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.

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.

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.

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.

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.