Come to Israel, Day 4, 2019 continues.

Next we traveled further down the lake to a large dock, where we all boarded a wide boat and set sail out onto the Sea of Galilee.

The boat’s crew played the American National Anthem and raised the American Flag right next to the flag of Israel, as we slowly sailed away from the dock.  It was a deeply moving moment….

We paused in the middle of the Lake.  At this point, Leo explained, we were on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee – which is actually much more like one of our great lakes.

Leo called the land we were now facing, “the three mounts” and the “Valley of the Doves”, which, he explained, is a section of hillside that Jesus would have walked through on his way from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee. 

I took pictures of the Eastern shore…                        

And the Western shore:                                 

As we sailed along, Leo told us that the lake is 18 miles long and 12 miles wide and the mountain we could see at the far end of the Lake is Mount Herman…

This, he said, was the upper end of the lake, which is fed by three main streams (starting here, I presumed).  The Lake itself provides 35% of the water used in Israel!  Of the three streams, two have warm water that attract fish into the lake itself.  Looking downward, we could see the spots we’d just visited.

We wandered to the back of the boat, and watched a deckhand as he worked…

…and before we knew it we were back on the dock, where we noticed a strange rock on our right.  Looking closely, we could see the ship carved into the rock… and just down from it was the Yigal Alon Center, which housed an actual ancient Galilee boat.

Outside a sign advertised the boat, but, sadly, we had no time to go inside.

   Luckily, many other people, who were able to go inside have shared their pictures online of the actual boat.  It is reputed to be the same kind of boat that Peter himself sailed – in fact some web sites call it Peter’s boat… and this picture gives us a sense of the size of this boat!

  The best part for us, though, was that, outside of the museum, just above the water, was the museum’s replica of what the boat would have looked like in Jesus’ time.   It’s set up so well… practically on the Sea of Galilee. 

   Shortly we were back on the road again, traveling north to the Tagbha area, to visit the Church of the Multiplication.  Back in Jesus’ time the area was called Heptagon (the Seven Springs), but is now that name was changed to Tagbha, which means the same thing. 

Much more to come! 

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PLEASE NOTE: Beginning on Monday, I will be posting every weekday, instead of just M-W-F. This is because we will be heading to Jerusalem, where there is just so much to cover before we walk the stations of the cross together!