Geyser
The map had a small mark on it. “Geyser”, it said. Although it is true that geologists believe the Carmel mountain started as a tropical island with a volcanoe, it is long gone: so what kind of geyser, I wandered, did they find in Atlit these days?
This is one of the things I like best about Israel: it never stops surprising. This land is not small, it is compact: the amount of landscapes and unique attractions it has is more then what many much larger countries contain. Even as such, this geyser thing was stretching it a bit too far: actually, as I found out the interesting way, it turned out to be just a blow-hole, even if a nice one.
The bay of Atlit is one of the most beautiful sandstone bays along the Carmel coast. Once dominated by a huge crusade castle, today it poses one of the few relatively undisturbed coastal environments around. I first arrived there because one of my friends celebrated the building of his new house at the Atlit village by a small party. I found the “geyser” remark on the map he distributed (I later checked, it doesn’t appear on the normal travel maps I use: it is just a local initiative, a nice and romantic “unofficial” spot someone decided to publish); so after the party ended, I went to check it up.
The first serious rain of the season arrived a week ago. I didn’t have time to write about it (it was quite an event, with my mood getting very high and my appartment getting very wet, even flooded, by water in the middle of the night), yet for a week now the weather had become…well, autumn. The best season of the year. As always, it immediately had a profound effect on my mood: I can’t stop smiling. I arrived at Atlit bay - (here are the instructions: leave the coastal road at the Atlit interchange, go south through Atlit village till you’re after it - a few kilometers; cross the rails, and continue until the road ends at a nice parking. You should have Nof-Yam Kibbutz to your right, and the Nof-Yam beach, dominated by the “Gefilte-Beach” restaurant to your left; enter the beach, and follow the coast right, till it ends. Cross the tiny bridge to the sandstone islet - maybe you need to go at low tide, at high tide you might get wet - and walk to the far side of the islet; you can’t miss the “geyser”.) -I arrived the place just before sunset. The sky was grey, with some rain on the sea; the air was fresh and just a bit chilly, after the rain that fell on the morning; and all the coast was full of shells. There were nice waves on the sea, which made the blowhole (”geyser”) errupt very strongly. It also allowed me to see exactly how it works.
A bit north of the beach there is a small sandstone islet. Someone connected it with a tiny bridge to the coast, and actually some fishermen stood there when I visited the place. The sandstone - being a sandstone - slowly gives way to the sea. The waves dig tunnels and holes on the stone, which by the way is full of shells, crabs, some plants, and other nice creatures. The blowhole was created by this phenomena: a small tunnel that the waves dig terminates with a hole in the stone. Every time there is a wave, the water flow in great pressure through the tunnel and “errupt” from the hole. Cool.
I just stood there a bit, and appreciated the pictoresque place. When the sun went down to the sea, and the rain came down from the sky, I packed myself and went home. Amazing, how you can go over a place for years, and it is still full of surprises. Just leave the highway for five minuts, and a whole world awaits you.
October 22nd, 2006 at 15:05
A blowhole is still a nice thing.
And yes, that is exactly what I told everyone in the US who asked if they should come visit Israel. Israel maybe is small but it has almost everything in it. Sure, in the USA you might find almost any type of landscape but you’ll have to travel for hundreds, maybe thousands, of kilometers before reaching all of them. In Israel, you can find deserts, valleys, rivers, coasts, inlets, mountains and hills, a salt water basin and a snowy peak within a 200 kilometer radius of each other.