Wednesday 09/05/2018 I planned to stay at work until 13:00 but because of the excitement of putting the motorcycle on the ship tomorrow I left an hour earlier to complete the job of preparing the suitcases and loading them on the motorcycle. I am supposed to arrive to the port of Haifa at 8:00 am and to load the motorcycle on the ship. With great difficulty, I closed my suitcases after sitting on them, and also used plastic bags that sucked the air out of them.
As I tied the last suitcase on the motorcycle, the phone rang from the shipping company and Galina the replacement of my old friend Alicia that is on pension now, told me that a strike is going at Haifa port with no shipping coming or going and asked me to call the next day at eight to find out what was going on.
I went online to get news of the strike. My expectation is that the port will return to work after the court ruled that the strike was illegal . Today 8:00 am calling the shipping company I was told to be in touch and still a strike is going on.
The Internet says that the court could not find the labor union heads in order to force them to return to work. Despaired I got into my head that the trip had gone, I began planning instead of maybe camping to the north of Israel or to Eilat.
The miracle:
At 14:00 I got a phone from the shipping company and was asked to go as fast as possible to the port.
I got on the motorcycle. First time riding on the motorcycle loaded with suitcases, difficulty to control. Not sure how it would handle with all the suitcases. Near Netanya I got a phone from the shipping company where are you? And ask me to hurry. Next to Zichron Yaakov I get a phone call quickly to Shemen Gate at the Haifa port.
Usually we come to the company's offices, pay the travel fee, then finish paperwork, go to the port and pay a port fee. A process that takes several hours.
Customs were in a hurry to finish with us because they wanted to close their office. The shipping company directed us quickly and directly to where the ship is scheduled to dock. It turns out that the ship the motorcycle should take is loaded with meat to Israel, and the failure to unload the meat will cause all the meat to spoil, so there was a special permit from the strike to unload the meat. And that's what allowed us to load the motorcycle on the ship. Surely somebody above loves me and saved the journey. There were also two bikers who sent theit motorcycles and a group of Israeli off road car race participants going to Greece , With this group it is the fifth year that I meet in the port and we got to load the vehicles together. In addition , Shy one of the participants in the race was so nice that he took me home in his car.