Settling at the Bluff...

17 Nov. 12

We have been toying with the idea of working part time to try refill the rapidly depleting cruising kitty. Well, today it became official. Two of our tenants are in the process of eviction for non payment. This and a few other financial issues have removed our choices and forced us to make a decision. Our original plan of sailing to New Zealand, resettling and finding work there, has basically been destroyed by a number of events in succession. So left with no other alternative, this morning we made an offer on a cheap car. Over the next few weeks I will seek out employment agencies, and hopefully find some or other gainful employment. I am not quite sure how long we will have to work, possibly a year or two, but I suppose it depends on the amount we earn.

When Lola first said, “Yes, we can work our way slowly down the coastline”. I was under the impression she meant sail slowly down the coast and stop at all the ports, maybe even do a little sight seeing. Well, was I wrong or what!

17 Nov. 12

It’s about nine at night. Lola went to bed a few minutes ago and I am sitting outside drinking a cup of coffee. It never quite gets dark here, just too many lights in the container yards surrounding the club. The lights are fairly far away so they serve only to keep the horizon lit, almost like sunrise in the morning just before the sun finally shows its face, but with a much more artificial glow. A bit like a badly made, low budget, movie background.

It has been raining almost non stop since we arrived here on Friday just a bit more than a week ago and a cold breeze is blowing gently through our cockpit. The chain mooring we are on is well protected from the southerly winds and I watch as it blows ripples across the water behind our boat and listen as it gives the occasional whistle through the rigging wires of the boats on the other side of the estuary. I also hear the periodic clanging of stray halyards as the wind knocks them against the masts of the many lonely unoccupied boats that surround us.

To my right I can see the never ending stream of trucks crossing the bridge over the estuary all carrying large heavy containers towards the waiting ships in the harbour. The sound of the truck diesel engines droning on throughout the night becomes just another big city sound that fades into the back of my mind. The sounds are almost hypnotic in their consistency with the occasional clang as one of the chains used to secure their loads goes into revolt and smashes onto its tormentor.

The rows of trucks remind me of a line of ants moving large sticks and grains of sand from one hole in the ground to another one. We are quite similar to these ants just on a larger and more destructive scale. In one part of the world we are building dykes and retaining walls in an attempt to reclaim land from the sea. In another part we are dredging harbours and digging out soil to make the harbours bigger so that we can move more of our sticks and grains of sand from one place to another.     

19 Nov. 12

This morning is turning out to be a true blue Monday. I woke up to find my computer had developed a mind of its own and would no longer listen to any of my instructions. The kids toilet decided to join in the strike action and refused to flush. I could feel my blood reaching boiling point and thought of tying the toilet together with the laptop and then tossing them both overboard to sink to the bottom, never to be seen again. After a while I calmed down and restored my laptop settings to a previous setting. This fixed the problem, but only for a while, then it went on strike yet again. Maybe I haven’t fed it enough power or something.

The toilet, well lets just say it started working again after flushing it for about fifteen minutes. In my mind I know that it is not actually fixed, boat toilets are never actually fixed.

To add to all of this I also realised that soon I will be returning to pleb ville. In case you are wondering where this pleb ville is, I will give clear directions. It can be anywhere and everywhere all at the same time. It is a place in your mind but not in your heart. Yes, you guessed it. Pleb ville is the reality of going to work everyday. Waking up in the morning and realising that your day no longer belongs to you but has been sold to someone else.

Welcome to pleb ville. Please don’t forget to brush your teeth in the morning so that you can add a minty freshness to your bosses rear whilst you land up kissing his butt.

Hopefully no future boss reads that.

20 Nov. 12

Yesterday I wanted to sell the boat and buy a camper instead. Today I went up to the bow and sat on one of the seats we made. Whilst sitting on the bow looking down at the water, my mind started wandering and dreaming about far away places. The stupid boat captures your imagination, making you believe things that are not realistic, then you become an unwitting slave to your own illusions.

23 Nov. 12

We have been in Durban for two weeks today. Last night we were invited to a braai with all the cruisers that are here at the moment. They are quite a mixed bunch coming from all different parts of the world. We have a couple from Australia with two kids, a French couple from Canada with, I don’t quite know how many but it looked like a lot of kids. Then we have a couple from New Zealand and another couple from France. The French couple also have a kid. So even though it was short notice and we didn’t have anything prepared for the braai, except of course some alcohol, we decided to go to shore and join in the festivities. It has been a long time since I last seen so many kids in one place so Rauen and Kyle made some new friends. I didn’t realise how difficult this life would be on the kids. They don’t get much social activity with other kids because there usually aren’t any other kids. At least they got to meet other kids last night and I watched as they quickly found the ones that suited them, separating those ones from the rest of the pack and spending time with their new found friends. I of course drank a bit to much again and don’t feel very fresh this morning. Will I ever learn? Somehow I just don’t think so.

25 Nov. 12

Our new second hand car eventually arrived on Friday and I wasn’t sure if I was excited or depressed. My mind was leaning more towards the depressed side. Getting the car meant that a decision was actually made and final. We had planted our first tap root and are now starting to grow back onto the land. The freedom that I felt before, freedom to just leave whenever I felt like it, was now gone. I know that the feeling of freedom is not a reality and is purely a state of mind, but now that it is gone, I find myself wishing it back. 

The sad reality is that we don’t really have any choice. Okay I suppose we do have some choice, but it is limited and based on a few factors that are partially out of our control. Lola and I discussed the subject of finances and the reality is that the cost of the life on the boat isn’t as cheap as it is advertised to be. We also had a finite plan, with a finite amount of money. Sadly the repairs and everything else that happened stole almost all of our allocated time and most of our budget. If all went according to plan, by now we would have been in the south pacific well on our way to our final destination of New Zealand.  But, …reality has set in and now we had to make some hard decisions. We are no longer sure anymore if we want to end our journey in New Zealand or continue on from there.

So at the moment our choices are as follows. Sell Yrumoar and go back to normal life. No, I don’t really consider that an option, rather a punishment. Or, find work here in Durban for a year or two, then move down to East London and find work there for a while, and so on down the coast. Whilst working, squirrel away as much of our income as possible and do the necessary upgrades on Yrumoar to make sure she is completely ready. Our living expenses decrease as each of our kids complete their education and we thus need less money at various stages in the future. Our current investment portfolio isn’t quite enough but we hope to build it up a bit along the SA coast line. We also hope that Lola manages to get some TEFL work somewhere along the way after we leave SA.  So that seems to be the plan, at the moment.    

Moved to anchor off PYC

13 Nov. 12


On Saturday morning we untied the mooring lines at the bluff and motored across Durban harbour. About an hour later we arrived at Point yacht club and dropped our anchor about thirty metres away from the main shipping channel. We were expecting a visit from Lola’s uncle Barry and his wife Ann later in the afternoon for sundowners. They arrived at about five and we collected them on the dingy. After a few glasses of wine we dropped them back on the walk-on and came back to Yrumoar. Lola’s sister Kim and her husband Darren arrived on Sunday with two bunny chows and some KFC. That completed our expected visitors. The bunny chows were awesome.

Right now I am just not sure what our plans are. The trip down rocked everyone’s nerves and at this point none of us are quite ready to get back out to sea.

Sail to Durban

08 Nov. 12


Lola is going to town this morning whilst I go through our, 24 hour before we leave, check list. We made this check list to remind us to do certain things, like making sure the bilges are dry and the motors have enough coolant, before we go on a journey. Similar to checking your cars tyre pressure and oil level before you drive away on holiday. There are a lot more things to check on a boat than on a car, but then a boat is basically a combination of a car and a house all rolled into one.



I feel sorry for our youngest child, Kyle during all of this. Under his bed, sitting waiting patiently is a small, diesel eating, water spitting, metal beast. This beast has to be examined, and thus Kyle has to strip his bed and mattress. He also has a large sail locker under his bed. Every second or third day I find myself looking for something in this locker and then, Kyle’s bed, well, it gets moved.



12 Nov. 12

The last few days have been absolutely traumatic seeming to end yesterday with Lola finally suffering a complete meltdown. She broke into tears for the smallest things and nothing I said or did could ease her tension. The trip down from Richards bay coupled with female issues managed to get the better of her and her nerves finally snapped. We were very uncomfortably anchored in Durban which is an extremely busy harbour with tug boats passing near us every few minutes. These tugs create huge wakes that stumble across the water and meet the underside of Yrumoar causing us to rock violently from side to side. If this isn’t enough every second ass in Durban seems to own a power boat and comes roaring past us, as if on fire, creating more huge wakes to make our lives a living bouncing hell. We desperately needed at least one good nights sleep but the weather and all the commotion around us just wasn’t going to give us any respite.

It all started on Friday morning in Richards bay. Never start a journey on a Friday. This was one of the niggling thoughts in the back of my mind as we started the motors and undid the mooring lines for what we believe to be the final time we will be leaving Richards bay. On the dockside we said our, see you later, goodbye’s to our friends from Sea Shoes. In my mind I quietly thought about our last goodbye and hoped this time we would actually leave the harbour and not return a few minutes later.

The predicted wind was North east blowing at five knots for the morning then slowly building during the course of the day. The wind would peak out in the early evening at about twenty five knots when we were expected to arrive in Durban harbour. Wave heights were predicted between one and two metres about eight seconds apart. In the late afternoon the wave spacing became a bit short, around four seconds apart, but we decided this would not be much of a problem. Armed with this information we looked forward to some pleasant sailing conditions on our now to be repeated first leg of our trip.

Another small sailing vessel from offshore sailing academy in Durban was parked next to us for a few days and left the harbour on its trip back down about an hour before us. I had a quick chat with their instructor and he told me they would head out to about one hundred metres, about eight miles offshore, on their trip down. I told him that this time we decided to hug the coastline hoping to find something interesting to occupy our time. We watched them exiting the harbour as Rauen and I hoisted the mail sail on a triple reef. We triple reefed, firstly because we are lazy sailors, and secondly in anticipation of the twenty five knots expected to arrive in the afternoon. I tend to be overcautious and this makes me and the crew happy. We rounded the breakwater and motor sailed through the washing machine at the harbour mouth turning south east towards the large container ships anchored outside the harbour.

The wind was blowing a gentle five knots westerly, not at all as predicted, but we decided to motor sail anyway, hoping the predicted wind would arrive shortly. The wind kept blowing westerly for most of the morning and we had a pleasant motor sail managing to see whales performing huge jumps and splashes in the water. Our autopilot seemed to function quite well giving us all the time to just relax and enjoy the sailing.

Then our predicted wind arrived. Our speed increased and we turned off the motors. Now we were sailing. At this point we were all still happy and comfortable.

Just before we reached the halfway mark at the Tugela river mouth the wind started increasing in velocity. As the wind velocity increased so the waves built. The wind kept on increasing and the waves became bigger and bigger. Eventually the autopilot could no longer manage to keep us on course and Lola hand steered whilst Rauen and I went onto the coach roof to bring down the main sail. After wrestling with the small reefed main for about a half hour in the blustering wind and pitching deck we finally managed to get it packed back into our stack-pack. We then rolled in the roller furler sail until only a small piece of sail was open to the now gale force winds.

I had no idea at what force the wind was blowing since our wind instruments don’t work, but I could feel it was blowing way above the predicted twenty five knots. Looking at my weather study book and the sea conditions, I judged the wind to be blowing around forty knots.

The conditions kept on deteriorating with the wind screaming through our rigging, the waves becoming steeper and bigger. I hand steered trying to keep us on our course towards Durban but eventually had to turn Yrumoar off course and run down wind. I kept looking over my shoulder to try predict the wave action on our stern and would watch as huge walls of green sea water came rushing towards us, the crests tumbling crashing and rolling down the face of the wave towards us. White foam sprayed off the surface of the waves and the air was wet, filled with sea spray making the helm steering slippery and hard to control.

The large mountains of water, now the height of our cockpit roof, would reach the stern, smashing into our dingy tied sideways onto the dive platform and wash into the cockpit. The waves kept trying to turn Yrumoar broadside on and I kept fighting to keep her pointing away from their attempts at capsizing her.

At about three in the afternoon we received a call on the radio from the sailing school instructor on the sailing vessel that left just before us in the morning asking if we are all okay. Lola told him we were running down wind but were all fine. He replied stating that the conditions were horrific but they were also fine. I asked Lola to ask them what the wind speed was. They replied, thirty five to forty knots.

At eight in the evening we fought our way into Durban harbour vowing to put a “for sale” sign on Yrumoar first thing in the morning.

It was after ten in the evening by the time we had Yrumoar safely tied onto a walk-on at the bluff yacht club.

To Durban...or not to Durban

24 Oct. 12


We caught a taxi into town and bought a mirror. This will be the only mirror on the boat and I will fit it in the main bathroom. Until now we haven’t had a mirror on the boat but decided that it was probably a good idea to be able to see what we look like before we get off the boat and meet new people.

Whilst in town walking through the mall, Lola looked at me and told me that she feels excited about our trip for the first time in a while. We had been studying the weather and there appeared to be a window opening up on Sunday morning. The window seemed long enough for us to reach East London. This was the main reason for our visit to town. I also felt a prickle of excitement in my stomach as we stood outside the mall with three overloaded trolleys waiting for the taxi that would return us to Yrumoar.

The rain was pelting down on us as we loaded the groceries into the boot of the taxi. We were completely soaked by this sudden downpour but this just served to elate our mood even more and I found myself happily daydreaming about exotic destinations as the taxi drove up to our dockside. I was so busy dreaming that I almost forgot to pay for the taxi ride and Lola had to stop and reminding me that I have to pay.

This morning however things have changed. I woke up to hear Lola say that all her clothes lying on our bedroom side were soaked. I got up and together we discovered that our portlight had leaked during the night and a small puddle had made itself at home on the side. This was something that we believed we had fixed over a year ago now.

Next Lola went onto the internet and discovered that our weather window for Sunday had changed. The window was still there but someone had drawn the curtains, ruffled the sheets and stirred the seas into a frenzy, tossing in, for good measure, some near gale force winds. All my excited feelings were suddenly gone as reality pressed its heavy hand on my head, forcing me back down onto the ground.

28 Oct. 12

Lola has fanatically cleaned the boat over the past few days. This is a bit unusual for her since she has never been a neat freak before now. I must admit that the boat looks fantastic and she has been doing a fine job. I have possibly jinxed her cleaning spree now that I have mentioned it. At least we now, for the first time since we bought the boat, have a place for everything.

Yesterday morning Lola dressed up in a bright yellow rain coat and I dressed in an even brighter yellow raincoat. Looking like two complete idiots we walked the two kilometres to the water police in the rain with our flight plan to Durban. I still don’t quite understand why it is called a flight plan and not a sailing plan, but I suppose there must be some or other good reason for this. Another weather window appeared to be opening up and we decided to use this window to sail down to Durban. We arrived at the water police looking like a pair of luminous drowned rats and had our flight plan stamped. Then the rain stopped and we managed to dry out during our walk back.

This morning at two o clock, after tossing and turning, waking every so often and looking at Lola’s cell phone to check the time, we got up. Lola made me a cup of coffee and we sat in the cockpit preparing ourselves for the day ahead. Our next door neighbours also got up and I invited them over for a cup. The weather service had predicted that the wind would swing from south west to north east at about three o clock. Three o clock came and went, but the wind stayed south westerly. A thunder storm was periodically lighting the sky to our west and was accompanied by light rain. Lola and I decided that we would wait for the thunder storm to pass before we would leave. The prospect of being the tallest thing out on the ocean during a thunder storm isn’t my idea of fun. It fact it rates in the area of bungee jumping without a rope, or sky diving without a parachute. So we waited for the storm to dissipate. After about an hour, it did, but the wind was still coming from the south west. So we waited.

At about six the wind appeared to have made a turn to the west, so we said our goodbyes, untied the mooring lines and started motored towards the harbour mouth. On our way we hoisted our main sail reefed down to the third reef. Once we exited the harbour we were met by three metre waves spaced about ten seconds apart. We were also met by about two knots of south westerly wind. We continued out for about a half an hour trying to decide what to do. Eventually we decided to turn around and come back and wait for an actual window. One that we can sail, using the wind and not have to burn all our diesel motoring against the wind.

It is now eleven o clock and the wind has just switched to north east.

29 Oct. 12

I am again beginning to wonder if we will actually ever leave. So many thoughts float around in my mind. Has the weather really been the only reason for us to still be here? Is there something else that is keeping us here? Are we just afraid to drop the lines?

30 Oct. 12

Woke up at four this morning to the slap slap slap sound of the main halyard knocking against the mast. The mast is right above my head and the noise carries itself down the mast and into our bedroom. We have a bungee cord attached to this halyard to stop it slapping against the mast, but this morning it was slapping anyway. So I got out of bed, put on some shorts, and went outside. It had been raining the whole night and the decks were super wet. It was also quite cold. I checked the bungee and it was still attached, so I looked up the mast to find the source of the slap. Somehow or other the halyard had hooked around one of the mast steps near the top of the mast and pulled itself close enough to the mast to be able to slap away happily onto the mast. I unhooked the halyard from the step, tightened the bungee and voila the noise stopped. The cold wind coupled by a slight drizzle and my warm state of dress however made sure that I was now completely awake. Since I was already awake and already wet, I decided to have a shower. Unfortunately for me someone here at the yacht club had decided that hot water in the showers was unnecessary, so they had some device installed that would make sure that we never have hot water again. I think I will have to write a strongly worded letter to the club.

Since we are going to be here for another week or so I decided to start making some new stairs for the coach roof. The existing ones are made from wood and have rotten to such an extreme that we can no longer use them. Wood. I hate wood. I never hated wood before we bought a boat, but now, I hate wood. The only thing I can say about wood is that it will rot. It’s not even good enough for a braai since the invention of charcoal. Anyone that decides to build anything on a boat with wood must be an idiot.

01 Nov. 12

Another new month has arrived and another old month has passed and still we haven’t left. I never realised just how long it would take us to leave. I honestly believed that we would be gone within a few months after we bought the boat. But still here we sit.

The new stairs are slowly taking shape and I converted the spare room into a workshop so that I can still work when it rains. And that is all that has been happening, rain, rain and more rain. We haven’t even been able to test our new solar panels since there hasn’t been any sunshine. I can remember last year at about this time, we were still on the hard, and also struggled to find days to work when it didn’t rain.

Our financial woes are also on my mind at the moment. Yesterday I received a call from my X asking me about our plans for next year. She asked me how we will be making payments whilst we are out at sea with no internet connection. I told her that the payments are taken from my account via debit order, so nothing really changes. Her phone call however reminded me that real life still has to happen and we still have huge financial responsibilities ahead of us. My daughter finishes her degree this year so will be meeting the real world next year. My oldest son is going into his final year at school next year and wants to study engineering at university thereafter. We then still have two other kids that need to be educated. After her call I felt the tightness in my chest caused by stress. Stress that comes with reality, and the realisation that we are like trapeze artists, swinging high above the ground, happy and free. But looking down towards the ground so far away, I suddenly realise we are swinging without a safety net.

06 Nov. 12

I hate the parking we are in at the moment. The walk-on is new and therefore in good repair. However, it is situated next to the slip and there is a constant flow of boats in and out of the water just behind us. These boats are going out of the water because they have something wrong with them and need to be repaired. The repairs are mostly routine, but every now and then, one of these boats has a problem.

This morning one of those boats that have problems had to use the slip. I sat in the cockpit and watched as he came motoring down the channel towards the slip. He went straight past the slip without turning, and for a moment I thought he was just going out to sail for the day. I was just about to loose interest in him when I heard the roar of his engines. This was my first indication that he was experiencing problems.

I followed the sound of the roaring engines and discovered him in the channel trying to turn around towards the slip. He somehow managed to turn and came flying at full tilt, barely missing the lagoon that was parked at the end of our walk-on, past the back of our boat. With the motors still at full tilt he shot across the water and headed straight past the slip in the direction of the boats on the next walk-on behind us. I could see the panic on the skipper’s face as he rammed the motors into reverse gear, only to discover that this made him pick up even more speed going forward. He then pulled the levers further backwards, hoping to stop his forward momentum, but with the motors reaching maximum revs his forward speed just continued increasing.

The innocent crew from Sea Shoes were all standing on the back of their boat and managed to push him into a different direction. The direction however led him straight into the stern of Klai, the boat parked next to Sea Shoes. I heard the crunch as the two boats met. The skipper kept shouting to his assistant on the boat to push him away, but it was already to late and his assistant just couldn’t ever have enough strength to stop the six or ten tons of heavy fibreglass and steel from meeting.

I could feel my heart beat racing as he somehow managed to turn around and started accelerating towards our side of the docks. Lola and I shouted at him to stop the motors and rather toss a rope across to us. He didn’t listen and just kept on going faster and faster. His bow swung again and this time he headed towards the rocks just to the left of the slipway. Again he yanked down hard on the throttles. The motors roared and he rushed forward towards the rocks. I grabbed my head in anticipation of the imminent crash I was about to witness. Somehow he missed the rocks and headed for a second time in the direction of Sea Shoes. He barely missed them for a second time and again headed in our direction. Lola again shouted for him to slow down, switch off the motors and toss a rope towards us. At this point he managed to turn and headed at full speed towards the slipway. By now a huge crowd had gathered on the docks and everyone was shouting for him to toss ropes instead of trying to use his defective motors. Once again he rammed the throttles into full reverse gear and shot forward onto the slipway. The trailer was in the slipway waiting for his arrival and the workers had to jump off the trailer and run to save their own lives as he came tearing down onto them. I heard the thump and seen the shudder as the boat collided with something under the water and came to an eventual standstill.

It took about an hour for my adrenalin to calm down and for my body to stop shaking. We need to get out of here.

07 Nov. 12

Again we took the two kilometre walk around to Tuzi Gazi waterfront and handed our flight plan across to the police officer sitting behind the counter. This time however it was slightly different, he checked our forms and made some phone calls. I asked him, “Who are you calling?” He answered, “The guys downstairs.” I asked him, “Who are the guys downstairs, and why are you calling them?” He informed me by stating, “You need to be inspected, and I am arranging an inspection for you.” I said, “oh! that’s a bit different to the last time we checked out.” He dialled a few numbers getting no response from them. Then he looked over at me with a quizzical look on his face, his eyebrows raised high on his forehead. Suddenly his expression changed and with a new resolved look on his face he dialled one more time. When a voice answered the call he introduced himself to the voice and promptly handed the receiver across to me. I stood dumbfounded with the receiver in my hand. He then pointed at the receiver motioning me to speak to the unknown voice on the other side. I said, “hello.” The voice replied, “hello, how can I help you.” I replied, “…uh…. I don’t know.” The voice asked, “who are you?” I answered, “Barry.” The voice asked, “And why are you calling me?” I said, “I am not sure, this police officer mentioned something about an inspection, but I’m not sure why, or what he is talking about”. He said, “oh, are you leaving the country”. I said, “no”. He then instructed me to hand the phone receiver back to the police officer. I did. They spoke for about three seconds. The police officer on the other side of the counter said okay, stamped our flight plan and we left the building. Tomorrow morning we will hand the flight plan in at the office and it will be faxed across to port control. We then have thirty six hours to leave the harbour. Hopefully the weather stays the same as predicted.

Still waiting for weather, filling with Diesel

21 Oct. 12


It has been raining on and off for two days now so we haven’t managed to make much progress with anything. We bought two more 85 watt solar panels that will now give us a total of 500 watts. Hopefully these bring and end to our power problems, once we manage to install them. In order to make space for the two new panels we had to move the old ones around and ended up drilling sixteen new holes into our coach roof, thereby in effect transforming our coach roof into a sieve. Fortunately we plugged the holes with some epoxy and sponge before it started raining. When the rain eventually decides to stop we will again drill the same sixteen holes into the epoxy/sponge mixture before we can fit the panels.

Yesterday we went on a day sail with Kevin and Donna on Maxscene. They have a friend with a fancy new “parasail” and wanted to test the sail. It is a beautiful sail that billows out in front of the boat with its own “wing” flying out in front of it. The sail is a downwind sail intended for use in light winds, similar to a spinnaker. These types of sails look absolutely stunning, but for me, are a bit too much like hard work. Besides the work, it also costs a small fortune, so we will just have to live without it.

Oh, and yesterday, for no particular reason at all, the skin started pealing off the bottom of my feet. At first I thought I had stood in something and it had stuck to my feet. But then after some closer investigation, discovered it was my own skin. Now I don’t know why this is happening. Could it be scabies or some other dreaded boat related disease? I just don’t know. Hopefully it is the beginning of my feet turning into webbed feet like a duck or seal or some other sea type creature.

Beaching our catamaran

16 Oct. 12


By the next morning Lola’s pms and my mms had passed and we both felt slightly more positive. We went down to the foreshore again and found the owner of the Lagoon 500 catamaran. He turned out to be very helpful and told us he would catch our lines and assist us when we arrived. High tide was at two in the afternoon so we started the motors and headed towards the beach just after high tide. Nearing the beach I watched the depth sounder as the display read 0.2 metres, 0.1 metres, 0.0 metres, as we slowly reversed Yrumoar closer and closer to land. We had to drop the anchor a certain distance from the shore to hold the front of the boat steady. At the back we tied two lines onto two palm trees on the shore to hold the back steady. Fortunately we had lots of assistance and eventually we were safely tied up and waiting for the tide to go out.

Sitting in the cockpit looking at the shore I decided that we could go closer to land even though the depth sounder had read 0.0 metres, so I tried pulling Yrumoar closer using the lines whilst Lola released more of the anchor chain. I pulled as hard as I could but she refused to move closer. After a while I gave up and decided that she must be on the ground already, which is why she wouldn’t move. My mind was still processing this with something niggling in the back of my thoughts. I couldn’t place my finger on it but in the moment and during all the excitement decided to just forget about it and patiently wait for the tide to go out.

Whilst she was on land we decided that we would raise the water line by about a hundred millimetres and off course we had to replace the sail drive boots. We sat waiting in the cockpit for about two hours as the tide slowly went out. Eventually the tide went out and once again Yrumoar found herself sitting on her keels on dry land.

Working against the tides was very stressful and we found ourselves watching the water all the time as we worked, trying to move as fast as we can to get finished before the water came rushing back to reclaim the land. We soon discovered that we needed to get closer to the shore as we were still too deep and the tides didn’t allow enough time to get to the boots. At this point we realised that we would have to wait for the next high tide and then move Yrumoar closer in to shore.

It was after eight in the evening when we eventually called it a day and went to have a shower. High tide was at quarter past two in the morning and Lola set the alarm clock for two. We had a fitful sleep with Lola waking every few minutes saying “what was that?” “Did you hear that?” Then she would get out of bed and stomp all over the decks searching for something unknown and unseen, before returning a few minutes later just to repeat her process. We were already awake when the alarm eventually instructed us that we should get out of bed.

I thought it would be a simple process, obviously forgetting we were on a boat for a moment, when I told Lola that all we have to do is just release some more of the anchor chain and using the ropes tied to the palm trees, pull ourselves closer to the shore. We didn’t even have to wake the kids to help.

We walked onto the deck and released the anchor windlass waiting for the chain to slide out. Nothing happened. We looked at each other, then at the chain, then at each other again as if our looking would make something change. Then I opened the anchor locker to see if I could find out why the chain refused to move. Unbeknownst to us Doom had been sitting inside the anchor locker, sniggering and waiting patiently all this time for his moment of glory when he would suddenly pounce out and laugh straight in our faces. His moment had arrived and he pounced. I stared into the locker and found the problem. When we dropped the anchor earlier we had obviously dropped it a bit soon and had no more chain left. The rope that is tied to the chain to allow the anchor more warp was too thick to fit through the hole in the deck and was stuck in the hole.

Suddenly I remembered we were on a boat, nothing is ever easy. Lola went and woke the kids and we discussed our options. First we would lengthen the ropes that tied us to the palm trees. Then we would start the motors, in case things didn’t go according to plan, and using the anchor windlass pull ourselves towards the anchor whilst slowly releasing the ropes. Once we pulled ourselves far enough to lift the anchor we would pull ourselves backwards again using the ropes. When we got closer to shore we would drop the anchor again and continue to pull ourselves with the ropes allowing the anchor to bite and the chain to slide out until we were close enough to shore. It seemed simple enough. Again I obviously forgot we were on a boat. Okay in my defence it was just after two in the morning and I hadn’t had much sleep.

Lola worked the windlass, Rauen worked the starboard line, and I worked the port line. After a few minutes I traded places with Lola and asked Kyle to shine the torch onto the chain and tell me when he could see the anchor. As soon as Kyle shouted that he could see the anchor all hell broke loose. Yrumoar suddenly woke up and captured by the tide, no longer constrained by her anchor, drifted rapidly towards the fifty foot Lagoon parked quietly next to us. I was to busy working the windlass to notice that both Lola and Rauen were trying desperately to pull us back towards the shore and away from the Lagoon. By the time I realised Doom was laughing louder than ever and probably rolling on the floor with laughter it was to late. Yrumoar was on top of the Lagoon and Lola was trying desperately to push us away. Wump! I heard the crash as the two boats collided in the night. At this point I was running towards Lola, like a chicken without its head shouting at Rauen to pull harder on his rope. This was the moment when Lola, who usually panics, calmly told me to get to the helm and use the motors. I reacted as per her instruction and Yrumoar slowly motored away from the disaster. After we were a safe distance away from our neighbour I quickly ran onto the foredeck and dropped the anchor. Lola and Rauen pulled us closer to shore and suddenly all the panic and pandemonium was over.

Once we were a bit more settled we looked at the time. It was four in the morning so we decided to open the gas and warm the kettle. Sending the kids back to bed we stayed up the rest of the night waiting for the tide to go out so that we can continue with our repairs. When the tide had gone out far enough I got off the boat and went to the bathroom. On my way I found Jaco, the owner of the Lagoon and we checked the damage on his boat. Fortunately it was only a small gelcoat scratch and easily repaired. Yrumoar also only suffered the same amount of damage and was fixed quickly using epoxy.

We woke the kids at about seven and all of us rushed around under the boat again watching the water all the time as we attempted to finish. Replacing the boots was a complete failure so we decided to paint antifoul paint inside the holes instead, leaving the boots off until the next time we have to haul the boat. There just wasn’t enough time between the tides to do the job properly and we even had to put the propellers back on whilst the paint on them was still wet.

During the next high tide we left the shore and motored back to the walk-on, not quite as satisfied with our achievements as we would like to have been.

We are still waiting for the club to transfer the money for the sale of our walk-on. Our new 1000 watt inverter has arrived and I need to install it. We are also waiting for two more solar panels that we hope solves our power problems, or is it our lack of power problems. Our uncomfortable bed situation is also still literally a pain in the back even though we have tried two different new mattresses.

The feeling of excitement for this trip is still eluding us and neither Lola nor I can find any real motivation, still somehow believing that we will probably never actually leave.

Raising the waterline has made Yrumoar look better in the water, a bit less like a boat busy sinking, even though we know that we should actually remove weight from her, instead off just painting the waterline higher. However catamarans don’t have much capacity to carry weight and a cruising catamaran lands up being overloaded with extra batteries, solar panels and all other cruising requirements that most day sailors don’t need, so we will just have to live with this reality. Hopefully her sailing ability isn’t overly affected.

Earlier this evening I made three phone calls. The first call was to my son Keagan and the conversation went something like this. “hey dad.” “hey my boy” and the formalities were over so Keagan continues. “Well let me catch you up with what has happened in my life since we last spoke.” He then explains in great detail with gusto and humour everything that has happened to him making sure not to forget anything and keeping me in touch with his life. He does this so perfectly that I have to wonder if he had practised and prepared for this. But no, that is just Keagan, my boy. A friend of ours, Sam, explained him so perfectly one evening when she said. “he is like James f**king Bond.”

My second call was to my daughter Amy. She didn’t answer the call and whilst the phone was dialling in my ear I could just imagine her. Standing in her small student apartment. Listening to a strangely familiar sound. Wondering what the sound was, and why it sounded so familiar. Slowly recognising the sound and realising that the sound sounded extremely similar to her cellphone ring tone. Then suddenly an epiphany, my phone, my phone, its ringing, its ringing, oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! Where is it? Must find it before it stops. Probably never find it once it stops. Then she finds the phone.

But I have already hung up.

Now Amy looks at the phone and sees my number. Being a student and being Amy she has no airtime to call me back. So she decides to contact me telepathically. Staring at her cell she lets her mind travel past the stars and to the moon. Then bouncing it back down to earth she manages to locate me here on the boat.

So I make the third call.

Amy answers with “Hello” sounding a little uncertain as to whom may be on the other side of that phone. Then I say. “hey famous” and she replies, “hey daddy” then I ask how she is and she replies with fine. Then I ask what she has been doing and she replies with, studying for her semester tests. The conversation is a bit slow at this time because her mind is obviously still travelling back from the moon and I think it made a quick stop over at Jupiter to pick up something she may have forgotten there the last time she passed by.

After a few seconds it lands and I get all of Amy. She tells me her plans and that she isn’t quite ready for student life to be over. She tells me lots more but I don’t want to share all of it so will keep it to myself.

They are so different, Keagan and Amy. Keagan is cool calm collective and witty. And Amy, well she is sitting on the moon and playing with the stars. I wish I had more airtime and could call them more often.

Can we get to beach?

03 Oct. 12


Even though I know we only have about a week left here before we go I can’t seem to find that excited feeling I am supposed to have. I can’t help but feel that we are never actually going to leave and Yrumoar is going to become just another one of those many “broken dream” boats that I see all around the boatyard, staying here forever and slowly rotting away. I am hoping that I feel like this because we travelled back here from Durban instead of continuing forward to East London. Perhaps the excited feeling will return the day we leave, or once we get to Durban.

08 Oct. 12

I have somehow become the local “advisor,” inspecting work done on peoples boats and informing them whether or not the work was done correctly. I don’t know how this happened considering how many boatyard engineers work here in the boatyard, and the fact that I am still a newbie at this.

I still don’t feel very inspired or excited as the time just keeps on marching by and we still just sit here. The sale of our walk-on is complete and now we are waiting for the money to be transferred into our account. We have managed to tick some more items from the list but it doesn’t seem to get any shorter. We somehow manage to find a new item to add to the list every time we tick one off.

10 Oct. 12

We were hoping to leave before the weekend, but it seems that fate has another plan for us. We hired Kirsten to jump overboard and scrape off the barnacles that have already made themselves at home on our hulls. Whilst he was down there he noticed that our rubber sail drive boots had loosened themselves. So instead of leaving this weekend, we will be beaching the boat and fixing the boots.

Perhaps if we start doing something exciting instead of just fixing the boat, fixing the boat, fixing the boat, I will feel inspired again. But for now, I am just so totally bored and sick of fixing the boat. Even the beauty of this place has lost its lustre and I can’t seem to find anything that interests me anymore. I haven’t even been able to write a letters to my kids since I haven’t got anything to say.

13 Oct. 12

Yesterday we hit rock bottom. We checked the tides and walked down to the foreshore during low tide to make sure that we had a spot to beach. There were two other catamarans already on the beach getting some or other things done to them, but it appeared as if we would be able to park next to one off them. After getting all the preparations done on the boat we decided to walk down to the foreshore again just before high tide to do a final check.

The spot we had selected was still available but the catamaran that would be next to us drifted all over the place and would make it difficult for us to beach. The owner of the boat had gone to town so we couldn’t even ask him to fix the problem.

I am still not sure exactly why, but at this point both Lola and I threw our toys out the cot and feeling very despondent came back to our boat. After stomping around on the boat and snapping at the kids every now and then we landed up in a full blown argument. Lola ended up in tears and I felt guilty for making her come on this “dream” boat to hell.

An outing for a day

26 Sep. 12


Yesterday we moved Yrumoar from our regular parking spot to a new one. For a few moments I could feel the anticipation grow in my stomach as I realised that this meant we are even closer to leaving. The new owner of our spot should arrive here today or tomorrow. Today Kyle will be moving out of his room into the spare room whilst we strip and fix the wood rot that has manifested itself around his window. We also want to check why the motor under his bed overheats.

28 Sep. 12

We managed to cut away the wood rot and replace that piece with foam core and fibreglass. We still have to sand the fairing compound in some spots and paint our repair before we can replace the window. It is supposed to rain this afternoon so I hope we manage to paint and fit the window before the rain gets here. Lola took out the list and I was quite surprised to discover that we are down to forty one items. I didn’t realise that we had managed to tick so many things off the list. It hasn’t felt like we have been working at all yet these things are somehow getting done. It must be the fairies again.

30 Sep. 12

We managed to finish the window with about an hour to spare before the rain arrived. On Saturday morning we woke up and found our parking spot occupied by the new guy that was supposed to arrive on Wednesday. He came over and informed us that his trip up was very unpleasant with fifty four knot winds and steering problems. I was glad that he eventually arrived since we have been waiting for him. His arrival was one of the final obstacles that we had to use as an excuse to still be here. Somehow I just can’t become excited about the trip anymore and both Lola and I seem to feel the same way. Maybe it has just been too long, even though it is supposed to be fun sitting around all day doing nothing without having the responsibility of going to work, we can’t seem to see the fun side anymore. Everyday is just the same as the day before. We wake up, I have coffee whilst Lola has coke. Then we discuss the list and during the day I work on some of the items whilst Lola teaches the kids. Lola cooks at about lunch time and we eat. In the afternoon we sit in the cockpit and have the same conversation about the same things repeatedly whilst I have a few drinks. Then we go to bed just to wake up and have a rerun the next day. Yes, things will have to change soon.

Dylan, a friend will collect us here this morning and take all of us to a game park for the day. I hope this breaks the monotony and gives us something new to talk about.

01 Oct. 12

The trip into the game park was interesting and relaxing. We came across herds of giraffe, zebras and of course a few different species of buck. At lunch time we stopped and had a picnic under some trees near a small dam. Dylan romanticised about owning that setting and building his home near to the little watering hole. I agreed with him, it was a beautiful piece of ground and the natural pond was stunning. After our picnic we headed out of the game park. The game park is surrounded by plantations, rows and rows of trees planted in straight lines. If you study the plantation while you drive past your eyes can see far down the rows and sometimes, when the plantation isn’t that wide, straight along one or two of the lines and out the other side. Occasionally a firebreak is created between the rows, where there are no trees and the natural grass is kept short. It was down one of these firebreaks that we turned. Never being off road in a car before I watched and bounced around as the Toyota land cruiser made its own road, finding its way to one of the indigenous forests that lay hidden secretly between the plantations.

The Kwazulu Natal bush is lush thick and green. We found a small clearing hidden deep in the forest and parked. The remains of a derelict camp site, long forgotten and no longer maintained, stood built in the clearing. Here we found an old hiking trail and decided to take a walk. After negotiating with the overgrown bush covering parts of the trail for a while, we came across a broken down bridge that stood over a small creek. Since the bridge was no longer usable we clambered our way through the creek and went up the other side continuing along the trail till we found another bridge. Again this bridge was no longer useable and we had to cross through another creek. This one was a lot deeper and wider than the last one. The banks were muddy and slippery and we had to negotiate our way carefully to avoid landing in the mud. Being slightly unprepared and not wearing hiking boots probably made the task a bit more difficult than it should have been.

After our hike through the forest we made our way back towards the main road through a marsh and nearly got stuck in the mud when we had to cross a small river. We made a few attempts at crossing the river in full four wheel drive mode with wheels spinning and mud flying everywhere before we achieved success.

I enjoyed the day and was happy to escape the confides of the boat for a while. Lola’s day was unfortunately not as pleasant. Her seat in the back was cramped and uncomfortable with the wheel arch placed directly under her making for a bouncy hard ride. At some point during the drive she was also punished with her obligatory migraine and had to do the hike with a pounding head. I don’t know what evils she committed during her past lives to be punished in such a cruel and malicious manner, but I am left powerless and can only empathise with her pain.

Back to Boatlife

17 Sep. 12


We finally arrived back home on Yrumoar yesterday after extending our visit to Lola’s sister in Durban by one extra day. Our dingy was completely deflated and filled with water from all the rain that fell whilst we were away. The crew from Sea Shoes had been keeping an eye on our boat and told me they had to empty the dingy a few times during the week. We knew we would have to modify the way we carry the dingy anyway since it fills with water from breaking waves when we sail.

18 Sep. 12

Last nights regular Monday night braai left me feeling a bit tender today so I didn’t achieve much for the day. I did manage to get the dingy secured making us one step closer to leaving. The international visitors here have been grilled by customs for some or other unknown reason. While we were away customs arrived here in full force like some huge drug bust, posting police officers on every walk on and acting like they had just uncovered the largest and meanest underground organisation since Al Capone and the mob. They gathered all the “illegal” international yachties and detained all their boats stating that they were evading tax and breaking the law by not paying import duties on their boats. Wow, imagine that, every country you stop at now suddenly forces you to import your boat into that country. I suppose you would also have to pay export duties a few months later when you leave.

I can’t help but wonder which rocket scientist thought up this new found ludicrous misinterpreted law. If any such law even exists. It is just so good to know that our country has such intelligent people in control.

19 Sep. 12

I have a hollow feeling of anticipation in my stomach that has been haunting me for the past few days. I am not sure what has caused this feeling but it just won’t go away.

The south westerly wind is howling again today and we are going into town to buy some filters and things for the second hand water maker that we bought some time ago. We found a manual online and I am hoping to install the water maker before we leave here. It doesn’t look complicated but then this is a boat and nothing on a boat is ever as it appears.

I haven’t been able to find my rhythm and still forget to brush my teeth or shave some days only remembering to do this at about lunch time. I used to have a set routine before we lived on the boat but can’t seem to find it here. It also seems that the longer we have been on the boat the harder it has become. I try to remind myself as soon as I wake up, but I am even forgetting to remember to remind myself. Maybe I should make a list and sleep with it stapled onto the ceiling above my head, or perhaps photos stapled to the ceiling would be better.

24 Sep. 12

It was a long weekend and we had some friends arrive on Friday and leave today. A few times over the last few days I experienced emotional moments where I missed my kids terribly and found myself feeling miserable. Except for Lola I don’t think anyone else noticed these moments so I didn’t spoil the mood for anybody. Keeping a happy face whilst melting on the inside is a practised and acquired skill that I am not very good at.

The raging battle between customs and the international boats still continues. One of the detained boats managed to leave after paying a fine of two thousand rand, the others are still waiting to find out what fate has in store for them. Unfortunately for these poor souls customs holds all the cards and will slowly divide and conquer each futile attempt made at finding justice. I am embarrassed by this foul play and unprovoked attack on the international community and hope that we don’t find ourselves in the same situation in other countries that we visit. All I can say is, “welcome to Africa, remember to leave your wallet behind when you go.”

Mark will be arriving some time this week to take over our parking space so we will move to a rental spot for a while whilst I try to tick a few important items off the repair list. So it seems we are running out of excuses and will have to be on our way soon.

25 Sep. 12

Yesterday was another one of those “goodbye” days. Our “homeless” friend Ryun found himself a job up in Johannesburg and left. We had become quite close over the last two years and his leaving left Lola and I feeling glum. The regular Monday night braai seemed mundane as we sat in a corner by ourselves feeling deflated and miserable. The regular faces didn’t look as inviting and we decided that we are going to distance ourselves in future, taking the easier route by not making such good friends again. Doing this may not be easy but the “goodbye’s” will be easier.

19 Aug. 12


The question of staying has been coming up a lot lately. Lola could get a job here in Richards bay as a teacher which she had discovered to be her chosen profession. I considered starting a sailing school so I still get to do some sailing. During the school holidays we could sail up the coast to Mozambique and back. It has been very tempting to cancel the trip. There is a multitude of reasons for these thoughts. Money being on top of the list with the fear of the uncertain future being a close second. Last night however Lola and I discussed the subject once more and this time it was Lola’s turn to make the decision to continue with the trip. It is weird how we seem to toggle, sometimes it is me and the next time she would decide. I never realised how many times the temptation to cancel the trip would come up.

23 Aug. 12

Today we went to the airport to fetch our son Rauen, back from his two week visit to Joey’s. Now that he is back we need to get the most important items ticked off the list and then watch the weather for a window. Our new navigation system on the laptop with an AIS receiver seems to be working. The power problems that we have had are still not completely solved. The MPPT charge controller that we bought hasn’t made any difference. We received it with absolutely no paper work and even though it seems quite a simple thing to install there may be a trick to it. I tried contacting the manufactures but they just ignore me. I will send one more e-mail to them in a final attempt to see if I will get some joy.

29 Aug. 12

After spending about sixty rand on cell phone calls to WRND I am still no closer to solving our power problems. I must have asked the guy four or five times to please send me a manual, but still I wait in vain. Perhaps it’s a secret and my qualifications aren’t classified enough. Or maybe it is on a need to know basis, and I just don’t need to know. We also want to buy an inverter from them since their pricing is good, but now I am not sure if I should. Maybe their pricing is so good because their equipment comes without manuals and doesn’t really work. The equipment looks quite pretty though so I suppose that would make up for its inability to work.

Today we will go and collect a rental car that we plan to use for a trip to Joeys to say our goodbyes to the kids and family. This must be about the fifth time we have said our final goodbyes, so perhaps it’s not really the final after all.

07 Sept. 12

Our visit to Johannesburg has passed the halfway mark and I find myself wanting it to come to an end so that we can get back home to Yrumoar. More than once during our visit up here I asked myself why we chose to stay here for so long. This must be one of the ugliest places on the planet, especially this time of the year. Everywhere we drive we are surrounded by brown dirty pieces of open land with black patches where veld fires have scorched the soil and destroyed the dry brown grass. The icy wind blows through your skin until your bones feel cold and brittle. Even the stars refuse to shine here in the night sky and only a few of the very brave ones will show their faces to the poor souls that are doomed to survive here.

We have however enjoyed spending time with our family and friends and we made a point of seeing Keagan everyday after school. Amy has been a bit more difficult to see since she has a busy life and lives in Pretoria, about sixty kilometres from my mother’s house where we are staying.

14 Sept. 12

A myriad of thoughts were making their way slowly through my head as we drove away from my mother’s house on our way back towards the coast line, and back towards our home on the boat. Like a slide show the memories of the past week flashed on and off in my mind. Images of each of our friends in turn cycled slowly across my mental vision. The slideshow would play for a while flashing some of the memorable moments of our trip, but always ended with the sad eyes that accompanied the goodbye’s. Saying goodbye has never been one of my strong points and this perhaps final goodbye to some was particularly hard. The slide show was still running when we made our pit stop to buy KFC for lunch. I sat eating but not really tasting anything as we had our lunch. After KFC we walked to the convenience store to buy coke for the next part of the trip. Rauen attempted a conversation with me as we walked along and I must have appeared to be listening as he continued speaking. After reaching the shop we departed in our separate ways and I found myself thinking that I was really glad he didn’t ask me any questions, since I didn’t hear a word he said.

The trip to Johannesburg was a trip of extremes going from Axel’s thousand odd square metre, ultra modern, home to my sister and Warren’s small broken, in dire need of repair, rented house, to Russel’s mansion with the forbidden west wing, and then to my daughter Amy’s small student apartment. Each place we visited brought its own individual experience and the memories that go with it.

Axel's Amazing home

Lindie and Warren

Kids in the Lambo

For the most part we stayed at my mother’s house, making a point of going to see my son, Keagan every afternoon once he arrived home from school. During our visit to Sam and Russel we all had our first unforgettable experience in a Lamborghini. Going to Axel’s house confirmed our decision that going on a boat actually suited us. His place is large and modern, but for me, excessive. At his place, Lola and I discussed what we would need should we ever decide to settle back on land again. We realised that we are obviously just too simple and require almost nothing to live happily. Our “wish list” if you can call it that, went as follows. First we require a fridge/freezer, then a comfortable bed. A small stove and some plastic garden furniture completes the list. Everything else would be considered luxury items. Thinking back to past Barry and Lola this was about all we had anyway before we decided to go, so I suppose nothing has really changed.

Regatta Time

05 Aug. 12


The last week has seen me struggling with marine toilets again. It seems that these beasts never work properly. Everyone seems to have a similar solution to maintenance but none of the methods work. Pour oil in them, use vinegar. Yes buckets and buckets of vinegar. The amount of vinegar required to keep them from blocking up would sink the boat and bankrupt me. At the end of the day you have no choice but to strip out all the plumbing pipes and clean each piece individually. It is a disgusting job. And this little exercise has to be done about once a month. So today, yet again, I hate living the “dream”, and living on a boat.

08 Aug. 12

We volunteered ourselves some time ago to be the bridge boat during a sailing regatta. Now the weekend has come and we have to get involved. Being the lazy ass people that we are we no longer want to be involved and would rather just do nothing. So yesterday whilst walking past the office I was asked how much anchor chain we have on board. In my mind I hoped that not having enough chain would be our saviour and thus we could avoid being involved. I converted my reply into a question and asked how much chain we needed? The answer came as fifty metres. Yes! I replied in jubilation, we only have about thirty metres so could just continue in our quest for laziness. No, came the answer, the club would provide the fifty meters of chain. So, it appears we will be the bridge boat for the weekend after all.

15 Aug. 12

The club never provided that chain and I found myself starting to panic. After I realised that there was no way they were going to let me worm my way out of the regatta, I decided to do some research. For the last few regatta’s they used another cat named Nomad. She is fifty four foot long. Steve Martin, the Commodore, told me that she had dragged her anchor and they had to add extra warp. I went around and asked everybody that was anybody about the anchor of the last bridge boat, but nobody seemed to know. I needed to know how heavy the anchor was compared to our anchor. I eventually found the owner of Nomad and asked him, thinking he would be able to enlighten me. To my surprise the answer came as, “I don’t know, is that important to you?” I then asked him how they made up their bridle. He replied, “What bridle?” “We just tie a piece of rope around the mast.”

Thursday morning arrived and we found ourselves at the race briefing feeling a bit unprepared. To add to my misery, Rauen, my reliable crew, was flying up to Joey’s to see his dad in the afternoon. This would mean that Lola and Kyle, the rest of my crew, would be at the airport to say goodbye when the race was on. My mind was filled with trepidation as I listened to the race committee announce that we should be getting out in about an hour. Walking back to the boat I had visions of myself as a lonely solo sailor on a badly anchored boat drifting slowly towards the rocks and death.

Fortunately one of the race competitors called and informed us that he was stuck in the snow on his way down from Joey’s. Some of the others also experienced problems so the race was postponed to Friday and I went off to the airport to say goodbye.

Friday morning with two race officials and minus one crew member we motored out of the harbour to test the conditions for the day. After spending an hour drifting about in the same spot I opened the furler and we sailed at about one knot for the next hour. Another hour of waiting and testing and the decision was made to race inside the harbour instead so we motored back to our parking.

The wind finally arrived on Saturday morning and we dropped our anchor in twenty five metres of ocean. Lola gave me clear and concise instruction that she wasn’t accepting the rope around the mast bit so I had to make up our bridle and make it work. Fortunately I am a very talented man and made it happen as per instruction, thus saving my own life and making sure that future Barry would still be in existence.

Sitting out at anchor about three miles offshore watching Hobie Cat racing was quite an experience and we all enjoyed the day.

The racing finished as the wind turned north easterly and picked up to above twenty knots. It fascinates me how quickly the sea follows the change in the wind, within minutes the waves had become short, steep and choppy. Now the fun begins. Lola and I agreed before the time that we won’t fight this time and I ask her to steer us towards the anchor. Steve and I head onto the deck to quickly lift the anchor. Well, at this point I was to discover that my fears of the anchor dragging were all in my head and about to be obliterated. More than an hour later, after some blood, lots of sweat and even a few tears Steve and I finally managed to get the anchor back on board. I was so busy struggling that I couldn’t even find the time to fight with Lola.

With only a few weeks left of winter, Lola and I decided to stop being lazy and start preparing Yrumoar for our upcoming journey. We searched all over the boat for the list of repairs we made but it must have grown some feet and disappeared. After abandoning our search for the list we decided to make a new list. The new list has fifty three items that need to be addressed. Some of the items are big jobs, but most are quite small. On the first day we ticked two items off the list. Today we added one to the list.

Back to that wild imagination of mine

17 Jul. 12


Saturday night was the last night we had to spend with Amy, Keagan and Dean. The weather service predicted strong South Westerly winds and terrible weather for that night. We studied the prediction and felt disappointed that our last night together will be ruined by the weather. God must have seen our disappointment and delayed the weather till Sunday morning, giving us a clear beautiful windless evening instead. This allowed us the time to sit outside in the cockpit till about three in the morning before we eventually decided that we should get some sleep. We woke up again at five and after having our last cup of coffee together we helped pack the last of their belongings into the car and waved them goodbye.



We decided that our last Friday night should be spent at the waterfront. At around nine we arranged a lift with a friend who dropped us outside. We spent the evening alternating between the two remaining nightclubs here. Around three o clock in the morning we had enough and all six of us pilled into a small taxi sitting on each others laps and made our way home. It is now Tuesday and we are still trying to recover.



We discovered some more wood rot around Kyle’s portlight and will have to fix this before we can go again. We will spend the next few months waiting here so hope to tick a few things off the list. I want to focus on my book and hope to finish it before we leave here but haven’t made much progress since our return trip from Durban.



19 Jul. 12

During the night I woke up to Lola writhing and wincing in pain caused by earache. I am hoping she sleeps in a bit this morning and her earache gets better. I felt helpless lying next to her listening to her muffled suffering, trying not to disturb my sleep. This ear has been hounding her on and off for some time now with no real solution in sight. I did recommend a doctors visit but she stubbornly refuses saying that doctors don’t help, they just cost money.



Sitting here back at the beginning point of our planned sabbatical trip has raised many doubts in my mind. Mostly doubts concerning money. We have been delayed by almost two years and this delay has eaten its way into our budget. Thoughts about abandoning the trip or delaying it and starting some or other business venture keep appearing in my mind. The reality about any business venture is that it takes large amounts of cash and time to set into motion. The trip would have to be placed on the back burner until the business is well established and can fend for itself. History then teaches me that the moment the business is left un attended, it starts to fall apart and will eventually die. So any business ideas will actually kill the trip completely. I therefore have to resist the temptation and find other things to keep my mind occupied if we want to have any chance of continuing.



23 Jul. 12

Mtoro, a French couple with an adopted Malagasy son left a few days ago on their return voyage back to Myotte. We had made friends with them in the time they spent here so were on the docks to untie their lines and say our final goodbye’s. They started the motor and we tossed the lines to them as they motored backwards towards the opposite dock. Mario, the husband, mentioned in his broken English that he wishes he had his dingy motor attached to the back of the boat as it helps to steer the boat in confined spaces. We watched as they continued backwards slowly turning the bow towards the channel. The finger next to Mtoro was unoccupied allowing enough space for an easy exit away from the dock. Everything went smoothly and I thought we could start walking back towards Yrumoar when they selected forward gear and started moving towards the channel. The wind was blowing south west and we watched as their boat suddenly turned back towards the dock and headed straight towards another boat. Lola shouted to me that I should run around to the end of the dock and attempt to push them away from disaster. I hesitated for a moment worried that they were going to crash into the finger of the dock that Lola was standing on and thus run her over. Lola instructed me one more time to get onto the opposite finger and push them away. I ran towards that finger. The finger had two sets of stairs placed upon it to allow the owners of the boats usually parked there access onto their boats. As I tried to pass next to the stairs the finger tilted and I lost my balance. Instinctively I grabbed onto the stairs to regain my balance just to discover that the stairs also lost its balance and we both landed in the water. Fortunately two other people working on another boat had seen the pandemonium and ran over to help. One of them rescued the stairs and the other one helped push Mtoro away from the finger and then gave me a hand to get out of the water. In the meantime Mtoro reversed away from the dock again and going backwards towards the channel this time nearly collided with Yrumoar and two other boats on the opposite side of the docks. We tried to run around and save them but could only watch as Silvi the wife and Leo the son pushed Mtoro away from the other boats. By the time we arrived on the opposite dock they had made it into the channel and I stood laughing and dripping sea water as we waved them goodbye. The unplanned swim cost me a cell phone and a nearly full box of cigarettes. In future I think I will just watch people leave from the safety of our boat instead.



25 Jul. 12

Back when I was a child I used to have a little wooden dog. The memory of this dog is a bit vague but from the picture in my older mind I can still see its little wooden body. It had four plastic wheels with the back ones buckled making the dog go up and down whenever I pulled it along on a string behind me. The tail was made using a spring with a small round plastic cap on the end. The ears where pivoted pieces of plastic in the shape of a butter bean that had been driven over by a steam roller. This little dog went with me everywhere I went. This morning I miss the little dog for some or other unknown reason and wished I had kept it. I wonder if part of that child is still with me or perhaps I am just sad because he had to grow up.



31 Jul. 12

The last few days I have been feeling very antsy and restless. We need to move on and it is getting harder and harder sitting here waiting for summer to arrive. I don’t know how much longer I will be able to contain myself.



Woke up at half past four this morning. Whilst sitting in the cockpit freezing my butt off drinking coffee when, suddenly, and for no particular reason at all, I was overwhelmed by emotion. Firstly I missed my kids, then I thought about all the friends I have ever had in my life. I even missed the ones that I made in primary school and haven’t seen since. Not sure what brought on this extreme display of emotion but was glad nobody was awake to see it. Perhaps it was caused by the full moon or maybe its just that time of the month for me.



01 Aug. 12

My kids are always saying that I tend to exaggerate things a bit. Now I don’t agree with them since I feel I always stick to the facts as closely as possible. In a letter I wrote to them I explained the exact story of how I landed in the water and destroyed my cell phone. I copied and pasted the story. Its true, this is how it actually happened.



I wonder how much the story of the drowned phone will grow over time. It always starts off quite close to the truth but then somehow lands up being in a league of its own with a whole new life attached. Yesterday already I was explaining to someone how I jumped in to save a small black kid. Then I added that I also saved an old white guy. The old white guy had jumped in first to try save the young black kid. However as it turns out the old guy had dementia and he actually pushed the young black kid into the water, then he forgot that he did this and discovered the young black kid struggling for his life so decided to jump in after him. After he had jumped in he forgot that he himself couldn’t actually swim so only made matters worse. That was when I arrived and jumped in. unfortunately for me the old guys mind flipped again and he turned into the first world war hero that he was, pulling a diving knife out and a spear gun, he tried to send me to my demise because he imagined that I looked a bit German. I tried to tell him that I only had one or two German friends in my life but have never actually been to Germany. This made him even more mad and he accused me of being part of the Gestapo. A spy sent by the Russian army in a South African disguise with an English accent to kill him. But before killing him my mission was to befriend him and find out how deep the allies were digging their trenches. This was when I grabbed the steps from the walk on and smashed them into his head.



Anyway to finish off the true fact story. The black Ethiopian starving kid survived and I sent him back to Ethiopia with a single egg. He will probably grow up to be the bill gates of Ethiopia, providing he didn’t eat the egg on his way home, and used it to start a chicken farm instead. The old guy, well he just didn’t make it.

M'toro raising their new main sail