22 Feb. 12
Posted a letter to Amy and Keagan a few days ago and I wonder how they will react when they receive their mail. I feel that letters are different to e-mail and sms and the old ways still have some merit. I used to receive letters from a friend when I was still a young man. My memory can still recall the excitement that I felt so many years ago each time I collected the mail and discovered one of his letters amongst the pile of cold windowed bills. Somewhere along the way we lost contact and since that time the mail has lost its appeal. I in fact avoid fetching the mail for as long as possible nowadays.
Finished painting the second coat onto the crossbeam and it is ready to be refitted to the bows. We ordered four new impellers two days ago from Cape Town, two will be used to replace our old ones and two are spare for the trip. So we patiently await their arrival. We finally booked the trailer to put Yrumoar back into the water on this coming Monday. Now we have a deadline and will have to double our efforts to get her ready for the re launch. Still haven’t got around to that starboard engine service. Things on a boat just take longer to do than they would in normal life.
The days are getting shorter since it is now dark when I get up in the morning reminding me that the season is rapidly coming to an end. It is a lot more noisy so early in the morning when it is still dark than it was a few weeks ago. The night time insects haven’t gone to bed yet and they seem to want to have their voices heard until the very last minute when the sun wakes up.
There are some strange characters down here as I suppose there are anywhere in the world. One day I will attempt to describe some of them obviously using some poetic licence and changing the names to protect the innocent.
25 Feb. 12
Today I don’t feel like doing anything, I just want to lay in my bed. The lyrics to a song and so appropriate today. We can’t get back in the water on Monday anyway because they are having a problem with the tractor. We are having some problems of our own to with the crossbeam. It seems to have grown longer whilst it was waiting on the ground for us. And not just a little longer like 5mm or so but a whole 25 to 30 mm. Now the only way it will fit is by being hammered in with a four pound hammer and seems to be under tremendous strain. I can’t seem to figure out why it is suddenly to big but something changed and I sit in the dark trying to think up a solution. I wish I knew more about boat construction and that it will be fine if I just hammer it into place. But alas I am but a mere mortal with no boat construction experience. I have asked about five different people and got about five different answers to my problem. Some easier than others but some involving quite some engineering. So now we wait until the answer reveals itself to me.
26 Feb. 12
During my fitful sleep last night, caused mainly by a mosquito invasion, I woke up a few times to what sounded like chanting in the distance. I couldn’t quite make out what the sounds were but it reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie, “the temple of doom”. The chanting and screaming is still going on this morning with hundreds of African people in buses and taxis mulling about as they prepare to end their religious vigil and make the journey back home. I thought about creeping across the forested field across the road from us to where they were having their gathering. However weird premonitions crawled through my mind that I may become part of some religious sacrifice if I was discovered. These premonitions were probably sparked off by the newspaper that I read yesterday that had a headline “Two year old girls body is found with genitals removed.” “possible muti killing suspected.” Yes this is Africa.
I am still giving the crossbeam some thought and haven’t made a decision as of yet. I believe that the hulls probably moved when we jacked the one side up to repair the damaged keel. The keel popped back out about 40mm once that side hull was lifted and we reinforced the keel with eight layers of glass. When we placed her back down afterwards she must be standing slightly skew since we didn’t change the woods she was resting on to compensate for the 40mm change in height. This may have caused the hulls to be twisted inwards towards each other which would explain why the crossbeam no longer fits and is about 25mm to long. This was also the only time that the crossbeam was removed during the whole repair job since it was still in place when we repaired the bridge deck.
And just like that they are all gone. In the time it took me to sit down and write this about four buses and fifty or so mini bus taxis with full occupancy disappeared. Now as the sun starts to make its appearance through the trees, and the silence takes over again, my mind can still hear the chanting that sounded like a sports event in a busy stadium, but with an eerie ring to it.
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