Final work begins in ernest

25 Jan. 12


South westerly wind howling away outside since yesterday just after lunch time. It’s just typical that the weather would be crap because I am in a hurry to get finished. I am still feeling a bit tender about my kids and the work helps to take my mind elsewhere.

I received a phone call from the police a few days ago informing me that my companies firearm license has been approved and is ready for collection. Now that is what I call good competent government service. It took them nearly five years to approve this license after loosing my application twice and having absolutely no record of my application on their computer system. Considering that we were providing a security service in a violent and dangerous country, having no firearms made the job impossible and caused me to close the company down. Now almost one year after I have closed the company down they decide to issue me with the required license. Why thank you is all I can say. They now want me to write an email informing them that the company is closed. Yes definitely I am going to do that straight away after about five or six years have passed.

Living on the hard here for the last few months has not been pleasant. My hands are always covered in paint and epoxy and my feet in grinding dust and mud. I don’t believe they will ever come clean again.

We have been running the solar panels for a few days now but they aren’t able to keep up and all we are running is a freezer and a couple of lights. We have three 50 watt panels and one 85 watt panel which in theory should be able to cope but isn’t.

I drilled some holes in the rudder yesterday and grinded it open today in preparation for the good weather so that I can laminate some glass over the broken piece. But otherwise not much else happened. We watched Forest Gump again since it is one of my favourites then watched one night with the king whilst hiding from the rain.

27 Jan. 12

Woke up early this morning to a beautiful sunny day for a change. Whilst I was sitting in the cockpit having my first cup of coffee I looked at my new tattoo and thought about my daughter. The tattoo artist was however not very talented so instead of me looking at a boy sitting on the moon fishing I am looking at a slightly deformed dinosaur wearing a dog leash. So this morning I decided to name my tattoo and give it some character, you know make it come to life. Instantly the name Ameosourris Rex flashed in my head and now it is named. Just for you famous just for you. Ha ha.

Managed to tick off a few things on the list today and almost completed the rudder repairs. Should be able to tick those off tomorrow then the port bow is the last big repair left to do.

30 Jan. 12

The rudders were almost finished then we applied some No Mosis to them which ran and now has to be sanded. We painted the starboard side with undercoat and the first coat of top coat. Only one more top coat and we can tick that side repair off the list. Started stripping the hardware from the port bow and hope to finish stripping today so that we can grind it open to be able to decide what needs to be done.

Last night we went down to the foreshore and had a braai with a couple of the locals down here. .

We sold our car a few days ago so now we have to leave soon or start getting used to public transport.

At some point during the installation of the solar panels I managed to pull the muscles on my left forearm so working with a sensitive weak left hand hasn’t been very easy. A couple of days ago whilst jumping over one of our new repairs I hooked my toe into the cleat by accident and injured it quite badly. Then later on that same day I was concentrating so hard to avoid any obstacles with my sore foot that I completely forgot I have another foot and injured my other foot in the doorway. So for the last few days I have been limping on both feet. Today I was tearing off the fibreglass on the port bow using a crowbar and rough stabbing movements. Then suddenly the crowbar broke through a piece of the fibreglass and shot forward with my hand still attached stabbing the sharp mangled edges of the broken fibreglass under my right hand thumb nail. So now with two useless feet and two useless arms I am going to have to use my mouth and forehead to complete the repairs.