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.
Monday, January 25, 2010
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.
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