promenade in Tel Aviv.
And at all the other Mediterranean beaches north and south of Tel Aviv.

In addition to the Med, there is the Dead and the Red.
The photo above was taken by my daughter in 2007 when the Dead Sea had a lot more water than it does today.
Across the sea you see the Mountains of Moab in the Kingdom of Jordan.

I have not been down to Eilat in several decades and have no pictures for you of the Red Sea.

Across the Sea of Galilee you see the Golan Heights, beyond which, Syria's civil war is raging.
Fortunately the level of the Kinneret  (Sea of Galilee)  has risen again after the heavy rains at the beginning of this winter.

This picture of a public beach in Tiberias is from three years ago, when the lake  (from which much of our drinking water comes) was dangerously low.

Let's hope for a  fun and safe season for all who venture into the water.
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday.)
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UPDATE: See also Tourist Israel's selection of Israel's best beaches.
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Breached walls, desecrated crown

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For this Sunday's PsalmChallenge, here is Psalm 89.

1. A maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite.

2. Of the LORD’s loving kindness I will sing forever; to all generations I will make Your faithfulness known with my mouth.

3. I declare, “Your loving kindness is set forever; there in the heavens You have made Your faithfulness firm.”

4. “I have made a covenant with My chosen one; I have sworn to David My servant:

5. I will confirm your offspring forever; I will set your throne for all generations.”   Selah.

6. Let the heavens praise Your wonders, O LORD, even Your faithfulness in the assembly of holy ones.

7. For who in the skies can compare to the LORD, be likened to the LORD among divine beings,

8. a God held in awe in the council of the many holy ones, fearsome above all surrounding Him?

9. O LORD God of hosts: who is as mighty as You, O LORD? Your faithfulness surrounds You; 

 

 

10. it is You Who rules the swelling of the sea; when its waves surge, You still them.

11. It is You Who crushed Rahab as if he were a corpse; with Your powerful arm, You scattered Your enemies.

12. Yours is the heaven, the earth too; the world and its fullness―You founded them.

13. North and south—You created them; Tabor and Hermon sing joyously to Your name.

14. Yours is an arm with might; Your hand is powerful; Your right hand, exalted.

15. Righteousness and law are the firm base of Your throne; loving kindness and faithfulness go before Your presence.

16. Happy is the people who know the festive shout; O LORD they walk in the light of Your presence.

17. In Your name they rejoice all day long; they are exalted through Your righteousness.

18. For You are the grandeur of their power; our horn is exalted by Your will.

19. Truly our shield belongs to the LORD; our king, to the Holy One of Israel.

20. Then You spoke to Your faithful ones in a vision and said, “I have conferred supremacy upon a warrior; I have exalted one chosen from the people.

21. I have found David, My servant; with My sacred oil I have anointed him.

22. My hand shall be firmly with him, and My arm shall strengthen him.

23. No enemy shall overpower1 him, no wicked man afflict him.

24. I will pound his adversaries before him; those who hate him, I will strike down.

25. My faithfulness and loving kindness shall be with him; and through My name, his horn shall be exalted.

26. I will cause his hand to be on the sea, his right hand on the rivers.

27. He shall address Me, “You are my father, my God and the rock of my deliverance.”

28. And so I will appoint him firstborn, the highest of earthly kings.

29. Forever I will keep My loving kindness for him, and My covenant is faithfully his.

30. I will cause his offspring to be for all time, his throne, as long as the heavens endure.

31. If his sons forsake My teaching and do not follow My laws;

32. if they desecrate My edicts, and do not keep My commandments,

33. then I will punish their transgression with a rod, and their iniquity with plagues.

34. But My loving kindness I will not take away from him; I will not betray My faithfulness.

35. I will not desecrate My covenant; what My lips have uttered I will not change.

 

36. Unequivocally I have sworn by My holiness: I will not be false to David.

37. His offspring shall continue forever, his throne, as the sun before Me,

38. as the moon, confirmed forever, a faithful witness in the sky.”    Selah.

 

39. Yet You, You have rejected, spurned, and raged at Your anointed one.

40. You have repudiated the covenant with Your servant; You have desecrated his crown in the dirt.

 

 

41. You have breached all his walls, caused his strongholds to be rubble.

42. All who pass by plunder him; he has become an object of abuse to his neighbors.

43. You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries: You have made all his enemies rejoice.

44. You have turned back his sword’s blade, and You did not raise him up in battle.

45. You have ended his splendor, and his throne You have hurled to the dirt.

46. You have cut short the days of his youth; You have cloaked him with shame.   Selah.

 

47. How long, O LORD, will You hide Your face; will Your fury blaze like fire forever?

48. Remember how short my lifespan. How could You have created all men in vain?

49. What man can live and not see death, can save himself from the hand of Sheol?   Selah.

50. Where is Your first loving kindness, My Lord, which You swore to David in Your faithfulness?

51. Remember, O LORD, the abuse toward Your servant, that I have borne in my bosom—many the peoples—

52. how Your enemies have flung abuse, O LORD, how they flung abuse at the steps of Your anointed one.

53. Blessed is the LORD forever. Amen and amen.

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Translation: Rabbi Benjamin J. Segal.  See also the Hebrew original and his essay about the psalm.

Photos:

1. Mediterranean shore at Tel Aviv.

2. Stained glass window with inscription וְכִסְאוֹ כַשֶּׁמֶשׁ נֶגְדִּי  "his throne, as the sun before Me."  At the Great Synagogue, Jerusalem.

3. David by Kobi Knaan.  Mamilla Mall. 

4. A breached ancient terrace wall near my village in the Jerusalem Hills. 

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The happy city on the sea

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Hello again.
I hope you had a merry Christmas or are having a happy Chanuka.

I am just returning from four days in what seemed like another country.
Tel Aviv is SO different from Jerusalem!

For one thing, they have the Mediterranean.
Water, sand, marinas!
Enlarge the photo and you'll find surfers, even on December 24.

Together with Saturday's strong cold wind there was sunshine (enough to make Shadow Shot Sunday 2 shadows), and people were dancing!

Men and women together, dancing to music!
Definitely not what I have gotten used to in Jerusalem.


The Sabbath dancing circle is here, along the promenade, below hotel row.

I start to understand why Israelis call this fun-loving metropolis "Medinat Tel Aviv," meaning the State of Tel Aviv.
It's like a foreign country.
Like a bubble within the other, starker, reality of the rest of Israel.
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(A little beach tour for Our World Tuesday.)
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Lady in white, welcome!

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Photo by Israel Antiquities Authority

This is SO cool!

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The battering waves, wind, and rain in our weekend storm caused part of the ancient maritime cliff in Ashkelon to collapse.

Then yesterday a person walking along the sandy seashore sighted a marble statue being lapped by the now calmer waves!

Authorities were notified. The Israel Antiquities Authority immediately sent the Ashkelon district archaeologist. The municipal council sent a crane.

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I watched wide-eyed as the TV news showed the 200 kg, 1.2 meter statue being slowly raised to the top of the cliff.

Next, her pedestal was brought up.

What a way to do archaeology!! No digging necessary!

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She is a beauty, the ca. 1700 or 1800 year old lady from the late Roman period.

Very delicate feet and sandals and a lovely toga.

Her head and arms have probably been missing since antiquity.

She once stood in a Roman bath house.

Miraculously she was not damaged in her fall to the beach.

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Do see the slideshow at Haaretz, especially photo 3/13 of the statue suspended in midair.

Or photo 1/4 at the Jerusalem Post article.

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Sailboat in the sky

I take the bus in to Tel Aviv often these weeks while my little grandsons are visiting Israel. Dean and Eyal and I happened to walk into the marina just after a big mobile crane had set a boat down.
Today Tel Aviv had clear skies for sailing (or for anything else!) and warm 20 degrees C.
That's a lot warmer than higher-altitude inland Jerusalem.
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It's SkyWatch Friday on hundreds of other blogs today. Sail around to visit a few!

Fun at the beach

My grandsons just arrived from their new home-country, Australia, for a 5-week stay in Israel.
This is thanks to the scholarships their parents received in order to come and lecture at our universities and contribute to research projects at two university medical centers.
I took the bus westward to Tel Aviv to see the family. While his little brother was napping, Dean and I had fun on the Mediterranean seashore.

I realized my Jerusalemite eyes are no longer used to seeing so much unclothed skin. But for the more secular Tel Avivis and tourists, it's perfectly normal. (The bathing beauty is no relation. Just happened to be in the background.)

Dean was busy on the rowing machine.

It's a whole "playground" of free work-out machines! But the sign warns that you must be at least 14 years old. Actually, the Hebrew version warns about a lot more than that. But anyway, Dean is not old enough to read. . . .

There are also plenty of kids' playgrounds along the clean and lovely sandy beach.

But Dean preferred the challenge and novelty and resistance of the too-big-for-him exercise machines.

He dug up these rocks and carried them over to arrange on a big stone. With my archaeology mind-set, I was thinking how this looked like a little rogem (or in Arabic, rujm). Many of those mysterious ancient stone-heaps dot the countryside. And I was imagining Dean as the future archaeologist of the family. Who knows . . . ?

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A young city by the sea

Tel Aviv is 100 years old [the Jerusalemite snickers] .
I just came home from a weekend in Tel Aviv. The weather was the wildest this country has had all winter. Notice the palms all bending eastward in the 50mph wind.
In the photo above we are looking down Hayarkon Street, which runs along the seashore. Most of the big hotels and embassies are located there.

Nearer to the water, the Tayelet promenade parallels the sea for several kilometers, all the way to Jaffa (which you can see at the top of this photo, jutting into the sea). Because of the cold wind and rain, almost no one was strolling; quite rare for this popular place.

The old salt-water Gordon swimming pool is being rebuilt. Behind it is the marina.

When peace activist Abie Nathan died last year I posted a tribute to him. I was SO happy to find that the Tel Aviv Municipality had erected this plaque about him. Please click on the photo and read it. You press the button in the rocks and it broadcasts the words from the pirate peace ship radio station that we listened to 1973-1993: "This is the Voice of Peace broadcasting from somewhere in the Mediterranean." So cool!!

And look at this playground only for those over age 14. All the exercise equipment you would find in an expensive gym!

The best part of the city of Tel Aviv is the sea.

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With thanks to friend and relative Niva, who adores Tel Aviv, for her home hospitality and guided walking tours last weekend.

Blogger-guided tours around the world will be posted tonight at That's My World Tuesday.