Session One - 19 August 1999

19 August - In Larnaca at last!

Leg one

"It was the worst and the best moment of the day, mixed together, because here we arrived at Larnaca, a new harbour to spread our mission and here we arrived to end of our peace cruise. To tell the truth, it was very hard to get our luggage out of the Black Knight, our home for 10 days and saying our goodbye to a great magnificent polish crew. We prepared ourselves to meet the new peace sailors of the next leg, and as soon as the peace event took place it was our turn to welcome our new mates:

"Dear friends, we are very happy to arrive to the beautiful Larnaca. We have been the pioneers, the pioneers of a mission entitled to peace.Algeria, Italy, Greece, Spain, Jordan, France, Israel, Morocco, Yugoslavia, Palestine, Bosnia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany , Egypt, Poland, were the countries we came from. Cairo, Alexandria, Gaza, Haifa, were the destinations of our message; Peace in the Mediterranean was our dream.
Turning this dream into reality was a challenging experience: training and session on peace, communication, conflicts and mediation; working on the deck and sails, taking care of Zawisha Charny, spending our nights on the sea under the stars, thinking about the tomorrow of peace in the world. All of this proved us that although we come from different cultures and backgrounds we can work together to overcome the gaps and accomplish great many things.
Are we satisfied? We would have been more satisfied if we were allowed to enter Gaza, anyway we did our best and here we are passing our message to you: The new Peace Sailors.
You are going to work hard: Sessions, watches, sea sickness, navigation, toilettes, sailing, showers or no showers ,sleepless nights, campus, training and sunburns. But you are going to have a great time, living on the ship and carrying on your mission, and we, the old Peace Sailors would like to present you the most important tools for accomplishing your mission:

A brush and a bucket!

We are sure that you share with us the same dreams about peace, we are passing to you the message of peace and we wish you good luck and good wind to your sails."

And we joined the new Peace Sailors on the stage, shaking hands and singing together. We spent the night at the scout centre in the mountains where some of us had the chance to spend the night in luxurious tents recognising the surroundings as a part of the Peace Event!"

"The most important tools to acomplish your mission : a brush and a bucket!"

Talat (Canaan Institute, Gaza) put this motto into practice.

19 August- Meeting the Peace Sailors of leg one

Leg two

"We visited the city of Nicosia in the morning, "the last divided city in Europe", divided by a wall cutting it into two parts, Greek-Cypriot and Turkish.

Ivan and Gail from Malta joined us in the evening, when we went to Larnaca and met for the first time with the Peace Sailors from Leg I that arrived today. Together we went to our first Peace Event in the City Hall of Larnaca, where we officially and formally started as Peace Sailors and Leg I officially and formally ended their cruise.

As handover the participants of Leg I presented us a welcome with a bucket and a brush that were supposed to symbolise the life on board. We will see what expects us.

After the official meeting including speeches, songs, etc. we enjoyed a wonderful support, talking to people from the first Leg trying to find out more in detail what is waiting for us and how life on board the boat will be like."