22 Oct. 10
Some time ago when we were down at the boat I was just standing on the walk-on watching the water when I noticed some small fish ripping away at what looked like a piece of white bread. They were darting in grabbing a small section of the bread in their mouth and then tearing a small piece off. Then my mind started up and I had to take a closer look because logic sense told me that the bread should be easier to eat as it would have been made quiet soggy being in the water for a while already. It was then that I noticed that the piece of bread was actually a white spray mask. These small fish where tearing away and swallowing a spray mask. I started to see imagines of these tiny fish floating belly up down the river in a few days time. This was at about the same time Lola and I had been painting the black board on Yrumoar. After painting I had to go and clean the paint brushes. The paint was water based so cleaning the brush required that it be rinsed under the tap. Whilst rinsing the brush I gave some thought as to where the waste chemicals go and it was nice to watch the paint dissolve off the brush and disappear into the drain. Then I looked towards the water and noticed that the drain empties out straight into the estuary and all I could see was this discoloured green chemical filled liquid running into the water. I immediately started to panic. Now what? What are my options? Do I stop cleaning the brush and just dump them straight into the dustbin so that they can be shipped off to a dump site and slowly leak poison into the ground water as they rot away? Where does the answer lie? It seems no matter which way I go I am going to be wrong.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Swallow doing its antics
22 Oct. 10
This morning I was standing outside waiting for the kids to get ready for school and watching the swallows fly in the fresh morning air. Sometimes I wish I was more articulate in English and could explain exactly how a swallow swoops through the air flapping its wings rapidly for a few seconds and then spreading them out and soaring into the rising columns of air, fanning its forked tail open and closed all the time changing direction so fast that it is impossible for a human to even begin to react to a change of direction that fast. Swallows are by far my favourite birds with their dark almost black colour having just a tinge of dark blue. They have a large wingspan for such a small bird, about the length of a standard classroom ruler, with a small body half the length. The tips of their wings are curved backwards allowing them to look a bit like a cartoon batman.
These tiny birds take off at the end of summer in the southern hemisphere and fly halfway across the earth to somewhere in the north. This fact amazes and fills me with awe every time I see a swallow doing its antics in the sky.
This morning I was standing outside waiting for the kids to get ready for school and watching the swallows fly in the fresh morning air. Sometimes I wish I was more articulate in English and could explain exactly how a swallow swoops through the air flapping its wings rapidly for a few seconds and then spreading them out and soaring into the rising columns of air, fanning its forked tail open and closed all the time changing direction so fast that it is impossible for a human to even begin to react to a change of direction that fast. Swallows are by far my favourite birds with their dark almost black colour having just a tinge of dark blue. They have a large wingspan for such a small bird, about the length of a standard classroom ruler, with a small body half the length. The tips of their wings are curved backwards allowing them to look a bit like a cartoon batman.
These tiny birds take off at the end of summer in the southern hemisphere and fly halfway across the earth to somewhere in the north. This fact amazes and fills me with awe every time I see a swallow doing its antics in the sky.
 |
| Swallows on the lifelines |
TEFL
20 Oct. 10
Yesterday I was supposed to appear in court as a witness against someone that we arrested about two years ago for theft from one of our clients, but something came up and it slipped my mind so I missed the court appearance. Now today I am sitting here with a niggling thought in the back of my mind that I may be arrested for not appearing.
Lola signed up to do a TEFL course hoping that we can get some employment as we travel to keep the kitty full or at least to contribute towards the kitty. I am not sure what I could do to help as my skills are limited to electronics although I am very handy with most things and can fix or build almost anything.
Yesterday I was supposed to appear in court as a witness against someone that we arrested about two years ago for theft from one of our clients, but something came up and it slipped my mind so I missed the court appearance. Now today I am sitting here with a niggling thought in the back of my mind that I may be arrested for not appearing.
Lola signed up to do a TEFL course hoping that we can get some employment as we travel to keep the kitty full or at least to contribute towards the kitty. I am not sure what I could do to help as my skills are limited to electronics although I am very handy with most things and can fix or build almost anything.
Look out for buses
11 Oct. 10
A couple of days ago one of our employees decided to make a u-turn in the road without first looking in his rear view mirrors. I can only imagine the surprised look in his face when he discovered a huge bus bearing down on him with no way to stop. How he managed to escape the accident with no injuries still amazes me as the vehicle he was driving in was almost broken in half by the accident and the drivers seat was rolled up and placed on top of the passenger seat. On Saturday night another one of our vehicles was totalled. The business that I am in feels like a NASCAR event on occasion where vehicles are disposable like toilet paper. Unfortunately we are not in the business of wrecking vehicles and every time this kind of event happens another log is thrown into the river blocking my path and slowing down our future plans.
It is becoming harder and harder to remain positive in the face of the challenges that are being placed before me. I am constantly looking for ways to shorten the time till we can leave but the obstacles seem to be collecting instead of diminishing. Money is definitely the root of all evil and we cannot continue without having a sufficient amount of the evil in order to survive.
A couple of days ago one of our employees decided to make a u-turn in the road without first looking in his rear view mirrors. I can only imagine the surprised look in his face when he discovered a huge bus bearing down on him with no way to stop. How he managed to escape the accident with no injuries still amazes me as the vehicle he was driving in was almost broken in half by the accident and the drivers seat was rolled up and placed on top of the passenger seat. On Saturday night another one of our vehicles was totalled. The business that I am in feels like a NASCAR event on occasion where vehicles are disposable like toilet paper. Unfortunately we are not in the business of wrecking vehicles and every time this kind of event happens another log is thrown into the river blocking my path and slowing down our future plans.
It is becoming harder and harder to remain positive in the face of the challenges that are being placed before me. I am constantly looking for ways to shorten the time till we can leave but the obstacles seem to be collecting instead of diminishing. Money is definitely the root of all evil and we cannot continue without having a sufficient amount of the evil in order to survive.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
“Come on you Yachties must all know this.”
30 Sep. 10
I still remember the first time that somebody called me a “Biker”, I had been riding motorcycles for pretty much most of my life but this was the first time that I was referred to as a “Biker”. I can recall and replay the event in my mind quite clearly even now about six years later. The memory of the event and the feelings that the word made me experience. If I think about it for a while I am sure that I can still smell the slightly sweaty leathery aroma of my bike jacket and the sticky clamminess that came with the wearing of that jacket. The hairs on my arms that would start to slowly one by one release themselves and be free again to move with the breeze a short while after removing the jacket. The way that the wind would make your helmet move forcing your head to follow the involuntary motion as the wind roared past the outside of the helmet the instant that your right wrist twisted open the throttle.
We had just arrived at a small pub after an exhilarating Sunday morning breakfast run from the vaal dam. And this would be our last stop of the day before splitting up and heading off in our separate ways back to the reality of normal life. We had parked our cycles on the front porch directly outside the main entrance door to the pub slightly but not quite in the way of the regular patrons. After our second or third final beer we paid the bill and were on our way outside when it happened. Another group of motorcycles had just arrived and a tired looking older man walked up to me and asked if I knew this new group of people. I eyed him suspiciously and asked him why he was asking. He answered me with the statement “I thought all you Bikers were in the same gang”.
And there it was “Biker” the word that is synonymous with large bearded and tattooed roughnecks. Large men on large machines chasing around aimlessly and without a single responsibility in the world, taking what is needed without a second thought, and having absolutely no fear of reprisal from authorities.
This is of course the myth or urban legend that some may believe the word “Biker” represents, however for me it was a word that gave me a feeling of belong. And now years later a whole mixture of emotions and memories.
Today a new memory was born whilst we were sitting at the yacht club having a catch up conversation with Greg, a lady walked over to our table and asked us when would be a good time to go to Greece in the Med. I looked at her with a surprised look on my face thinking to myself why would she be asking me? I have yet to visit Greece, infact, I have yet to go anywhere out of Africa. She looked back at me and continued her question with the conversation “come on you Yachties must all know this.”
And there it was “Yachties” a new word, but with a whole new bunch of memories and feelings still to be made.
I still remember the first time that somebody called me a “Biker”, I had been riding motorcycles for pretty much most of my life but this was the first time that I was referred to as a “Biker”. I can recall and replay the event in my mind quite clearly even now about six years later. The memory of the event and the feelings that the word made me experience. If I think about it for a while I am sure that I can still smell the slightly sweaty leathery aroma of my bike jacket and the sticky clamminess that came with the wearing of that jacket. The hairs on my arms that would start to slowly one by one release themselves and be free again to move with the breeze a short while after removing the jacket. The way that the wind would make your helmet move forcing your head to follow the involuntary motion as the wind roared past the outside of the helmet the instant that your right wrist twisted open the throttle.
We had just arrived at a small pub after an exhilarating Sunday morning breakfast run from the vaal dam. And this would be our last stop of the day before splitting up and heading off in our separate ways back to the reality of normal life. We had parked our cycles on the front porch directly outside the main entrance door to the pub slightly but not quite in the way of the regular patrons. After our second or third final beer we paid the bill and were on our way outside when it happened. Another group of motorcycles had just arrived and a tired looking older man walked up to me and asked if I knew this new group of people. I eyed him suspiciously and asked him why he was asking. He answered me with the statement “I thought all you Bikers were in the same gang”.
And there it was “Biker” the word that is synonymous with large bearded and tattooed roughnecks. Large men on large machines chasing around aimlessly and without a single responsibility in the world, taking what is needed without a second thought, and having absolutely no fear of reprisal from authorities.
This is of course the myth or urban legend that some may believe the word “Biker” represents, however for me it was a word that gave me a feeling of belong. And now years later a whole mixture of emotions and memories.
Today a new memory was born whilst we were sitting at the yacht club having a catch up conversation with Greg, a lady walked over to our table and asked us when would be a good time to go to Greece in the Med. I looked at her with a surprised look on my face thinking to myself why would she be asking me? I have yet to visit Greece, infact, I have yet to go anywhere out of Africa. She looked back at me and continued her question with the conversation “come on you Yachties must all know this.”
And there it was “Yachties” a new word, but with a whole new bunch of memories and feelings still to be made.
Monday, September 6, 2010
6th September 2010
31 Aug. 10
Today is my older brothers birthday, so I gave him the mandatory call to wish him all the best and happy birthday. An easy task at the moment due to cell phones, perhaps not such an easy task once we are off.
Anyway everywhere I look at the moment I see the "Plastiki" adventure. Now I do agree with the idea of the recycled plastic boat and the whole “save the earth message” but the engineering of such a recycled plastic boat must have been a mammoth task. An undertaking that I believe to be larger than the average skipper out there could afford and would therefore not have been possible without the aid of very large sums of money. And sadly, real money like that can only be obtained by ruining the earth in the first place. Which leads me to my next subject, the cost of cruising.
Now I have read many books on the subject and done many hours of research on the web, and the conclusion that “it costs as much as you have” is a misconception. Most of the books try to make you believe that the possibility of going out cruising for an indefinite amount of time is something that is possible for anyone that wants to do this. The budgets that are mentioned for the monthly food, clothing and other requirements on these “cruising on a teaspoon of peanut butter” websites seems so achievable and easy. These books and websites must be speaking about countries other than South Africa because here in Africa owning and maintaining a boat costs an absolute fortune. I am not sure if it was always this expensive as I am relatively new to sailing but my experience has shown me so far that you need to have two jobs and a large sum of invested money in the bank in order to own a boat. I mean let’s consider some of the costs quickly, these will not include the purchase or building of a yacht, but only the annual costs as required by legislation.
Once a year the boat has to be taken out of the water and an annual inspection has to be done by an inspector from SAMSA. This costs roughly between fifteen and twenty thousand Rand. If you divide this figure by twelve to give a monthly figure that would be about one to one and a half thousand per month. This also excludes the monthly cost of mooring which can vary between three hundred and three thousand Rand monthly, dependant where you are, and does not include annual yacht club fees with no budget for boat maintenance. Perhaps for the Americans with the almighty dollar this may be of little consequence, but for us Africans living on the Rand not a cheap or easy task.
05 Sep. 10
Its eight am on Sunday morning. I am sitting in my dining room with a cup of coffee staring at the maps against the wall in front of me. My mind is constantly filled with images of the ocean and far away lands on the other side. I wake up most mornings with these images in my mind. What I am seeing right now is the front windows of Yrumoar. The square white painted wooden outline of the window and beyond that window, white foam blowing and falling gently from the top of the wave crests. If I listen carefully I can hear the creaking sound of the sheet line being pulled through the car. The spare bedroom door swings slowly open and almost closes as we move over the top of one wave and head down into the trough of the next wave. Yrumoar is trying to speak to me, I can almost hear her giggle as the water tickles her underside. And then suddenly I am ripped out of my dream world and back into reality by the voice of Lola telling me to hurry up and move as she feels we are going to run out of time and the pressure of life begins the day.
Today is my older brothers birthday, so I gave him the mandatory call to wish him all the best and happy birthday. An easy task at the moment due to cell phones, perhaps not such an easy task once we are off.
Anyway everywhere I look at the moment I see the "Plastiki" adventure. Now I do agree with the idea of the recycled plastic boat and the whole “save the earth message” but the engineering of such a recycled plastic boat must have been a mammoth task. An undertaking that I believe to be larger than the average skipper out there could afford and would therefore not have been possible without the aid of very large sums of money. And sadly, real money like that can only be obtained by ruining the earth in the first place. Which leads me to my next subject, the cost of cruising.
Now I have read many books on the subject and done many hours of research on the web, and the conclusion that “it costs as much as you have” is a misconception. Most of the books try to make you believe that the possibility of going out cruising for an indefinite amount of time is something that is possible for anyone that wants to do this. The budgets that are mentioned for the monthly food, clothing and other requirements on these “cruising on a teaspoon of peanut butter” websites seems so achievable and easy. These books and websites must be speaking about countries other than South Africa because here in Africa owning and maintaining a boat costs an absolute fortune. I am not sure if it was always this expensive as I am relatively new to sailing but my experience has shown me so far that you need to have two jobs and a large sum of invested money in the bank in order to own a boat. I mean let’s consider some of the costs quickly, these will not include the purchase or building of a yacht, but only the annual costs as required by legislation.
Once a year the boat has to be taken out of the water and an annual inspection has to be done by an inspector from SAMSA. This costs roughly between fifteen and twenty thousand Rand. If you divide this figure by twelve to give a monthly figure that would be about one to one and a half thousand per month. This also excludes the monthly cost of mooring which can vary between three hundred and three thousand Rand monthly, dependant where you are, and does not include annual yacht club fees with no budget for boat maintenance. Perhaps for the Americans with the almighty dollar this may be of little consequence, but for us Africans living on the Rand not a cheap or easy task.
05 Sep. 10
Its eight am on Sunday morning. I am sitting in my dining room with a cup of coffee staring at the maps against the wall in front of me. My mind is constantly filled with images of the ocean and far away lands on the other side. I wake up most mornings with these images in my mind. What I am seeing right now is the front windows of Yrumoar. The square white painted wooden outline of the window and beyond that window, white foam blowing and falling gently from the top of the wave crests. If I listen carefully I can hear the creaking sound of the sheet line being pulled through the car. The spare bedroom door swings slowly open and almost closes as we move over the top of one wave and head down into the trough of the next wave. Yrumoar is trying to speak to me, I can almost hear her giggle as the water tickles her underside. And then suddenly I am ripped out of my dream world and back into reality by the voice of Lola telling me to hurry up and move as she feels we are going to run out of time and the pressure of life begins the day.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
31 August
16 Aug. 10
Pay day, or is it pay out day. I suppose if I was working for someone it would be pay day, but since I am not it is pay out day. Would be nice if I could just keep the money and not pay anyone for a few months, that way the trip would be very soon, however I don’t believe that my employees would agree to this idea.
Today we went through to Germiston and registered Yrumoar with SAS. Now the task of removing the old name everywhere and renaming her has to be done next time we go down. We want to make a bit of a ceremony and celebration out of this, very exciting stuff.
18 Aug. 10
Lately I have been reading more and more books. At the moment I am reading “ Demistifying Sectional Title", "The Book Of Photography" and "Come Wind Come Weather” all at the same time. My English teacher at school would have been so proud of me right now. Unfortunately, I never knew that I enjoyed reading until about a year ago and never did much reading before then. So it’s as if I am trying to catch up on lost time. I cannot decide what kind of books I really enjoy yet but it seems to be all kinds. Early in the morning whilst having breakfast I like to read the photography book. During the course of the day I like to study up the sectional titles act, and at night before I go off to dreamland, I read the sailing adventure story. Oh my goodness I think I have become a nerd.
24 Aug. 10
Well it seems our “stolen trip” is coming to an end, so tomorrow we will be heading back to gangsters paradise and back to real life again. Thanks to the ongoing teachers strike we were afforded this little break away. Axel and Peta came to visit over the weekend but we didn’t go out sailing with them instead we went to see the beach and had some wicked curry over at the dockside. Thanks for the visit guys, hope you enjoyed your stay.
We eventually went sailing yesterday in a good 15 knots of wind. Lola kept her pointed into the wind whilst Rauen and I hoisted the main sail. Previously I mentioned that the sail plan has to be fixed since the installation of the bimini (the roof over the cockpit or outside area). So in order for the main sail to be hoisted I had to first make a new tack (the front point where the sail attaches to the mast). I used a short piece of rope about 300 mm long with two bowline knots at either end to make the new tack, that together with the use of one of the reefing lines enabled the main sail to function in a fashion. We unrolled the fuller headsail and sailed around in the harbour for a while whilst practising to tack (turn with the front of the boat through the wind) and also to ensure that my modification was working. Once I was comfortable that everything was working we headed out of the harbour and into the ocean. The wind and sea state in the harbour is almost like sailing on a dam with the difference coming as you near the exit of the harbour and you start to feel the swell of the ocean. The boat gently starts to move up and over each swell as it comes. Once you pass the break waters the conditions change rapidly and the movements increase dependant upon the state of the sea. We had two metre waves with a five second interval between the waves and since we were sailing on a beam reach (the wind coming from the left or right side) the waves were also coming from the side making the boat rock from side to side with the occasional hull slam that comes with sailing on a catamaran.
Due to the break waters and because it is shallow the sea is very confused with waves coming from all sides when you just leave the harbour but once you are outside the conditions calm and the waves start to come in sets making the motion on the boat a lot more pleasant. Lola did all the steering and once we returned to the harbour she complained that her feet were killing her because she had to stand all the time since we don’t have a chair to sit on whilst steering.
We had packed our laptops on Kyle’s bed to keep them from falling around in the ocean thinking that it was a safe dry spot. To our surprise we discovered that water had found its way onto Kyle’s bed. After some investigation and having to strip the motor ignition panels out we found a small dam of water behind the ignition panels above Kyle’s bed. We now knew where the water had come from, but how it got there still has to be solved.
 |
| The hidden offending dam of water |
Sunday, August 15, 2010
15th August
12 Aug. 10
Back from the weekend and rowing with the other slaves again. The teacher’s strike allowed us one extra day on Tuesday added to the already long weekend, so we used this day to drive back. We spent some time on the weekend going through some of the lockers on the boat and I was amazed at how much stuff can fit into these lockers. I also managed to secure Kyle’s bedroom door and the sliding door so that they don’t fly open and closed whilst we are sailing. The bathroom door still has to be done then all the doors are ready for the trip. One job done, 12 million to go.
15 Aug. 10
For some or other reason the last trip on the boat was very eventful. Firstly I could not reverse out of our slip without nearly popping our fenders against the walk-on. On our last trip whilst I was trying to teach Lola to reverse out we got one of the fenders caught on the mooring cleat and it popped.
We haven’t replaced this fender yet, so I don’t know if this was in the back of my mind causing me to loose concentration. There was only a slight breeze blowing so I couldn’t blame the wind either. The next problem occurred once we left the marina.
After the no-wake zone I increased the motor RPM to two thousand revs and waited for both motors and the boat to stabilize at the new speed but something just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, it was as if the steering didn’t respond correctly but when I turned the wheel the boat turned as it was supposed to but not exactly as was “normal”. So I spun the wheel again and still not the reaction that I was used to. Even though we have spent only a short while sailing Yrumoar, I already have a feeling for the way that the she reacts, and this time she was not reacting in the same way. So I slowed the motors down to idle speed and played with the wheel spinning it in both directions to check. The result was the same she turned fine in both directions but it just felt wrong. I then decided to check the instrument panel for the motors and noticed that the port motor’s temperature was extremely high and all the warning lights on the panel where lit. I had checked the motor upon start-up and a little while later and she was pumping water just fine so there must be another problem. I then decided to switch off the motor and restart, voila, magically everything returned to normal.
The next incident occurred in the harbour mouth as we returned from our outing. We were sailing along peacefully when suddenly, thump, we collided with a submerged object. It wasn’t a hard thump but we all looked at each other and said “what was that”. Lola looked backwards to see what we had hit but we couldn’t really determine what it was. I checked below deck for damage but couldn’t see any.
We knew that the chart showed a ship wreck at this spot, and the pilot guide says that you should not cut the corner coming into the harbour, but we had sailed over this same spot before and didn’t hit anything. I believe we were lucky this time and perhaps it was meant as a lesson to me. The lesson “always check the chart and believe the pilot guide”.
The last incident came whilst trying to park back at our spot, first I went into the anchor of the steel yacht parked opposite to us, then we kept nearly drifting into the yacht next to us. After three attempts we eventually managed to tie up.
I can’t explain my incompetence during this trip but I believe it won’t be the only time and possibly the first of many.
Back from the weekend and rowing with the other slaves again. The teacher’s strike allowed us one extra day on Tuesday added to the already long weekend, so we used this day to drive back. We spent some time on the weekend going through some of the lockers on the boat and I was amazed at how much stuff can fit into these lockers. I also managed to secure Kyle’s bedroom door and the sliding door so that they don’t fly open and closed whilst we are sailing. The bathroom door still has to be done then all the doors are ready for the trip. One job done, 12 million to go.
 |
| And even more comes out! |
15 Aug. 10
For some or other reason the last trip on the boat was very eventful. Firstly I could not reverse out of our slip without nearly popping our fenders against the walk-on. On our last trip whilst I was trying to teach Lola to reverse out we got one of the fenders caught on the mooring cleat and it popped.
We haven’t replaced this fender yet, so I don’t know if this was in the back of my mind causing me to loose concentration. There was only a slight breeze blowing so I couldn’t blame the wind either. The next problem occurred once we left the marina.
After the no-wake zone I increased the motor RPM to two thousand revs and waited for both motors and the boat to stabilize at the new speed but something just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, it was as if the steering didn’t respond correctly but when I turned the wheel the boat turned as it was supposed to but not exactly as was “normal”. So I spun the wheel again and still not the reaction that I was used to. Even though we have spent only a short while sailing Yrumoar, I already have a feeling for the way that the she reacts, and this time she was not reacting in the same way. So I slowed the motors down to idle speed and played with the wheel spinning it in both directions to check. The result was the same she turned fine in both directions but it just felt wrong. I then decided to check the instrument panel for the motors and noticed that the port motor’s temperature was extremely high and all the warning lights on the panel where lit. I had checked the motor upon start-up and a little while later and she was pumping water just fine so there must be another problem. I then decided to switch off the motor and restart, voila, magically everything returned to normal.
The next incident occurred in the harbour mouth as we returned from our outing. We were sailing along peacefully when suddenly, thump, we collided with a submerged object. It wasn’t a hard thump but we all looked at each other and said “what was that”. Lola looked backwards to see what we had hit but we couldn’t really determine what it was. I checked below deck for damage but couldn’t see any.
We knew that the chart showed a ship wreck at this spot, and the pilot guide says that you should not cut the corner coming into the harbour, but we had sailed over this same spot before and didn’t hit anything. I believe we were lucky this time and perhaps it was meant as a lesson to me. The lesson “always check the chart and believe the pilot guide”.
The last incident came whilst trying to park back at our spot, first I went into the anchor of the steel yacht parked opposite to us, then we kept nearly drifting into the yacht next to us. After three attempts we eventually managed to tie up.
I can’t explain my incompetence during this trip but I believe it won’t be the only time and possibly the first of many.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
05 Aug. 10
04 Aug. 10
Found a site on the web today of a family sailing, or shall I say planning to sail around the world. They flew down from Canada to Mexico about two years ago and bought a boat there. According to one of the video interviews that they made they were planning a three year trip. They are still in Mexico. I hope this doesn’t happen to us.
Its 12 o’clock now, two hours to go until we leave the house to fetch the kids at school and take the 7 hour journey down to the boat. Rauen is bringing a friend with that has never seen the ocean before and is very excited. You never know how lucky you are until you meet others that aren’t quite as lucky, this kid is 13 years old and hasn’t had the good fortune to see the ocean before.
I don’t really do much exercise and as the years are starting to catch up on me my body has started to show the neglect. Whenever I think about exercise the thought of going to gym pops up and in my head and I can see images of pure suffering. Hours spent running or riding a bicycle but not getting anywhere. I like it when exercise doesn’t feel like it is being done on purpose, like walking to the beach with my kids and kicking a soccer ball around or having a swim. I haven’t been able to do much of this yet but hope to find some exercise routines that aren’t routines that will reverse the effects that the past has left behind in the not to distant future.
Found a site on the web today of a family sailing, or shall I say planning to sail around the world. They flew down from Canada to Mexico about two years ago and bought a boat there. According to one of the video interviews that they made they were planning a three year trip. They are still in Mexico. I hope this doesn’t happen to us.
Its 12 o’clock now, two hours to go until we leave the house to fetch the kids at school and take the 7 hour journey down to the boat. Rauen is bringing a friend with that has never seen the ocean before and is very excited. You never know how lucky you are until you meet others that aren’t quite as lucky, this kid is 13 years old and hasn’t had the good fortune to see the ocean before.
I don’t really do much exercise and as the years are starting to catch up on me my body has started to show the neglect. Whenever I think about exercise the thought of going to gym pops up and in my head and I can see images of pure suffering. Hours spent running or riding a bicycle but not getting anywhere. I like it when exercise doesn’t feel like it is being done on purpose, like walking to the beach with my kids and kicking a soccer ball around or having a swim. I haven’t been able to do much of this yet but hope to find some exercise routines that aren’t routines that will reverse the effects that the past has left behind in the not to distant future.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
02 Aug. 10
This week we decided to get stuck into the housework that we have ignored for some time. We went down to what used to be Mica but is now Build it, same people different name, to get some plumbing parts so that we could complete the second bathroom in the house that we have neglected to do. Its my fault, I am the one that loses interest in a project as soon as it is good enough, so I therefore never finish anything to perfection but rather to “ it will just have to do as long as it works”.
However it has come to the stage where I have no more choice but to complete the house before December this year since we want to move onto the boat and rent out the house. Then the serious boat work will begin. At the moment the boat isn’t really sea worthy in my opinion. One of the many problems is that the refrigeration is powered by 220 volts and the big double door fridge freezer has not even been secured, so every time we go over a wave I watch the fridge as it starts to walk around in the saloon looking for a place to fall over and I start to imagine the damage it would cause. Next the sliding door has a small latch at the top of the door that is supposed to keep the door in a certain position. This latch has no clip in it thus it works itself loose after a few waves and then the sliding door slams open and closed, open and closed, open and closed again until I can get to it to fasten the latch again. And so on and so forth.
We had another visit from my mother and stepfather this weekend and he compared our intended boat trip to a drunk driver taking his child in the car and driving down the road. When I asked him how these two things could possibly be related he said that my kids have no choice in the matter just like a child of a drunk driver has no choice.
Wow! I never saw that one coming. Maybe he has a point, taking little children out into the big deep ocean can be dangerous, but way less so than taking them on any public road, less traffic for one thing, therefore less drunk drivers.
Okay at the risk of loosing everything I am going to admit that I have been following Bumfuzzle. His site has been one of the many sites that we have found that have just made this planned trip become impossible to ignore. What amazes me is the help that people have offered Pat and Ali, but then again I suppose if I read that they needed something that was possible for me to provide I too would offer to help.
 |
| Shower pipes |
We had another visit from my mother and stepfather this weekend and he compared our intended boat trip to a drunk driver taking his child in the car and driving down the road. When I asked him how these two things could possibly be related he said that my kids have no choice in the matter just like a child of a drunk driver has no choice.
Wow! I never saw that one coming. Maybe he has a point, taking little children out into the big deep ocean can be dangerous, but way less so than taking them on any public road, less traffic for one thing, therefore less drunk drivers.
Okay at the risk of loosing everything I am going to admit that I have been following Bumfuzzle. His site has been one of the many sites that we have found that have just made this planned trip become impossible to ignore. What amazes me is the help that people have offered Pat and Ali, but then again I suppose if I read that they needed something that was possible for me to provide I too would offer to help.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The old guy in the mirror
14 Jul. 10
How freaky is that? My dream was real and they did actually break into my house whilst I was dreaming about them doing it. Now if I can just dream who it was then I can direct the cops straight to them and solve the crime.
Anyway when we got back home Lola’s dad told me that they broke open the gate and then the alarm went off which must have scared them away. So the alarm paid for itself once again. Outdoor alarm systems are the future!
Yesterday Lola got a call from Lela, Rauen’s Grandmother, and she asked if we knew a lady by the name of Corinna. Now some time ago we had a boat at Bayshore Marina and I had mentioned in my blog about a guy named Jeff. His wife’s name was Corinna and her one grandson had invented a game called “Webs, Wands and Waterfalls” which Rauen had received for his birthday from Lela. Anyway it turns out that Corinna is actually Rauen’s Aunt, small world.
19 Jul. 10
Still waiting for the outcome of the last CCMA case that interrupted my holiday. Our next trip to the boat will be sometime in early August, on the first long weekend that comes along, and I can’t wait. It is funny how you can actually miss an object, a piece of fibreglass with some windows and sails. But it does happen, the longer I am away from the boat, the more I miss the boat.
Met a very interesting, and helpful guy called Barry, on a yacht called Tiana. He was busy moving his rudder aft as it was to far forwards and thus the boat was not easy to steer. He told me that he started sailing in Cape Town some time ago and had sailed around the world all the way to Richards bay. He was planning to sail in the forties back to Australia after the modification to Tiana. Barry was kind enough to leave his project and come down to our yacht to assist me with the sails and gave me some amazing advice. Thanks Barry, hope to see you in Aus when we get there.
20 Jul. 10
Today was an excursion to the licence department in order to change ownership of our car from the bank into our name. I’m not sure how other countries do it, but here in Africa when you finance a vehicle the bank retains ownership of said vehicle until you have paid it up. This wasn’t always the case, but I believe that too much fraud caused the change.
Always such an interesting experience dealing with government departments, I wonder if it is the same all over the world, or if our government employees are specially trained to be like this? It doesn’t seem to matter which government department you are dealing with, all the employees seem to have the same mannerisms. I would say attitude but it’s not really an attitude, more a none attitude.
Somehow government departments haven’t ever heard of bottlenecking, they always have one window that everybody has to go to, and many windows that are never used and don’t seem to have any purpose.
22 Jul. 10
Having another man PMS day for some or other reason and can’t seem to snap out of it. I’m not sure if it’s because of how I feel (I have again quit smoking) or what, but everybody, and his sister, wants to speak to me today and it’s just not what I’m in the mood for.
27 Jul. 10
Another week to wait before we can go down to Yrumoar, and its only Tuesday today with the rest of the week still ahead. The man pms seems to be gone for now at least. I’m finding it harder and harder to wait because we seem to be in a state of limbo again, waiting for money, always waiting for something. The CCMA case outcome finally arrived and it was good news for us, we won the case.
I was looking through the photos of our last trip and noticed that I have been replaced by an old guy. This phenomenon I thought was only reserved for the old guy that is always in my way when I am trying to see myself in the mirror. I have tried to move suddenly and look past him, but he seems to know my every move and anticipates the move before I manage to see myself. He appears to have now moved to my photos as well.
How freaky is that? My dream was real and they did actually break into my house whilst I was dreaming about them doing it. Now if I can just dream who it was then I can direct the cops straight to them and solve the crime.
Anyway when we got back home Lola’s dad told me that they broke open the gate and then the alarm went off which must have scared them away. So the alarm paid for itself once again. Outdoor alarm systems are the future!
Yesterday Lola got a call from Lela, Rauen’s Grandmother, and she asked if we knew a lady by the name of Corinna. Now some time ago we had a boat at Bayshore Marina and I had mentioned in my blog about a guy named Jeff. His wife’s name was Corinna and her one grandson had invented a game called “Webs, Wands and Waterfalls” which Rauen had received for his birthday from Lela. Anyway it turns out that Corinna is actually Rauen’s Aunt, small world.
19 Jul. 10
Still waiting for the outcome of the last CCMA case that interrupted my holiday. Our next trip to the boat will be sometime in early August, on the first long weekend that comes along, and I can’t wait. It is funny how you can actually miss an object, a piece of fibreglass with some windows and sails. But it does happen, the longer I am away from the boat, the more I miss the boat.
Met a very interesting, and helpful guy called Barry, on a yacht called Tiana. He was busy moving his rudder aft as it was to far forwards and thus the boat was not easy to steer. He told me that he started sailing in Cape Town some time ago and had sailed around the world all the way to Richards bay. He was planning to sail in the forties back to Australia after the modification to Tiana. Barry was kind enough to leave his project and come down to our yacht to assist me with the sails and gave me some amazing advice. Thanks Barry, hope to see you in Aus when we get there.
20 Jul. 10
Today was an excursion to the licence department in order to change ownership of our car from the bank into our name. I’m not sure how other countries do it, but here in Africa when you finance a vehicle the bank retains ownership of said vehicle until you have paid it up. This wasn’t always the case, but I believe that too much fraud caused the change.
Always such an interesting experience dealing with government departments, I wonder if it is the same all over the world, or if our government employees are specially trained to be like this? It doesn’t seem to matter which government department you are dealing with, all the employees seem to have the same mannerisms. I would say attitude but it’s not really an attitude, more a none attitude.
Somehow government departments haven’t ever heard of bottlenecking, they always have one window that everybody has to go to, and many windows that are never used and don’t seem to have any purpose.
22 Jul. 10
Having another man PMS day for some or other reason and can’t seem to snap out of it. I’m not sure if it’s because of how I feel (I have again quit smoking) or what, but everybody, and his sister, wants to speak to me today and it’s just not what I’m in the mood for.
27 Jul. 10
Another week to wait before we can go down to Yrumoar, and its only Tuesday today with the rest of the week still ahead. The man pms seems to be gone for now at least. I’m finding it harder and harder to wait because we seem to be in a state of limbo again, waiting for money, always waiting for something. The CCMA case outcome finally arrived and it was good news for us, we won the case.
I was looking through the photos of our last trip and noticed that I have been replaced by an old guy. This phenomenon I thought was only reserved for the old guy that is always in my way when I am trying to see myself in the mirror. I have tried to move suddenly and look past him, but he seems to know my every move and anticipates the move before I manage to see myself. He appears to have now moved to my photos as well.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Lists of repairs
10 July 2010
We took them on a day sail out of the harbour and I had to fetch Lindie from the fore deck, where Warren had left her, because she started to panic and couldn’t get back to the cockpit. Rauen of course fell asleep during the journey and slept so soundly that he didn’t know we had left the harbour.
We started to look around the boat in order to know where everything is, the more I look the more I see, sounds pretty obvious really. Every time I open a bilge or look at a fitting or open a window I find more things that need to be fixed. The list of repairs is going to become so long that it may take three lifetimes to get the boat ready, so I decided that some of the repairs will have to be done on route, and only the most necessary will be done before we depart. Lola made a great list of all the “necessities”.
I had a dream last night that someone had broken into my house and when I woke up this morning I told Lola about my dream and then I noticed, on my cellphone, that during the night my house alarm had gone off numerous times, so who knows. Perhaps it is because tomorrow our holiday comes to an end and we have to go back and row with the other slaves, or do I have a mental telepathy bond with my house.
We took them on a day sail out of the harbour and I had to fetch Lindie from the fore deck, where Warren had left her, because she started to panic and couldn’t get back to the cockpit. Rauen of course fell asleep during the journey and slept so soundly that he didn’t know we had left the harbour.
The closest I've ever been to my sister!
We started to look around the boat in order to know where everything is, the more I look the more I see, sounds pretty obvious really. Every time I open a bilge or look at a fitting or open a window I find more things that need to be fixed. The list of repairs is going to become so long that it may take three lifetimes to get the boat ready, so I decided that some of the repairs will have to be done on route, and only the most necessary will be done before we depart. Lola made a great list of all the “necessities”.
I had a dream last night that someone had broken into my house and when I woke up this morning I told Lola about my dream and then I noticed, on my cellphone, that during the night my house alarm had gone off numerous times, so who knows. Perhaps it is because tomorrow our holiday comes to an end and we have to go back and row with the other slaves, or do I have a mental telepathy bond with my house.
Fishing fromt he boat
7 July 2010
Fortunately our next visitors Warren and Lindie were due to come down in three days time so we could survive until then. If we became desperate we could have taken a walk around to Tuzi Gazi waterfront and find most of what we needed. I then called Warren and asked him to go to my house and break in to get my spare car keys. He did manage, without getting arrested, and on the Wednesday afternoon we had keys again.
Warren and Lindie arrived at 2 pm after being on the road for about 12 hours. They must have taken the scenic route, or did they get lost? The subject was not discussed again but they did agree to allow us to write down some directions for them to follow on the way home. Then the fishing began. We have a cheap Pick & Pay fishing rod on board and the kids tried it out using all sorts of bait, but once we tried some left over steak from the braai and Keagan caught his very first fish, Warren suddenly became a man possessed by an evil spirit. He would not stop fishing until he caught a fish, and once he caught the first one he needed another, and then another. In the morning whilst we were still asleep I heard him casting the line. By the time we got up he had one in the broom bucket and another on the line. After we ran out of steak the fish stopped biting, the mealies and ribs did not have any success and slowly the wind went out of Warren’s sails.
Fortunately our next visitors Warren and Lindie were due to come down in three days time so we could survive until then. If we became desperate we could have taken a walk around to Tuzi Gazi waterfront and find most of what we needed. I then called Warren and asked him to go to my house and break in to get my spare car keys. He did manage, without getting arrested, and on the Wednesday afternoon we had keys again.
Warren and Lindie arrived at 2 pm after being on the road for about 12 hours. They must have taken the scenic route, or did they get lost? The subject was not discussed again but they did agree to allow us to write down some directions for them to follow on the way home. Then the fishing began. We have a cheap Pick & Pay fishing rod on board and the kids tried it out using all sorts of bait, but once we tried some left over steak from the braai and Keagan caught his very first fish, Warren suddenly became a man possessed by an evil spirit. He would not stop fishing until he caught a fish, and once he caught the first one he needed another, and then another. In the morning whilst we were still asleep I heard him casting the line. By the time we got up he had one in the broom bucket and another on the line. After we ran out of steak the fish stopped biting, the mealies and ribs did not have any success and slowly the wind went out of Warren’s sails.
Our First Boat visitors
6 July 2010
Quite some time has passed since the last time I’ve written, not that I have been too busy because I haven’t, but my routine has been turned upside down this month. Firstly the Fifa soccer world cup is busy being played here in South Africa, therefore the normal school holidays were changed to suit the soccer. This worked perfectly into my favour and we decided to take a really long holiday on the boat. However because we have just bought the boat we had lots of visitors down to come and see and give their individual stamp of approval so to say. Our first visitors, Jason, Tammy, and kids arrived the day after we got here, so little had been done before they arrived. First we took them out into the harbour and then I asked if they wanted to do a harbour tour or go into the ocean for a sail.
The answer was obvious and I believe that both Tammy and Jason are now sold on sailing and are possibly going to see us on occasion somewhere around the globe once we manage to get going, if not sell up everything they own and buy their own boat. The evening was ended with a braai at the club house and after twisting Jason’s arm for about a micro second they decided that they would sleep over on the boat and head back to there holiday destination of St Lucia in the morning.
The morning came with the obvious bad luck and headache that always follows an evening of over indulgence. I believe that it is the Lord’s way of trying to make me behave with dignity instead, but I am sadly a very slow learner and seem to make the same mistakes all the time. So whilst attempting to climb off the boat I felt something slip out of my hands and watched in absolute horror as my car keys slowly sank into the depths. Jason attempted a dive rescue but after a few attempts came up empty handed. So now we were stranded without road transport.
Quite some time has passed since the last time I’ve written, not that I have been too busy because I haven’t, but my routine has been turned upside down this month. Firstly the Fifa soccer world cup is busy being played here in South Africa, therefore the normal school holidays were changed to suit the soccer. This worked perfectly into my favour and we decided to take a really long holiday on the boat. However because we have just bought the boat we had lots of visitors down to come and see and give their individual stamp of approval so to say. Our first visitors, Jason, Tammy, and kids arrived the day after we got here, so little had been done before they arrived. First we took them out into the harbour and then I asked if they wanted to do a harbour tour or go into the ocean for a sail.
The answer was obvious and I believe that both Tammy and Jason are now sold on sailing and are possibly going to see us on occasion somewhere around the globe once we manage to get going, if not sell up everything they own and buy their own boat. The evening was ended with a braai at the club house and after twisting Jason’s arm for about a micro second they decided that they would sleep over on the boat and head back to there holiday destination of St Lucia in the morning.
The morning came with the obvious bad luck and headache that always follows an evening of over indulgence. I believe that it is the Lord’s way of trying to make me behave with dignity instead, but I am sadly a very slow learner and seem to make the same mistakes all the time. So whilst attempting to climb off the boat I felt something slip out of my hands and watched in absolute horror as my car keys slowly sank into the depths. Jason attempted a dive rescue but after a few attempts came up empty handed. So now we were stranded without road transport.
Cruising Kitty
1 June 2010
The question of how we expect to afford this trip comes up all the time. Well, we have some properties that we will rent out. This will hopefully provide some of the income required. We also have some Google ads on the website, if someone goes to the website and clicks on the ads we earn a few cents, this will hopefully provide some small income as well. Then we have joined some affiliate programmes that sell products and e-products, and hopefully somebody buys some of these products as another source of income. None of these mentioned above have brought in any money yet, except for the properties, but these are not fully paid up yet, so hopefully they will bring in something once we get going. If not, well there is always fishing for food and growing veggies on the boat as an alternative. I am not sure if the alternative will work at all as even now being at home with lots of fertile soil around me in my yard, I haven’t been able to grow anything substantial or edible!
The question of how we expect to afford this trip comes up all the time. Well, we have some properties that we will rent out. This will hopefully provide some of the income required. We also have some Google ads on the website, if someone goes to the website and clicks on the ads we earn a few cents, this will hopefully provide some small income as well. Then we have joined some affiliate programmes that sell products and e-products, and hopefully somebody buys some of these products as another source of income. None of these mentioned above have brought in any money yet, except for the properties, but these are not fully paid up yet, so hopefully they will bring in something once we get going. If not, well there is always fishing for food and growing veggies on the boat as an alternative. I am not sure if the alternative will work at all as even now being at home with lots of fertile soil around me in my yard, I haven’t been able to grow anything substantial or edible!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Nightmares can be a reality too!
I went to Catholic school for Grade 1 and sometime during the year we were all asked by the teacher what we wanted to become one day when we are older. I listened to the other kids in the classroom one by one as they told the teacher about their dream of becoming a teacher, a doctor or an accountant and patiently waited for my turn to come. Eventually my turn did come, but when I told the teacher that I wanted to become an Indian the whole class burst into laughter. I did not see this as funny and thought that the class and teacher were laughing because they didn’t understand my dream properly, so I immediately started to explain that I didn’t want to be an Indian from India but that I wanted to become a red Indian that rides his pony in the plains of America and hunts buffalo for meat. This brought even more laughter and after what felt like a life time the teacher managed to control the little fits that she was experiencing and started to explain to me that this dream could never become a reality as it had to be something that you were born to be and wasn’t possible to become.
This was a reality checkpoint in my life, one that wasn’t easy for a young man to comprehend. The thing that I remember the most about that day besides the absolute embarrassment that I felt was the look on her face as she tried to explain the facts of the impossibility of the dream to me. The look that she gave me that day is hard to explain even now as an adult.
I am not sure if she was disappointed or shocked or just simply amused, but it is a look that will be in my memory forever. Now forty years down the line I see that same look from some of the people that I speak to and explain my new dream to. The moment I mention going on a sailing boat around the world the look arrives on their faces. To this day I am still not sure if the look is one of approval or dismay.
Nightmares can become reality.
More than once in my blog I have mentioned the fear of something happening to the boat whilst we are away. Well this last weekend trip to Richards bay was proof that not just dreams but also nightmares can become reality. Greg called me last week some time and informed me that he had received the balance of the money for the boat. He also then told me that the keys for the boat are on the boat in the usual place. Instant panic sets in and I discuss all the possibilities with Lola about all the things that could go wrong at this point.
Being the absolute paranoid people that we have become living here in Africa we quickly convince ourselves that leaving the keys in the usual place on the boat may be a good idea if you lived in Canada or New Zealand, but living in Africa, this is not just a bad idea but that by the time we manage to start the car and get to Richards bay the boat will be somewhere in Mozambique. So a trip to Richards bay is on the cards and we can no longer afford to wait the four weeks till June the 10th.
We decided that we would borrow a GPS from Wiekus and set the shortest route and get on our way straight after school on Friday. As luck would have it Rauen has a function at school on Friday afternoon till five and we can thus only get on our way at this time. So off we head at five with the sun about to set in an hour or so. The GPS tells us to get onto the N17 toll road and we promptly follow this instruction. This part of the journey goes off very well as the road surface is good and I feel we will be there in no time at all. At the end of this almost perfect piece of tar the GPS tells us to turn right towards Standerton. Then the nightmare begins, the sign said potholes for ten kilometres, there is no real road only potholes the size of the car everywhere. We land up being able to travel along at 30 km per hour for the entire 70 km piece of the journey. Next the road between Standerton and Volksrust. You know that time of the evening when it is not dark enough for your lights to be visible but you cannot see anything because it is to dark but not dark enough, well this piece of the journey was driven in that light with lunatics that have super twilight vision in trucks, carrying huge loads of coal, trying to speed along at one hundred and sixty km per hour. Yes, it was only a matter of time before one of them rolled his truck across the road. Luckily he didn’t kill anyone by this reckless driving technique. After we avoided the upside down truck the GPS instructed us to proceed from Volksrust to Ultrecht on a sand road over a mountain pass, and half way through, stopped working just before it told us which turn to take next. At this point we decided that road maps in a road atlas are so much better and we will in future always follow the charts so to speak. The rest of the trip down saw us avoiding large logs falling off the back of a truck on the next mountain pass. We eventually arrived at ZYC at 00h35.
Something did not feel right and we left the kids asleep in the car in order to go and open the yacht, but when we got to the slip where she was supposed to be my nightmares became reality. She was gone, nowhere to be seen, yet again panic sets in. Lola and I run around frantically from slip to slip trying to find her, all the time trying to think what to do next, who can we contact for help at this hour, has she really been stolen or did Greg take us for a ride and had he planned to sail away with our money from the start. These were some of the thoughts that ran through our minds whilst running around the marina trying to find the boat. Then she appeared, tied to another yacht next to the wall.
The emotions now go from relief for one minute to anger for the next. Who moved our yacht? And why did no one bother to inform us that she was going to be moved? And how were we going to get from the wall over someone else’s boat onto our boat with our kids? The wall was about a metre away from the other boat, and everything was wet and slippery from the dew. After a while we managed to calm down to a mild panic and fetch the kids from the car.
I pulled the ropes till the other boat was as close to the wall as I could get it and everybody jumped across. The next morning we went to meet Charles the manager of ZYC and he explained why our boat had been towed to the wall. It is amazing how things always look so much better after some sleep.
We decided that we would get some cleaning materials in town and head out for a sail around the harbour in order to familiarize ourselves with the area. After we purchased a harbour chart from the chandlery we started the motors and cast off the lines. Lola had to keep on running indoors to check the chart and pilot guide every time I saw a marker and said “So what marker is that and which side is the safe side to steer?” After a while she got quite mad with me and told me that next time I have to first give her some time to study the chart before we go.
This was our first trip on s/v Debenair, soon to be Yrumoar, and she motored along at 4 knots speed over ground at 1500 rpm. The trip around the harbour lasted for four hours and included pointing the nose out into the ocean. We could not raise any sails as the fitting of the solid bimini had totally ruined the sail plan. This will have to be task number two as task number one will have to be the fixing of the newly fitted solid bimini which was very poorly done.
By the time we got back to the marina, the tide had changed to low tide, and now not only was the boat that we tied onto about a metre away from the wall but the wall was about a metre higher. So we were stuck on the boat until the next high tide at about 10 am the next morning.
The homeward part of our journey went smoothly and we arrived home safely at about 8pm after leaving Richards bay at 1pm.
This was a reality checkpoint in my life, one that wasn’t easy for a young man to comprehend. The thing that I remember the most about that day besides the absolute embarrassment that I felt was the look on her face as she tried to explain the facts of the impossibility of the dream to me. The look that she gave me that day is hard to explain even now as an adult.
I am not sure if she was disappointed or shocked or just simply amused, but it is a look that will be in my memory forever. Now forty years down the line I see that same look from some of the people that I speak to and explain my new dream to. The moment I mention going on a sailing boat around the world the look arrives on their faces. To this day I am still not sure if the look is one of approval or dismay.
Nightmares can become reality.
More than once in my blog I have mentioned the fear of something happening to the boat whilst we are away. Well this last weekend trip to Richards bay was proof that not just dreams but also nightmares can become reality. Greg called me last week some time and informed me that he had received the balance of the money for the boat. He also then told me that the keys for the boat are on the boat in the usual place. Instant panic sets in and I discuss all the possibilities with Lola about all the things that could go wrong at this point.
Being the absolute paranoid people that we have become living here in Africa we quickly convince ourselves that leaving the keys in the usual place on the boat may be a good idea if you lived in Canada or New Zealand, but living in Africa, this is not just a bad idea but that by the time we manage to start the car and get to Richards bay the boat will be somewhere in Mozambique. So a trip to Richards bay is on the cards and we can no longer afford to wait the four weeks till June the 10th.
We decided that we would borrow a GPS from Wiekus and set the shortest route and get on our way straight after school on Friday. As luck would have it Rauen has a function at school on Friday afternoon till five and we can thus only get on our way at this time. So off we head at five with the sun about to set in an hour or so. The GPS tells us to get onto the N17 toll road and we promptly follow this instruction. This part of the journey goes off very well as the road surface is good and I feel we will be there in no time at all. At the end of this almost perfect piece of tar the GPS tells us to turn right towards Standerton. Then the nightmare begins, the sign said potholes for ten kilometres, there is no real road only potholes the size of the car everywhere. We land up being able to travel along at 30 km per hour for the entire 70 km piece of the journey. Next the road between Standerton and Volksrust. You know that time of the evening when it is not dark enough for your lights to be visible but you cannot see anything because it is to dark but not dark enough, well this piece of the journey was driven in that light with lunatics that have super twilight vision in trucks, carrying huge loads of coal, trying to speed along at one hundred and sixty km per hour. Yes, it was only a matter of time before one of them rolled his truck across the road. Luckily he didn’t kill anyone by this reckless driving technique. After we avoided the upside down truck the GPS instructed us to proceed from Volksrust to Ultrecht on a sand road over a mountain pass, and half way through, stopped working just before it told us which turn to take next. At this point we decided that road maps in a road atlas are so much better and we will in future always follow the charts so to speak. The rest of the trip down saw us avoiding large logs falling off the back of a truck on the next mountain pass. We eventually arrived at ZYC at 00h35.
Something did not feel right and we left the kids asleep in the car in order to go and open the yacht, but when we got to the slip where she was supposed to be my nightmares became reality. She was gone, nowhere to be seen, yet again panic sets in. Lola and I run around frantically from slip to slip trying to find her, all the time trying to think what to do next, who can we contact for help at this hour, has she really been stolen or did Greg take us for a ride and had he planned to sail away with our money from the start. These were some of the thoughts that ran through our minds whilst running around the marina trying to find the boat. Then she appeared, tied to another yacht next to the wall.
Our Yacht tied to the other yacht.
The emotions now go from relief for one minute to anger for the next. Who moved our yacht? And why did no one bother to inform us that she was going to be moved? And how were we going to get from the wall over someone else’s boat onto our boat with our kids? The wall was about a metre away from the other boat, and everything was wet and slippery from the dew. After a while we managed to calm down to a mild panic and fetch the kids from the car.
I pulled the ropes till the other boat was as close to the wall as I could get it and everybody jumped across. The next morning we went to meet Charles the manager of ZYC and he explained why our boat had been towed to the wall. It is amazing how things always look so much better after some sleep.
We decided that we would get some cleaning materials in town and head out for a sail around the harbour in order to familiarize ourselves with the area. After we purchased a harbour chart from the chandlery we started the motors and cast off the lines. Lola had to keep on running indoors to check the chart and pilot guide every time I saw a marker and said “So what marker is that and which side is the safe side to steer?” After a while she got quite mad with me and told me that next time I have to first give her some time to study the chart before we go.
This was our first trip on s/v Debenair, soon to be Yrumoar, and she motored along at 4 knots speed over ground at 1500 rpm. The trip around the harbour lasted for four hours and included pointing the nose out into the ocean. We could not raise any sails as the fitting of the solid bimini had totally ruined the sail plan. This will have to be task number two as task number one will have to be the fixing of the newly fitted solid bimini which was very poorly done.
By the time we got back to the marina, the tide had changed to low tide, and now not only was the boat that we tied onto about a metre away from the wall but the wall was about a metre higher. So we were stuck on the boat until the next high tide at about 10 am the next morning.
View from the cockpit tied to the wall
The homeward part of our journey went smoothly and we arrived home safely at about 8pm after leaving Richards bay at 1pm.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Yrumoar is ours!
04 May 2010
I contacted the previous and original owner of the boat last night to see if he could tell me the history of the future Yrumoar. He told me that he is not much of a sailor but that a friend convinced him that sailing was the way forward and he then had her built by a boatyard somewhere in Cape Town. She was launched in 1994 and after some sea trials one of the guys working at the boatyard sailed her up from Cape Town to Richards bay and Bennie took delivery of her. Bennie went on about two short sails of about 15 miles in total out of the harbour and then decided that he is definitely not a sailor. She then landed up floating at the marina walk-on for a period of time before he had her transported to his farm where she stood on the hard for a number of years. Bennie then sold her to Greg who did some work on her to suit his requirements, who then sold her to us. Not much of an exploring history for her, but this is about to change.
Lolly Jackson was murdered last night somewhere in Kempton Park. This was the breaking news for the day. He was the owner of a few businesses here in South Africa but was most known for being the owner of a number of strip clubs named Teasers. I would assume that being in his kind of industry would attract a lot of enemies.
12 May 2010
The bond on our house was finally settled today and thus we will be able to pay the balance of the boat’s money across to Greg, making Yrumoar a reality at last. I have been trying to contact Greg all morning to make the final arrangements but it appears that he is not available. We now have a long wait till the 9th of June ahead of us before we can go down to Yrumoar. Everything has been hanging in libido for some time now waiting for the banks and lawyers and we have been unable to do anything or spend any money in case something went wrong with the bond application, and we had to come up with a different way of obtaining the money to pay for the boat. No, we did not really have a contingency plan but would have considered robbing a bank or doing a “cash in transit” heist if we had to.
Now the work begins, we have to finish some of the half finished projects around the house in order to get the house ready for rental or sale, we are not sure yet whether to rent it out or sell it. This decision will have to be made before December. Once the house is ready we have to start preparing the boat for the journey. We have given ourselves about a year for the preparations and sea trials starting from next year. However a wise sailor once told me “make no plans, and stick to it”. So we shall see.
13 May 2010
Sitting at my desk at work looking at the picture of Yrumoar, which is my screensaver on my computer, and I start to daydream. When we bought our last boat, Bluefin at the Vaal we went down afterwards and checked the mooring lines and made sure that they were in good condition. We had to replace some of them so we bought some rope and made new lines. We also had to get some fairleads and fit them in order to stop the chaffing of the lines on the fibreglass. Now our new boat Yrumoar is floating at ZYC in Richards Bay, which is one hell of a long drive away, and we haven’t been able to go down since she became ours to check the mooring lines or see if she requires fairleads. We are only able to go down in about 4 weeks time at the beginning of June, but I’m not sure if we will be able to wait that long. I keep thinking that since I myself haven’t made and tied the lines to the marina they may not hold, and off she will float on a journey all by herself. The other panic that I feel is that one of the through hull fittings has not been closed and she springs a leak, and the bilge pump fails, glug glug glug. Down she goes. I want to phone the yacht club and ask someone to go and check up if she is still floating where I last saw her, but don’t know a single soul at the club. We left in such a hurry last time that I forgot to get a number for Ian who’s boat, Ocean Spray, is moored across from Yrumoar. Ian is the only person that we met on our last visit that I can remember.
18 May 2010
We seem to have reached a point where we have nothing interesting to say anymore. It is becoming harder and harder to make up a conversation about the trip ahead as we seem to have discussed all that there is to say.
19 May 2010
Just when we thought we have no more to say Lola and I had a small celebration last night to celebrate that we have passed our SSB radio licence without writing the test again. Okay to explain, a few days ago we contacted ICASA and made an appointment to write our SSB radio licence exam. When ICASA sent us the study material we noticed that it is the same as the last exam that we have already written, some time ago. When we wrote this original exam we didn’t have the correct study material, and it was like writing a Geography exam after you have studied for History, but we all passed anyway. It so happens that we wrote both the VHF and the SSB exam that day using the VHF study notes that we got from Offshore Sailing Academy, so needless to say we had absolutely no idea as to some of the questions and what the possible answers should be, but as luck would have it, the exam was multiple choice and thus we must have guessed the correct options.
We also spoke about what each of us is expecting from this planned trip and I was very surprised that I had no idea that Lola was excited about such different things to me. Lola is looking forward to Home Schooling the kids and, I did guess this one, studying the history of the countries that we visit. I on the other hand, am looking forward to the actual sailing and crossing of oceans, also the time that can be spent alone whilst on watch, time to reflect.
We are both looking forward to the many different cultures of the people that we would meet, and of course the beautiful sites that we will see. In order to get some assistance in the finance department I told Lola that perhaps with the use of Paypal we could get interested people to “buy us a local food” from which ever country we would be visiting. I would then be the guinea pig and eat this foreign food on a short video that interested people could watch and they would then get the opportunity to experience the whole thing virtually. I am hoping that I don’t die from this as I believe that some countries eat very weird stuff like worms, rats and bat wings.
I contacted the previous and original owner of the boat last night to see if he could tell me the history of the future Yrumoar. He told me that he is not much of a sailor but that a friend convinced him that sailing was the way forward and he then had her built by a boatyard somewhere in Cape Town. She was launched in 1994 and after some sea trials one of the guys working at the boatyard sailed her up from Cape Town to Richards bay and Bennie took delivery of her. Bennie went on about two short sails of about 15 miles in total out of the harbour and then decided that he is definitely not a sailor. She then landed up floating at the marina walk-on for a period of time before he had her transported to his farm where she stood on the hard for a number of years. Bennie then sold her to Greg who did some work on her to suit his requirements, who then sold her to us. Not much of an exploring history for her, but this is about to change.
Lolly Jackson was murdered last night somewhere in Kempton Park. This was the breaking news for the day. He was the owner of a few businesses here in South Africa but was most known for being the owner of a number of strip clubs named Teasers. I would assume that being in his kind of industry would attract a lot of enemies.
12 May 2010
The bond on our house was finally settled today and thus we will be able to pay the balance of the boat’s money across to Greg, making Yrumoar a reality at last. I have been trying to contact Greg all morning to make the final arrangements but it appears that he is not available. We now have a long wait till the 9th of June ahead of us before we can go down to Yrumoar. Everything has been hanging in libido for some time now waiting for the banks and lawyers and we have been unable to do anything or spend any money in case something went wrong with the bond application, and we had to come up with a different way of obtaining the money to pay for the boat. No, we did not really have a contingency plan but would have considered robbing a bank or doing a “cash in transit” heist if we had to.
Now the work begins, we have to finish some of the half finished projects around the house in order to get the house ready for rental or sale, we are not sure yet whether to rent it out or sell it. This decision will have to be made before December. Once the house is ready we have to start preparing the boat for the journey. We have given ourselves about a year for the preparations and sea trials starting from next year. However a wise sailor once told me “make no plans, and stick to it”. So we shall see.
13 May 2010
Sitting at my desk at work looking at the picture of Yrumoar, which is my screensaver on my computer, and I start to daydream. When we bought our last boat, Bluefin at the Vaal we went down afterwards and checked the mooring lines and made sure that they were in good condition. We had to replace some of them so we bought some rope and made new lines. We also had to get some fairleads and fit them in order to stop the chaffing of the lines on the fibreglass. Now our new boat Yrumoar is floating at ZYC in Richards Bay, which is one hell of a long drive away, and we haven’t been able to go down since she became ours to check the mooring lines or see if she requires fairleads. We are only able to go down in about 4 weeks time at the beginning of June, but I’m not sure if we will be able to wait that long. I keep thinking that since I myself haven’t made and tied the lines to the marina they may not hold, and off she will float on a journey all by herself. The other panic that I feel is that one of the through hull fittings has not been closed and she springs a leak, and the bilge pump fails, glug glug glug. Down she goes. I want to phone the yacht club and ask someone to go and check up if she is still floating where I last saw her, but don’t know a single soul at the club. We left in such a hurry last time that I forgot to get a number for Ian who’s boat, Ocean Spray, is moored across from Yrumoar. Ian is the only person that we met on our last visit that I can remember.
18 May 2010
We seem to have reached a point where we have nothing interesting to say anymore. It is becoming harder and harder to make up a conversation about the trip ahead as we seem to have discussed all that there is to say.
19 May 2010
Just when we thought we have no more to say Lola and I had a small celebration last night to celebrate that we have passed our SSB radio licence without writing the test again. Okay to explain, a few days ago we contacted ICASA and made an appointment to write our SSB radio licence exam. When ICASA sent us the study material we noticed that it is the same as the last exam that we have already written, some time ago. When we wrote this original exam we didn’t have the correct study material, and it was like writing a Geography exam after you have studied for History, but we all passed anyway. It so happens that we wrote both the VHF and the SSB exam that day using the VHF study notes that we got from Offshore Sailing Academy, so needless to say we had absolutely no idea as to some of the questions and what the possible answers should be, but as luck would have it, the exam was multiple choice and thus we must have guessed the correct options.
We also spoke about what each of us is expecting from this planned trip and I was very surprised that I had no idea that Lola was excited about such different things to me. Lola is looking forward to Home Schooling the kids and, I did guess this one, studying the history of the countries that we visit. I on the other hand, am looking forward to the actual sailing and crossing of oceans, also the time that can be spent alone whilst on watch, time to reflect.
We are both looking forward to the many different cultures of the people that we would meet, and of course the beautiful sites that we will see. In order to get some assistance in the finance department I told Lola that perhaps with the use of Paypal we could get interested people to “buy us a local food” from which ever country we would be visiting. I would then be the guinea pig and eat this foreign food on a short video that interested people could watch and they would then get the opportunity to experience the whole thing virtually. I am hoping that I don’t die from this as I believe that some countries eat very weird stuff like worms, rats and bat wings.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Back to Richards Bay
21 Apr. 10
We will be going down to Richards Bay this weekend to hopefully study the boat and check the condition of the sails, rigging etc. Last time we were at Zululand Yacht Club we didn’t really check this and so we are going to check. I am hoping to take her around the harbour for a test run on the motors and perhaps a short sail to ensure that all is working. As we all know boats are never all working so perhaps we are actually going to check what needs to be placed on the list for repairs.
29 Apr. 10
We left at 04h00 on Saturday morning as opposed to the planned 02h00 leaving time because the weather was too wet and we didn’t want to spend to much time travelling in the dark, we also wanted to avoid crossing over Van Reenen mountain pass in the dark as it can be quick foggy in the pass and visibility is very limited. Arrived at Zululand Yacht Club just after lunch time and convinced the security guard at the gate to allow us entrance by telling him that our yacht was on the marina. Technically it is not our yacht yet but we have paid about forty percent so far so it wasn’t a total lie.
The weather in Richards bay was cold, wet and miserable, and the weather forecast stated that the seas would be rough with 5 metre waves at 6 second intervals.
The current owner of our soon to be new home Greg met us later on the yacht and we met his girlfriend from Thailand, Pooye. I am not sure how to spell her name so I hope I didn’t offend her with my attempt at spelling.
Staying on the yacht for the weekend with Greg, his son Nathan, Greg’s Girlfriend Pooye and Nathan’s Fiancé Dominique was surreal, because we didn’t really know any of them except for the previous visit when we made the offer on the boat, and we sort of invited ourselves down for the weekend as we had to join the yacht club and make arrangements to take over the walk on mooring. So every now and then I would tell Lola that maybe we should have booked into a bed and breakfast, and she would agree, but then we convinced ourselves that it was only for a short period of time and that we would survive.
We went down to the pier to look at the ocean as I wanted to see how rough the conditions were. The harbour had been closed to small craft due to the conditions. A small swell was coming into the yacht club marina and you could see the water breaking on the breakwater walls. So we drove down to the beach, parked the car and went for a walk on the pier. Kyle was petrified as he watched the waves coming in as they seemed to be rather large and it looked as if they would sweep you off the pier into the ocean. It took some convincing and persuasion to make him walk onto the pier and I had to assure him that the worst that could happen was that a wave would break over the pier and he may get wet. After we walked about halfway down the pier a large wave broke over the side and all of us got soaked, all except Rauen, the wave seemed to go over him and connected the rest of us on the opposite side of the pier. At this point Kyle realised that I wasn’t lying to him and suddenly he was the bravest kid in the world.
The rest of the time Rauen tried to get soaked but it was as if he had water repellent spray on him and no matter how hard he tried the spray just managed to avoid him. People all around him got soaked and every time he moved to a new spot the old place where he had been standing got soaked.
We spent the evening in the bar at the yacht club with some very festive people. Luckily for me Lola kept some sense and dragged me away from the festivities at about midnight, before my behaviour got out of hand. I had a few brandy’s and a couple of something called a Handgrenade. Whenever I drink shooters I tend to get memory loss and can’t remember what I got up to. This has led to some embarrassing situations in the past as I tend to make promises to do things with someone the next day and then can’t remember even meeting them, let alone going on some or other rock climbing or mountain biking expedition.
On Sunday morning we met a long term cruiser called Ian on a steel boat called Ocean Spray. He and his wife had just got back from Indonesia through some rough oceans around the southern tip of Madagascar where they broke some of the rigging on their boat. He told me that they had 11 metre swells for about 22 days, not the type of conditions that allow for pleasant sailing. Ian said he would keep an eye on our yacht whilst we were away, thanks Ian.
The office at the yacht club was open on Monday morning so we went to sign up as new members. This is not as simple as it seems, someone has to propose you as a new member then someone else has to second this. After these people have done this you have to attend an interview with the committee and then a decision will be made if you are allowed to join. How you would join the club if you don’t know anyone, I don’t know. Anyway Greg said he would propose us and he would find a second for us, thanks Greg. Our meeting with the committee has been set for the 21st June.
Hopefully we fit the criteria.
We will be going down to Richards Bay this weekend to hopefully study the boat and check the condition of the sails, rigging etc. Last time we were at Zululand Yacht Club we didn’t really check this and so we are going to check. I am hoping to take her around the harbour for a test run on the motors and perhaps a short sail to ensure that all is working. As we all know boats are never all working so perhaps we are actually going to check what needs to be placed on the list for repairs.
29 Apr. 10
We left at 04h00 on Saturday morning as opposed to the planned 02h00 leaving time because the weather was too wet and we didn’t want to spend to much time travelling in the dark, we also wanted to avoid crossing over Van Reenen mountain pass in the dark as it can be quick foggy in the pass and visibility is very limited. Arrived at Zululand Yacht Club just after lunch time and convinced the security guard at the gate to allow us entrance by telling him that our yacht was on the marina. Technically it is not our yacht yet but we have paid about forty percent so far so it wasn’t a total lie.
The weather in Richards bay was cold, wet and miserable, and the weather forecast stated that the seas would be rough with 5 metre waves at 6 second intervals.
Staying on the yacht for the weekend with Greg, his son Nathan, Greg’s Girlfriend Pooye and Nathan’s Fiancé Dominique was surreal, because we didn’t really know any of them except for the previous visit when we made the offer on the boat, and we sort of invited ourselves down for the weekend as we had to join the yacht club and make arrangements to take over the walk on mooring. So every now and then I would tell Lola that maybe we should have booked into a bed and breakfast, and she would agree, but then we convinced ourselves that it was only for a short period of time and that we would survive.
We went down to the pier to look at the ocean as I wanted to see how rough the conditions were. The harbour had been closed to small craft due to the conditions. A small swell was coming into the yacht club marina and you could see the water breaking on the breakwater walls. So we drove down to the beach, parked the car and went for a walk on the pier. Kyle was petrified as he watched the waves coming in as they seemed to be rather large and it looked as if they would sweep you off the pier into the ocean. It took some convincing and persuasion to make him walk onto the pier and I had to assure him that the worst that could happen was that a wave would break over the pier and he may get wet. After we walked about halfway down the pier a large wave broke over the side and all of us got soaked, all except Rauen, the wave seemed to go over him and connected the rest of us on the opposite side of the pier. At this point Kyle realised that I wasn’t lying to him and suddenly he was the bravest kid in the world.
On Sunday morning we met a long term cruiser called Ian on a steel boat called Ocean Spray. He and his wife had just got back from Indonesia through some rough oceans around the southern tip of Madagascar where they broke some of the rigging on their boat. He told me that they had 11 metre swells for about 22 days, not the type of conditions that allow for pleasant sailing. Ian said he would keep an eye on our yacht whilst we were away, thanks Ian.
The office at the yacht club was open on Monday morning so we went to sign up as new members. This is not as simple as it seems, someone has to propose you as a new member then someone else has to second this. After these people have done this you have to attend an interview with the committee and then a decision will be made if you are allowed to join. How you would join the club if you don’t know anyone, I don’t know. Anyway Greg said he would propose us and he would find a second for us, thanks Greg. Our meeting with the committee has been set for the 21st June.
Hopefully we fit the criteria.
15 Apr. 10
When I read back through my Blog I notice that most of my typing is done on a Thursday. This must be the day of the week that I work the least and have the most time, or perhaps it is because the next day is Friday and the end of the week. On the weekends I seem to have so much time but don’t seem to get anything done, just and observation.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Sailing Course in Langebaan
9th April 2010
No politics today, just want to reflect on the sailing course that we attended. When we arrived at Cape Town Airport we had to find our luggage on a very poorly marked conveyor. This was not the case at Oliver Tambo in Joey’s that is well marked out at the luggage conveyors. After finding our luggage we proceeded to Avis rent a car to collect our bottom of the range Kia and travelled by road to Langebaan. The first impression that you get of Cape Town when you get out of the airport is the view of Table Mountain. This beautiful scene is then destroyed when you glance next to the freeway and see all the tin shacks and the absolute poverty of Africa.
As you drive along to Langebaan you leave the built up area and start to see the natural Cape bush called fynbos, looks a bit like a semi desert and has very few trees. Once we arrived in Langebaan we found the sail training school offices in the mall quite easily from the directions that they supplied, not that I believe you could really get lost here as their is not very much out there. The owner of the sailing school Jaco met us at the office and led us down to the marina at Mykonos.
Jaco then left us at the marina to look around whilst he tried to organise a yacht for us to use for the sailing course as the Wildcat that he used before had been sold. After a couple of hours of walking around on the marina and waiting we started to become worried that Jaco was not able to arrange a catamaran for the course and called him to ask for a progress report so that we could unload the rental car and have a place to put our stuff, and a place to sleep for the night. We agreed to sleep on a L34 for that night as the cat that Jaco had arranged would only become available later that night. So we unpacked the rental car and met two other guys on the L34 that were also on course. We grabbed an early night and in the morning went off to Avis to return the rental and met at the sailing school to start our course.
Day 1: Spent till about lunch time at the training school office and discussed planned routes, and bought some provisions from Pick and Pay. Thereafter we moved our stuff from the L34 to an Ocean Spirit 401.
The owner of the cat then took us for a quick motor sail in the Harbour to show Jaco the basic workings of the yacht. After we dropped the owner and his son back at the marina, we motor sailed to Saldana bay yacht club for an evening braai. On the way we noticed that the Port engine does not pump water and was starting to overheat and smoke, the owner had told us that he had a problem with the port motor and had just replaced the impeller, but this was obviously not the only problem. We continued with our journey and tied up at the yacht club, after the braai we went to sleep.
Day 2 : Motored around the harbour for about three hours trying to fix the port engine, but to no avail. Then we were supposed to sail on to Dassen island but Jaco decided that we should rather head for danger bay. We sailed in swells of about three meters to danger bay and dropped anchor for the night, in a beautiful and totally secluded anchorage. We set the anchor alarm and had to reset it during the night, but the anchor did not drag, we must have set the alarm too sensitive.
Day 3: Sailed back to Mykonos in almost perfect sailing conditions.
Day 4: Sailed from Mykonos to Paternoster, dropped anchor and used the dingy to shore to the restaurant. Later on the way back in the dingy a wave crashed over all of us and needless to say the very cold water of the Atlantic ocean was not pleasant.
Day 5: Sailed a couple of hours then motored back to Mykonos, to fill up with diesel. We then navigated through the narrow channels of the lagoon and anchored at Kraalbaai.
Day 6: Motored back to Mykonos, collected our upgraded car, departed back to Cape Town international airport and then on to Gauteng to row with the other slaves.
No politics today, just want to reflect on the sailing course that we attended. When we arrived at Cape Town Airport we had to find our luggage on a very poorly marked conveyor. This was not the case at Oliver Tambo in Joey’s that is well marked out at the luggage conveyors. After finding our luggage we proceeded to Avis rent a car to collect our bottom of the range Kia and travelled by road to Langebaan. The first impression that you get of Cape Town when you get out of the airport is the view of Table Mountain. This beautiful scene is then destroyed when you glance next to the freeway and see all the tin shacks and the absolute poverty of Africa.
Day 1: Spent till about lunch time at the training school office and discussed planned routes, and bought some provisions from Pick and Pay. Thereafter we moved our stuff from the L34 to an Ocean Spirit 401.
The owner of the cat then took us for a quick motor sail in the Harbour to show Jaco the basic workings of the yacht. After we dropped the owner and his son back at the marina, we motor sailed to Saldana bay yacht club for an evening braai. On the way we noticed that the Port engine does not pump water and was starting to overheat and smoke, the owner had told us that he had a problem with the port motor and had just replaced the impeller, but this was obviously not the only problem. We continued with our journey and tied up at the yacht club, after the braai we went to sleep.
Day 2 : Motored around the harbour for about three hours trying to fix the port engine, but to no avail. Then we were supposed to sail on to Dassen island but Jaco decided that we should rather head for danger bay. We sailed in swells of about three meters to danger bay and dropped anchor for the night, in a beautiful and totally secluded anchorage. We set the anchor alarm and had to reset it during the night, but the anchor did not drag, we must have set the alarm too sensitive.
Day 3: Sailed back to Mykonos in almost perfect sailing conditions.
Day 4: Sailed from Mykonos to Paternoster, dropped anchor and used the dingy to shore to the restaurant. Later on the way back in the dingy a wave crashed over all of us and needless to say the very cold water of the Atlantic ocean was not pleasant.
Day 5: Sailed a couple of hours then motored back to Mykonos, to fill up with diesel. We then navigated through the narrow channels of the lagoon and anchored at Kraalbaai.
Day 6: Motored back to Mykonos, collected our upgraded car, departed back to Cape Town international airport and then on to Gauteng to row with the other slaves.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Politics
8th April 2010
I don’t really like to speak politics being a white male in South Africa I don’t really have a right to any opinion because my ancestors had some really bad ideas and thus I will be punished for this. The Bible even tells you that you will be punished for the sins of your grandfather, or is it great grandfather. Anyway I was really proud to be a South African in the new South Africa and had great hopes that this country was going to work together and succeed. Now however at the moment things appear to be turning south faster and faster. Political statements like shoot the boer leaves me with what choice, I may not be a boer or am I. What seems to be the definition of this boer, do I fall into the boer category and how long must I wait to find out. Do I wait till they arrive at my door in large numbers to kill the boer and then try to convince them that I am an English speaking South African, will this make me not a boer. Am I now faced with the dilemma of having to choose a side and what choice do I really have? I would have to choose the white side because my skin colour is white and where does this leave me?
Every white person that I speak to has the same dilemma as I do, well okay not every white, I do know one or two white people that have never quite accepted the new South Africa and are still living in the past, I cannot help these people, nobody can. The problem at the moment being that the uncertain future will make everybody choose sides and is creating a massive rift in the country between black and white.
What about my wife and kids? I feel extremely unsafe at the moment and see no future for my kids in this country. I watch the news and see the panic on Helen Zille’s face after the murder of Terreblanche, and I think to myself, if she is panicking what does she know that I don’t? Do I go and join the ranks of the AWB because even though I have always disagreed with them and their narrow minded policies, they may be the only protection against the government and the impending war that seems to be about to begin? The history of Africa shows us just how bad Africans can behave with mass genocide being the order of the day throughout the African continent. So why would South Africa be any different?
I don’t really like to speak politics being a white male in South Africa I don’t really have a right to any opinion because my ancestors had some really bad ideas and thus I will be punished for this. The Bible even tells you that you will be punished for the sins of your grandfather, or is it great grandfather. Anyway I was really proud to be a South African in the new South Africa and had great hopes that this country was going to work together and succeed. Now however at the moment things appear to be turning south faster and faster. Political statements like shoot the boer leaves me with what choice, I may not be a boer or am I. What seems to be the definition of this boer, do I fall into the boer category and how long must I wait to find out. Do I wait till they arrive at my door in large numbers to kill the boer and then try to convince them that I am an English speaking South African, will this make me not a boer. Am I now faced with the dilemma of having to choose a side and what choice do I really have? I would have to choose the white side because my skin colour is white and where does this leave me?
Every white person that I speak to has the same dilemma as I do, well okay not every white, I do know one or two white people that have never quite accepted the new South Africa and are still living in the past, I cannot help these people, nobody can. The problem at the moment being that the uncertain future will make everybody choose sides and is creating a massive rift in the country between black and white.
What about my wife and kids? I feel extremely unsafe at the moment and see no future for my kids in this country. I watch the news and see the panic on Helen Zille’s face after the murder of Terreblanche, and I think to myself, if she is panicking what does she know that I don’t? Do I go and join the ranks of the AWB because even though I have always disagreed with them and their narrow minded policies, they may be the only protection against the government and the impending war that seems to be about to begin? The history of Africa shows us just how bad Africans can behave with mass genocide being the order of the day throughout the African continent. So why would South Africa be any different?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Coastal Skippers Course
Went into the bathroom at work today and found toilet paper pieces all over the place, so I started to wonder if someone in the office has a shredder butt, there can be no other explanation for this phenomenon, at home this never happens, but at the office I see it all the time. Fortunately the paper is unused so maybe they have shredder hands or just don’t know how to use toilet paper, perhaps we need to offer a training course at the office for this complicated process.
Coastal skipper practical done, or at least a part of it, sailing on a cat for the first time, what can I say, I am sold. Cat sailing is no different to sailing a monohull, except that the cat does not heel over and that it is noisy with the water slamming a lot under the bridge deck. This slamming was not uncomfortable but did take some getting used to. We did not experience any bad weather so I am not sure how uncomfortable this slamming can become, however at 20 knots of wind the sailing can be very exhilarating and exciting. The cat feels very stable and nothing moves from the place where you have left it. I remember that on our Vivacity we had to make sure that everything was stacked securely before you set sail, we used to put the cold drinks into the sink in order to ensure that they didn’t fall around all over the place but were still easy to reach when needed. On the cat you could just leave your glass filled with cold drink anywhere you wanted and it would be just where you left it when you needed it. I am not sure if this would be the same in heavy weather but for the conditions that we experienced this held true.
The other issue that I was concerned about was tacking, I have read some where that a cat does not tack well, so we put this to the test, and I found hardly any difference to my Vivacity when it comes to tacking, granted we did have good wind which always helps when tacking any boat. I am not sure how the tacking will be in light winds, but even on my Vivacity tacking wasn’t easy without speed so I assume the cat will behave the same.
Coastal skipper practical done, or at least a part of it, sailing on a cat for the first time, what can I say, I am sold. Cat sailing is no different to sailing a monohull, except that the cat does not heel over and that it is noisy with the water slamming a lot under the bridge deck. This slamming was not uncomfortable but did take some getting used to. We did not experience any bad weather so I am not sure how uncomfortable this slamming can become, however at 20 knots of wind the sailing can be very exhilarating and exciting. The cat feels very stable and nothing moves from the place where you have left it. I remember that on our Vivacity we had to make sure that everything was stacked securely before you set sail, we used to put the cold drinks into the sink in order to ensure that they didn’t fall around all over the place but were still easy to reach when needed. On the cat you could just leave your glass filled with cold drink anywhere you wanted and it would be just where you left it when you needed it. I am not sure if this would be the same in heavy weather but for the conditions that we experienced this held true.
The other issue that I was concerned about was tacking, I have read some where that a cat does not tack well, so we put this to the test, and I found hardly any difference to my Vivacity when it comes to tacking, granted we did have good wind which always helps when tacking any boat. I am not sure how the tacking will be in light winds, but even on my Vivacity tacking wasn’t easy without speed so I assume the cat will behave the same.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
25550 days to live
09 Mar. 10
According to the Bible we have only 25 550 days to live, that is if we survive to be seventy years old. So when I get to work on a Monday and I start to wish it’s Friday then I am wasting these precious few days at my disposal. This has been an ongoing cycle for me for the past few years, so this needs to change because you only have one chance to make one day special at a time. If you waste today you cannot make up tomorrow for today, because today is gone forever and can never be replayed. I am not sure how exactly to achieve the most of each day yet, but will try different methods each day to find out how to do this. I am not saying that I need every day to be absolutely perfect but perhaps if I can achieve one or two perfect moments in each day as a starting point, then I may get closer to the goal.
My mother and stepfather came to visit me the day before yesterday uninvited, so I suppose a surprise visit. My real dad left when I was little and was never to be seen again, I heard he committed suicide a few years ago. My sense of humour is possibly a bit uncouth as I now tell people that my dad was a swinger, because he hung himself from the rafters. Hope I didn’t offend anybody. Anyway back to the visit, I say uninvited because I don’t like visitors at the best of times, and I need to be ready for visitors before they arrive thus I like some notice period. There are a few select people that can pop in at any time and I don’t mind but most of my family doesn’t fit into this category.
My stepfather and I have never really seen eye to eye, and although I try my best he seems to be able to bring out the worst in me. I always feel as if he is baiting me into an argument. I am not sure if this is my imagination or if it is real but thus I try to avoid him as much as possible. Anyway we all survived the visit and I said that we will see them again in Richards bay on Yrumoar in December, they thought this was a joke but I hope to avoid them until then…at least until then.
23 Mar. 10
The Long weekend came and went by in a flash, even though we didn’t do anything but just hung around at home, the time just flew by. I tried to teach my youngest son Kyle how to ride a bicycle this weekend but after many hours of no success I gave up and asked Lola’s dad to try, and guess what, five minutes later Kyle was riding up and down the road all by himself. I am obviously not a very good teacher for bicycles.
On Sunday this week we are flying down to Cape Town to do our practical part of our coastal skippers licence. We have arranged to rent a car in Cape Town and drive to Langebaan where the sailing school is situated. This is the only sailing school that offers the course on a catamaran so we would get our first taste of sailing on a cat. How do I feel? Exited, nervous and a whole mix of emotions that I can’t explain.
25 Mar. 10
Went surfing on the net onto Windfinder to see the forecast for the sailing course over the next few days and it seems the weather is going to play along for the first few days at least, with light winds of up to 10 Knots and wave heights of about 2 metres. The weather seems to get slightly worse here by the 30th with 20 knots and 4 metre waves. The forecast further than that is not yet available. In order to try and judge the wave heights I measured to the top of my house roof and this was about four metres, wow how high do these waves get out there? You know being on the ocean only once before on the day skippers course a few times with small waves off the coast of Durban, and then dam sailing at the Vaal Dam for the past year on weekends only, may not have prepared me for these waves. Fortunately we will have a competent skipper on board, or so I hope, as my experience is definitely not enough yet and I think this will help in gaining some much needed knowledge and hopefully some confidence.
We are packed and ready to go already but I am not sure if our Pep stores Dry-Macs are really the correct sailing gear for the Cape waters. We did ask the lady at Sail Due South training school and she advised that we should be fine as long as we have warm clothing, and that we should wait till after the course to decide to buy wet weather gear in order to see just exactly what we would require. Our plan of sailing up the east coast of Africa to more moderate climates may not require such heavy weather gear, but I don’t really know this with my limited knowledge and hope that my decision is the correct one. I do know that Lola will do lots of research before we leave so we should have a better idea. I also intend to ask advise from other sailors that have done a similar route closer to the time.
According to the Bible we have only 25 550 days to live, that is if we survive to be seventy years old. So when I get to work on a Monday and I start to wish it’s Friday then I am wasting these precious few days at my disposal. This has been an ongoing cycle for me for the past few years, so this needs to change because you only have one chance to make one day special at a time. If you waste today you cannot make up tomorrow for today, because today is gone forever and can never be replayed. I am not sure how exactly to achieve the most of each day yet, but will try different methods each day to find out how to do this. I am not saying that I need every day to be absolutely perfect but perhaps if I can achieve one or two perfect moments in each day as a starting point, then I may get closer to the goal.
My mother and stepfather came to visit me the day before yesterday uninvited, so I suppose a surprise visit. My real dad left when I was little and was never to be seen again, I heard he committed suicide a few years ago. My sense of humour is possibly a bit uncouth as I now tell people that my dad was a swinger, because he hung himself from the rafters. Hope I didn’t offend anybody. Anyway back to the visit, I say uninvited because I don’t like visitors at the best of times, and I need to be ready for visitors before they arrive thus I like some notice period. There are a few select people that can pop in at any time and I don’t mind but most of my family doesn’t fit into this category.
My stepfather and I have never really seen eye to eye, and although I try my best he seems to be able to bring out the worst in me. I always feel as if he is baiting me into an argument. I am not sure if this is my imagination or if it is real but thus I try to avoid him as much as possible. Anyway we all survived the visit and I said that we will see them again in Richards bay on Yrumoar in December, they thought this was a joke but I hope to avoid them until then…at least until then.
23 Mar. 10
The Long weekend came and went by in a flash, even though we didn’t do anything but just hung around at home, the time just flew by. I tried to teach my youngest son Kyle how to ride a bicycle this weekend but after many hours of no success I gave up and asked Lola’s dad to try, and guess what, five minutes later Kyle was riding up and down the road all by himself. I am obviously not a very good teacher for bicycles.
On Sunday this week we are flying down to Cape Town to do our practical part of our coastal skippers licence. We have arranged to rent a car in Cape Town and drive to Langebaan where the sailing school is situated. This is the only sailing school that offers the course on a catamaran so we would get our first taste of sailing on a cat. How do I feel? Exited, nervous and a whole mix of emotions that I can’t explain.
25 Mar. 10
Went surfing on the net onto Windfinder to see the forecast for the sailing course over the next few days and it seems the weather is going to play along for the first few days at least, with light winds of up to 10 Knots and wave heights of about 2 metres. The weather seems to get slightly worse here by the 30th with 20 knots and 4 metre waves. The forecast further than that is not yet available. In order to try and judge the wave heights I measured to the top of my house roof and this was about four metres, wow how high do these waves get out there? You know being on the ocean only once before on the day skippers course a few times with small waves off the coast of Durban, and then dam sailing at the Vaal Dam for the past year on weekends only, may not have prepared me for these waves. Fortunately we will have a competent skipper on board, or so I hope, as my experience is definitely not enough yet and I think this will help in gaining some much needed knowledge and hopefully some confidence.
We are packed and ready to go already but I am not sure if our Pep stores Dry-Macs are really the correct sailing gear for the Cape waters. We did ask the lady at Sail Due South training school and she advised that we should be fine as long as we have warm clothing, and that we should wait till after the course to decide to buy wet weather gear in order to see just exactly what we would require. Our plan of sailing up the east coast of Africa to more moderate climates may not require such heavy weather gear, but I don’t really know this with my limited knowledge and hope that my decision is the correct one. I do know that Lola will do lots of research before we leave so we should have a better idea. I also intend to ask advise from other sailors that have done a similar route closer to the time.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Goodbye to the old, hello to the new
Drove down to Richards bay on Monday, met Greg the owner of Debenair, and we knew instantly that she was the one, the future Yrumoar.
So we made an offer and agreed upon a price and payment plan. Afterwards we drove through to Durban and spent the night with Lola’s sister and brother in law, Kim and Darren, and in the morning we drove back to Gauteng. Total distance covered one thousand five hundred kilometres in two days. I believe that we will be making this trip quite often in the next few months and although it is far the roads are excellent and the trip doesn’t take that long. The week before this we got a call from Danie to view our Vivacity and we met him on the Saturday at the Vaal. He seemed impressed with Bluefin and said he would confirm on Monday. Whilst driving down on Monday we received his call and made arrangements for the following Saturday to meet again. We decided to go down to the Vaal on Friday night to spend some time getting her ready for Danie’s visit on Saturday morning and met him on Friday night at the restaurant. After a short visit with him we went down to Bluefin to get her ready and have our last sleep over, but the shore power kept on tripping and whilst trying to find out where the problem was on the marina we went past Nikitu and met Gus and Pauline. This turned out to be a very interesting evening and we eventually got to bed at four in the morning. Needless to say we where not very fresh on Saturday when Danie arrived but we did take him out for a quick sail and then down to the bank to finish our business. Whilst sailing back into the marina Kyle our youngest son started to cry and told me that you don’t know that you love something until it is gone so he would miss Bluefin, shame, I understood how he felt.
So we made an offer and agreed upon a price and payment plan. Afterwards we drove through to Durban and spent the night with Lola’s sister and brother in law, Kim and Darren, and in the morning we drove back to Gauteng. Total distance covered one thousand five hundred kilometres in two days. I believe that we will be making this trip quite often in the next few months and although it is far the roads are excellent and the trip doesn’t take that long. The week before this we got a call from Danie to view our Vivacity and we met him on the Saturday at the Vaal. He seemed impressed with Bluefin and said he would confirm on Monday. Whilst driving down on Monday we received his call and made arrangements for the following Saturday to meet again. We decided to go down to the Vaal on Friday night to spend some time getting her ready for Danie’s visit on Saturday morning and met him on Friday night at the restaurant. After a short visit with him we went down to Bluefin to get her ready and have our last sleep over, but the shore power kept on tripping and whilst trying to find out where the problem was on the marina we went past Nikitu and met Gus and Pauline. This turned out to be a very interesting evening and we eventually got to bed at four in the morning. Needless to say we where not very fresh on Saturday when Danie arrived but we did take him out for a quick sail and then down to the bank to finish our business. Whilst sailing back into the marina Kyle our youngest son started to cry and told me that you don’t know that you love something until it is gone so he would miss Bluefin, shame, I understood how he felt.
Selling Bluefin
Spoke to the owner of the fair-weather 39 again and made an arrangement to view on Monday next week down in Richards Bay. He managed to send me the pictures yesterday and she looks just about perfect. I have been absolutely inundated with phone calls from people that are interested in buying my Vivacity 24’. If I knew I would have such a response I may have made the price higher, go gumtree, and the ads in junk mail and the sailing magazine haven’t even come out yet.
Remembering Bluefin
Took one of our employees to the Mugg and Bean this morning, for coffee, to explain our plan to him and hopefully where he fits into the greater scheme of things. Lola put our 24’ Vivacity up for sale on Gumtree, this is the South African version of E-Bay, last night and this morning I received a call from a guy to enquire about moving her to Midmar dam in Natal. I explained that she is a twin keeler and can easily be placed on a trailer. He told me he would contact me next week Thursday as he is coming up to gangsters paradise (Gauteng Province) on business, and to view her. It will be a sad moment in my life to let her go as she has provided me and the family with many happy memories, and also some much needed experience as to what owning and sailing a yacht is about. I did my first solo sail on her last year and went around the island on the Vaal. She also taught Lola to cook excellent meals on board whilst under sail both on a braai and on her gimballed gas stove. She taught me that you can point her closer to the wind than the wind instrument allows and still make good headway. She taught me how to use teamwork in the family in order to dock on a windy day without sinking and damaging other boats next to me. Yes she will definitely be remembered.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Yet another reason to go sailing
Well today I feel slightly better than yesterday, I wonder if men get PMS like women, I am pretty sure that I was suffering from this yesterday. One of those days where you are upset with the world but don’t really have a good reason why. Maybe I climbed out of the wrong side of the bed, however I always climb out of the same side so that cant be it. Yes I believe it was male PMS, lasts only one day unlike the female version that can vary from one week to the whole month. It’s a bit like man flu, but in reverse.
This morning I got a very disturbing call from a client that had been held up in their home last night, her husband was murdered for one thousand rand that he had in his wallet. The poor woman is absolutely traumatised and no amount of counselling will ever return her husband to her. Another reason to leave soon.
This morning I got a very disturbing call from a client that had been held up in their home last night, her husband was murdered for one thousand rand that he had in his wallet. The poor woman is absolutely traumatised and no amount of counselling will ever return her husband to her. Another reason to leave soon.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Reasons to sail around the world
We got a loan on our house, which means that we are going to go and look at catamarans to buy to set sail. I have seen two that fit into the price range and the size that we would like. One is in Gordons Bay and the other in Richards bay. Spoke to the owner of the one in Richards bay yesterday and I asked him to e mail me some photos. This one is a Fairweather 39’ and the other one is a ‘Woods fair-weather 40’. I have some pictures of the Woods Fair-weather already and she looks good enough on the pictures. The plan was to go and look properly when we go down to Langebaan to do our Coastal Skipper, but for the Fairweather in Richards bay we will go sooner as it is closer. We went onto Woods designs website and asked him about these boats if he knows anything about them, but he is yet to respond. I am not sure if the boat is a woods design or not and would be interested in finding out some of the history of the boats.
Still no pictures, starting to wonder if the boat is real. The problem is that things are starting to fall into place which makes for impatience. I need the pictures now. I want to go and look at the boat, today not next week or next year, now, now, now. Sorry about that but the excitement is starting to build and it is becoming harder to contain.
Finally got some pictures on Saturday morning but was a bit disappointed. In the pictures it looks as if the boat has only just been started with a refit and lots and lots still has to be done. I spoke to the owner again and he said that the project is about ninety percent complete, however his ninety and my ninety may be slightly different. We have looked at some boats before were the advert said only ten percent to go to completion and when we looked there was about fifty percent not done yet. I believe that people don’t realize exactly what they are getting into when they start with this kind of project and then slowly discover that they may have bitten of more than they can chew. The owner said that his computer crashed and that he sent it in for repairs and should have it back today, then he would send more pictures and an inventory list. We will just have to wait and see.
As things get more wrapped up and the time to leave is coming closer, one starts to question if you are making the correct decisions or not. I mean this is a huge decision to decide that you are going to leave everything that you know and are familiar with behind and head off into the unknown and uncertain future, with no choice of return to the things that you are used to. But then I decided to make a list of the events that took place in the last few weeks at work. Last week Tuesday one of my cars was involved in an accident and was sent to the panel shop for repairs. On Friday the car came back to the office but the starter motor was not working and thus went of to the car electrical shop. The car came back from the car electrical shop on Tuesday and was involved in another accident on Thursday. In the meantime we have been issued with two notices to appear at the CCMA for two different X employees. We are also busy with an investigation into another employee that is supplying lifts to some strangers that work at a local club at night. The reason we became aware of this is because one of the strangers contacted our one manager and told him that he could not pay for the lift one night so our employee beat him up. So it appears that we are running a small mafia taxi service on the side line were you will get cement shoes if you don’t pay. Sadly it appears to be a non profit organisation as I am not benefiting from this taxi service. This morning when I arrived at the office another two of the cars have broken alternators, strange how both cars suddenly have broken alternators. A few weeks ago one of these cars strangely and all by its self replaced its own battery with a none working battery. Some months ago the same car decided to replace its own gearbox, but the car is not very bright as it replaced its five speed gearbox with a four speed broken one, obviously I would never notice this. So then I received the following phone call ‘ Eish boss the car she is broken with the gearbox, she is not able to change a the gears.’ Welcome to Africa. Anyway after perusing the past couple of weeks I decided that even without a boat I should head off into the ocean, even if I have to swim or row, or perhaps I should just drown myself in the bath ha ha. Have to laugh else I would probably go completely insane.
Still no pictures, starting to wonder if the boat is real. The problem is that things are starting to fall into place which makes for impatience. I need the pictures now. I want to go and look at the boat, today not next week or next year, now, now, now. Sorry about that but the excitement is starting to build and it is becoming harder to contain.
Finally got some pictures on Saturday morning but was a bit disappointed. In the pictures it looks as if the boat has only just been started with a refit and lots and lots still has to be done. I spoke to the owner again and he said that the project is about ninety percent complete, however his ninety and my ninety may be slightly different. We have looked at some boats before were the advert said only ten percent to go to completion and when we looked there was about fifty percent not done yet. I believe that people don’t realize exactly what they are getting into when they start with this kind of project and then slowly discover that they may have bitten of more than they can chew. The owner said that his computer crashed and that he sent it in for repairs and should have it back today, then he would send more pictures and an inventory list. We will just have to wait and see.
As things get more wrapped up and the time to leave is coming closer, one starts to question if you are making the correct decisions or not. I mean this is a huge decision to decide that you are going to leave everything that you know and are familiar with behind and head off into the unknown and uncertain future, with no choice of return to the things that you are used to. But then I decided to make a list of the events that took place in the last few weeks at work. Last week Tuesday one of my cars was involved in an accident and was sent to the panel shop for repairs. On Friday the car came back to the office but the starter motor was not working and thus went of to the car electrical shop. The car came back from the car electrical shop on Tuesday and was involved in another accident on Thursday. In the meantime we have been issued with two notices to appear at the CCMA for two different X employees. We are also busy with an investigation into another employee that is supplying lifts to some strangers that work at a local club at night. The reason we became aware of this is because one of the strangers contacted our one manager and told him that he could not pay for the lift one night so our employee beat him up. So it appears that we are running a small mafia taxi service on the side line were you will get cement shoes if you don’t pay. Sadly it appears to be a non profit organisation as I am not benefiting from this taxi service. This morning when I arrived at the office another two of the cars have broken alternators, strange how both cars suddenly have broken alternators. A few weeks ago one of these cars strangely and all by its self replaced its own battery with a none working battery. Some months ago the same car decided to replace its own gearbox, but the car is not very bright as it replaced its five speed gearbox with a four speed broken one, obviously I would never notice this. So then I received the following phone call ‘ Eish boss the car she is broken with the gearbox, she is not able to change a the gears.’ Welcome to Africa. Anyway after perusing the past couple of weeks I decided that even without a boat I should head off into the ocean, even if I have to swim or row, or perhaps I should just drown myself in the bath ha ha. Have to laugh else I would probably go completely insane.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Friday everyday?
Haven’t been down to the boat for a while now, starting to wonder if she still floats and imagining that when we get to the boat she may be missing or only the top of the mast may be sticking out of the water. I think that all sailors that own a boat must have this same fear of leaving the boat for a long period of time. The weather just has not been conducive to sailing, well not for me anyway. Rain, rain and rain again everyday for the past month now, with a glimmer of sunshine on the odd occasion.
Anyway my father in law has been staying with us for a couple of weeks now because he is in-between work and is finding it rather difficult at the moment. I believe we have managed to lift his spirit slightly by offering him our garden cottage to live in, but I think he must be getting sick of hearing about boat, boat, boat. That seems to be the only thing that Lola and I want to talk about.
Went to court yesterday regarding a shooting incident that happened in our offices a few months ago. What a waste of time, the ‘victim’ is back together with the shooter and is trying to negotiate together with him in order to drop the charges of attempted murder. People can be so stupid at times, I mean she has obviously forgiven him for shooting her and now believes that he won’t do it again. What a moron. As the saying goes, once a victim second time a volunteer, maybe she enjoyed getting shot by her husband or she has some sort of death wish. Anyway I don’t want her working for me anymore because the whole office was absolutely traumatised by the incident and now she is back together with him and he will arrive at the office to fetch her from work placing all the other people in the office under pressure thinking that he may again snap at some or other point.
Thursday today and we normally meet some friends for lunch on a Thursday at one of our client’s Portuguese restaurant. This time we decided to be adventurous and we are going to meet at a new place that we haven’t been before. I will miss these particular friends whilst we sail around the world, but fortunately they are a little more affluent and would possibly afford to fly over to meet us in some of the places that we plan on going to. This would be a good reason to then have a couple of Fridays in a row. ‘Ahh should we have a drink today, oh yes it is Friday so why not.’ And then tomorrow, ‘ahh should we have a drink today, oh yes why not it is Friday.’
Anyway my father in law has been staying with us for a couple of weeks now because he is in-between work and is finding it rather difficult at the moment. I believe we have managed to lift his spirit slightly by offering him our garden cottage to live in, but I think he must be getting sick of hearing about boat, boat, boat. That seems to be the only thing that Lola and I want to talk about.
Went to court yesterday regarding a shooting incident that happened in our offices a few months ago. What a waste of time, the ‘victim’ is back together with the shooter and is trying to negotiate together with him in order to drop the charges of attempted murder. People can be so stupid at times, I mean she has obviously forgiven him for shooting her and now believes that he won’t do it again. What a moron. As the saying goes, once a victim second time a volunteer, maybe she enjoyed getting shot by her husband or she has some sort of death wish. Anyway I don’t want her working for me anymore because the whole office was absolutely traumatised by the incident and now she is back together with him and he will arrive at the office to fetch her from work placing all the other people in the office under pressure thinking that he may again snap at some or other point.
Thursday today and we normally meet some friends for lunch on a Thursday at one of our client’s Portuguese restaurant. This time we decided to be adventurous and we are going to meet at a new place that we haven’t been before. I will miss these particular friends whilst we sail around the world, but fortunately they are a little more affluent and would possibly afford to fly over to meet us in some of the places that we plan on going to. This would be a good reason to then have a couple of Fridays in a row. ‘Ahh should we have a drink today, oh yes it is Friday so why not.’ And then tomorrow, ‘ahh should we have a drink today, oh yes why not it is Friday.’
Monday, January 25, 2010
Back to the grind stone
Almost half way through January, time flies, faster and faster as you get older. So far this month I have managed to keep my attitude positive and haven’t been disappointed in myself, ….yet. Lola and I are busy planning to go and do our coastal skippers licence down in Langebaan in the cape. We found a sailing school in the monthly magazine that offers the training on a Wildcat 35, which will solve at least two questions for us. One the wildcat, being our yacht of choice to purchase, and two, sailing on the ocean on a catamaran, how does it compare to a monohull. This is going to be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to it. We are trying to book for end March beginning April which will allow some time for work to settle into the new year, and I should be just about ready for a holiday by that time.
18 Jan. 10
It has begun already the month is not even over yet, in fact, it is just past halfway and already I have to polygraph my operations manager because one of the employees has accused him of stealing their final pay. The joys of Africa, never ending. The polygraph will be done on Wednesday so lets wait and see before we go jumping to conclusions.
25 Jan. 10
Wow what a surprise he failed the polygraph test and owned up during his hearing held this morning, now why not come clean in the first place and save me the time and money wasted. I quite liked the guy which makes me feel a bit down and disappointed, but life will go on. In a way it works out better for me when I eventually rid myself of this beast of burden it becomes one less thing to worry about.
18 Jan. 10
It has begun already the month is not even over yet, in fact, it is just past halfway and already I have to polygraph my operations manager because one of the employees has accused him of stealing their final pay. The joys of Africa, never ending. The polygraph will be done on Wednesday so lets wait and see before we go jumping to conclusions.
25 Jan. 10
Wow what a surprise he failed the polygraph test and owned up during his hearing held this morning, now why not come clean in the first place and save me the time and money wasted. I quite liked the guy which makes me feel a bit down and disappointed, but life will go on. In a way it works out better for me when I eventually rid myself of this beast of burden it becomes one less thing to worry about.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Heavy weather sailing
Back to row with the other slaves on Monday past and the year at work started off with a visit to the labour department at 08h00 on the 4th of January. The government always fun and informative to deal with, but I decided that this year was going to be good no matter what so dealing with the officials went as expected, slow and in circles with no real joy. You know I think the problem is that people actually don’t speak the same language even when they do. For example Lola and I went to see a client at Honda on day. Whilst sitting in the reception area Lola commented upon the size of the reception, I assumed that she was speaking about the receptionist that was also rather large and we had a ten minute conversation about the subject with neither of us realising that we were not speaking about the same thing at all. It was only later on in the day when we touched on the subject again that we realised what had happened. So if this can happen to two people that actually know each other well imagine trying to communicate with a strange government employee about a subject that neither of you actually understand.
Back to Richards bay, beautiful place, we are going to attempt to move there onto the yacht that we have not bought yet, some time maybe this year or next year latest if all goes according to plan. So please hold thumbs.
This month I have read “heavy weather cruising” and it seems the more you read about storms and the ocean the more scary it becomes, perhaps it is easier not to read anything and just go. These authors are also very controversial, every book about heavy weather sailing that I have read so far tell you the basic methods used in these conditions, but each author has a different opinion as to when to use which method and they all seem to contradict each other. I suppose that each person has to decide at the time for himself which method to use in which conditions, hopefully they all have some merit.
Back to Richards bay, beautiful place, we are going to attempt to move there onto the yacht that we have not bought yet, some time maybe this year or next year latest if all goes according to plan. So please hold thumbs.
This month I have read “heavy weather cruising” and it seems the more you read about storms and the ocean the more scary it becomes, perhaps it is easier not to read anything and just go. These authors are also very controversial, every book about heavy weather sailing that I have read so far tell you the basic methods used in these conditions, but each author has a different opinion as to when to use which method and they all seem to contradict each other. I suppose that each person has to decide at the time for himself which method to use in which conditions, hopefully they all have some merit.
Bliksem
New Year, new beginnings, this year is definitely going to be better than last year because we are one year closer to leaving on our sailing adventure. “Bliksem” a very versatile, Afrikaans, South African word. This is the word that comes to mind when I think off some parts or if fact some people from last year. Also a word I think about when I read the book “Heavy weather cruising”. “Bliksem” is in fact the South African word for Lightning but has other meanings as well such as “I hope the lightning doesn’t bliksem my mast” which means I hope the lightning doesn’t strike my mast, which could also be said as “I hope the bliksem doesn’t bliksem my mast. The word can also be used in “bliksem that was fast.” Which means wow that was fast or “did you see that bliksem run” which means did you see that person (derogatory) run. Bliksem is possibly the most versatile South African word. Anyway back to reality, December came and went by like a flash. We went down to Durban on the 15th to visit Lola’s sister for a few days. This global warming problem seems to be affecting the world already, because it rained and the weather in Durban was awful mostly everyday. This however did not change our planned visits to the marina in Durban to find out the costs of mooring. Wow R4500 per month excluding water and electricity, this is expensive but we did anticipate that it might be so we also went to the bluff yacht club to investigate. The bluff yacht club is located on the wrong side of the harbour in the very industrial side of town and this option was also abandoned. After our compulsory visit to the cruising connection we bought some books to study and left Durban for Richards bay.
Richards bay is about 160 kilometres from Durban on the north coast. We travelled via the alternative route because I believed that it would be more interesting and has no toll roads. It turned out to be a scenic drive but nothing spectacular and took forever, so next time, pay the toll fees.
Richards bay is about 160 kilometres from Durban on the north coast. We travelled via the alternative route because I believed that it would be more interesting and has no toll roads. It turned out to be a scenic drive but nothing spectacular and took forever, so next time, pay the toll fees.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
True 'sailing" experience
02 Dec. 09
Don’t think we will remember how to sail anymore it has been that long since we have last been to the boat. Read some guys blog the other day and he said something that really makes sense when it comes to sailing. He said that it takes ten minutes to learn 90 percent of what you need to know about sailing and you will spend the rest of your life trying to get the other 10 percent.
Lola and I have been discussing the possibility of opening a different business that is dependant on only the two of us as opposed to having a whole lot of minimum wage employees that have the sole purpose of driving me insane. We will keep you informed on the decision, and the progress.
07 Dec. 09
Saturday morning we went to the spar to get rolls, ice and salads for the weekend but the spar had none of the above. This was at about half past 10 in the morning and I told the manager that he has a badly organised store, he started to explain about the ovens that need to heat up but I don’t really care about that, all I wanted was some rolls and how does he bake the salad in the oven, not to mention the ice. So off we went to Heidelberg pick and pay instead. Once we got on the water Lola hoisted the main sail and we were off in a northerly direction sailing at about 2 knots. I opted for this direction so that we would be beating into the wind on our way out but would be able to have a good fast run back with the wind from behind on the return journey. All of us, especially Kyle, are nervous at the moment due to the last couple of rough sails that we have experienced and I wanted to make the trip as enjoyable and gentle as possible for him and us in order to regain some confidence.
09 Dec. 09
We just made it back into the marina when the wind picked up and the hail and rain started to bucket down, I think: had we been caught in that, that would have been the end of our sailing trip and a camper would have replaced the yacht. We spent Sunday repairing one of the many window leaks. The stripping out of the window was pleasant enough but once we got the window out and cleaned off all the old “ silicon” we discovered that we did not have a silicon gun with us in order to replace the window. I went into town but all the shops were closed except for the jet ski shop and they where kind enough to give me an old broken one which they had lying around. Lucky me I thought, and I have to say thank you to the mechanic in the shop for searching through his workshop and finding this for me. The rest of the job did not go well and with the use of the broken gun I managed to get “ silicon” everywhere. I also taught some new language skills to the rest of the people on the marina, sorry people, I apologise. Because of the leaking window, one of the bed cushions in the bow went mouldy and had to be recovered so we took this to an upholster, wow there goes my Christmas lunch, it seems every time you look at the boat it costs more money, and the list of repairs seems to never end but gets longer and longer.
Don’t think we will remember how to sail anymore it has been that long since we have last been to the boat. Read some guys blog the other day and he said something that really makes sense when it comes to sailing. He said that it takes ten minutes to learn 90 percent of what you need to know about sailing and you will spend the rest of your life trying to get the other 10 percent.
Lola and I have been discussing the possibility of opening a different business that is dependant on only the two of us as opposed to having a whole lot of minimum wage employees that have the sole purpose of driving me insane. We will keep you informed on the decision, and the progress.
07 Dec. 09
Saturday morning we went to the spar to get rolls, ice and salads for the weekend but the spar had none of the above. This was at about half past 10 in the morning and I told the manager that he has a badly organised store, he started to explain about the ovens that need to heat up but I don’t really care about that, all I wanted was some rolls and how does he bake the salad in the oven, not to mention the ice. So off we went to Heidelberg pick and pay instead. Once we got on the water Lola hoisted the main sail and we were off in a northerly direction sailing at about 2 knots. I opted for this direction so that we would be beating into the wind on our way out but would be able to have a good fast run back with the wind from behind on the return journey. All of us, especially Kyle, are nervous at the moment due to the last couple of rough sails that we have experienced and I wanted to make the trip as enjoyable and gentle as possible for him and us in order to regain some confidence.
09 Dec. 09
We just made it back into the marina when the wind picked up and the hail and rain started to bucket down, I think: had we been caught in that, that would have been the end of our sailing trip and a camper would have replaced the yacht. We spent Sunday repairing one of the many window leaks. The stripping out of the window was pleasant enough but once we got the window out and cleaned off all the old “ silicon” we discovered that we did not have a silicon gun with us in order to replace the window. I went into town but all the shops were closed except for the jet ski shop and they where kind enough to give me an old broken one which they had lying around. Lucky me I thought, and I have to say thank you to the mechanic in the shop for searching through his workshop and finding this for me. The rest of the job did not go well and with the use of the broken gun I managed to get “ silicon” everywhere. I also taught some new language skills to the rest of the people on the marina, sorry people, I apologise. Because of the leaking window, one of the bed cushions in the bow went mouldy and had to be recovered so we took this to an upholster, wow there goes my Christmas lunch, it seems every time you look at the boat it costs more money, and the list of repairs seems to never end but gets longer and longer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)