Old Murphy again

23 Jan. 13

On Sunday we finally managed to get ourselves back onto the proverbial horse by heading out to sea on Yrumoar. It has taken some time for our courage to return after our last trip and all of the crew, including myself, obviously took a small knock in our self confidence from the gale. We planned to go out on Saturday but the weather decided to keep us on the boat instead, pouring buckets and buckets of rain water onto Yrumoar forcing us indoors. Sunday morning the sun finally showed its face and we started our preparations. First we had to make new lizard lines. A lizard line is a floating line that joins the two ropes, one at the front and one at the back of Yrumoar, that are used to anchor the boat. The lizard line serves the purpose of keeping the two lines together so that they can be found again after they have been untied from the front and back of the boat. If we were on a monohull we would only have one set of lines, however Yrumoar is a Catamaran so we had to make two lizard lines as we have four lines attached to the boat, two lines on either side. Once the lizard lines were ready we started the motors and Kyle released the front two lines whilst Lola and Rauen released the back lines and used them to pull Yrumoar backwards between the jumble of ropes and anchors that lay hidden underwater. After they had pulled Yrumoar about halfway past the hidden traps they dropped the lines. This was my signal so I engaged reverse gear on both motors and moved Yrumoar backwards until Lola shouted the all clear back to me. I changed one motor into forward gear, keeping the other one in reverse and spun Yrumoar into the channel. Once she had her nose pointed in the right direction I changed the other motor into forward gear and we slipped quickly down the channel. Its is quite a long drive down the channel into the harbour and out to sea so it took us about forty five minutes before I could contact port control on the radio to request permission to exit the harbour. In front of us a huge fully loaded container ship was also leaving port and the voice in port control instructed me to keep clear of his outbound vessel. His instruction was definitely not necessary as this monster loomed in front of us like a floating mountain of steel leaving us feeling rather small and insignificant. We followed the monster out to sea slipping slowly further and further behind as he powered his massive diesel engines thrusting himself out into the ocean and away over the horizon. By the time we finally left the harbour and met the ocean swell he had disappeared out of sight.

Finally we were free and alone in the ocean again. The swell was gentle and the wind was calm. We decided to open the furler sail and cut the motors, not using our main sail for this first practice run, hoping to allow ourselves a bit more time for confidence building. The autopilot squeaked away happily as we floated silently on a gentle breeze with the harbour and Durban city getting slowly smaller and smaller in the background. It was about eleven in the morning when Lola decided to make some mini pizza in the oven and I turned on the gas. Lunch went down well and we continued sailing until about two when we jibed around and headed back towards the shore line. Closing in on the shore we tacked again and started sailing towards the harbour mouth watching the people play on the beech as we sailed close by. Getting closer to the harbour mouth we had to tack and head out to sea again in order to line ourselves up with the entrance. Two more tacks and we finally lined up with the harbour mouth and sailed into port.

It was a beautiful day sail and we all gained back a small bit of our lost confidence. However, no sailing trip is complete without some or other catastrophe. Getting back onto our lines did not go as smoothly as our flawless exit. One of our lines decided that we needed a diving lesson and tangled itself firmly around our sail drive preventing us from reaching the front lines and leaving us swinging around helplessly. Fortunately we have an empty mooring next to us leaving us with a lot of space. After studying our problem for a while and not finding an easy solution, Rauen volunteered to dive into the filthy water. I was glad we had him as crew as I watched his body and head disappear under the filthy water again and again in an attempt to free the tangled rope’s strangle hold on our sail drive. After numerous dives we finally came to the realisation that we would have to cut the ropes. I gave Rauen our bread knife and a spare rope and watched him go down again. He first attached the spare rope to the underwater rope to ensure we would find the anchor again and then he cut the rope and we were free.

Harbours are not the cleanest place in the world and this one in particular has about seven rivers flowing through industrial sites pouring chemicals, filth and poisons into it leaving the water brown dirty and disgusting. After his diving excursion, we had to take Rauen straight to the showers and allow him to shower with soap, three or four times in a row to ensure he doesn’t suddenly grow and extra eye on his forehead.

Yesterday Pat arrived and the two of us took a drive to Richards bay to have a look at the damage on his boat. He was in a bit of a rush so I didn’t get enough time to see everyone that I wanted to see there. Luckily we will be returning again next week to fetch the boat and sail it down here so I will get a second chance to see the friends I missed this time.

25 Jan. 13

Again I am having a raging battle with the marine toilets. Just yesterday I told Lola that the toilets are behaving themselves quite well for a change. It seems my words weren’t even cold when Lola went downstairs to use my nemesis and came back up seconds later to inform me that it went on strike. Typical Murphy must have been waiting just outside the cockpit giggling to himself as he heard me go, “oohh yes the toilets are behaving themselves lately.” “ha ha ha, you mere mortal fool, let me show you a thing or two.”

This morning the fridge also decided to join in the strike action and refused to switch on. Owning a boat, yes,… let me see,…I am seriously questioning the wisdom of my decision. And here I was believing that wisdom came with age, well in my case it seems to be followed closely by stupidity. I suppose it is just another one of those fallacies that we are trained to believe from a young age.

27 Jan. 13

Ahh the Mainstay sailing dream. I stripped out our toilet and Lola cleaned out the pipes in this filthy harbour water. She must love me a lot. And then….. wait for it….. yes you guessed it, the toilet still refuses to work so we spent the whole day digging in our own crap for nothing. Like I said, the mainstay dream come true.  

    

Beautiful sunrise and mutant roaches

12 Jan. 13

It has been raining on and off for the two days so we have been trapped on the boat. I decided to get up at four this morning to type my book so after three stiff brandies last night I went to bed at eight. I am not sure what time Lola came to bed but she likes to read herself to sleep and needs light to do this. I had installed a light for her some time ago but the bed has made us change direction more than once in an attempt at finding a comfortable place to sleep. So this light is now on my side of the bed at my feet. Its an LED light but still very bright. At some point I will have to move the light again and hopefully it will be in the right place this time. Anyway, Lola was reading away quiet happily until about one this morning when I eventually tossed and turned myself awake. I am obviously not one of those guys that are afraid of the dark so need the darkness to surround me before I can sleep. Besides this I have never liked my feet being in the spotlight so I sat up and told Lola that it was time for her to say her beddy byes and go to sleep, and without another word I turned off the light. I don’t know if she was impressed by my behaviour since she is still asleep but time will tell. 

This morning the mist is hanging low enough over the hills next to us to cover their tops. The water is flat calm and I can see the sky’s reflection on the surface. If it wasn’t for the rubbish floating by it would have been a perfect setting to wake up to.

13 Jan. 13

I made a new year’s resolution to type my blog everyday. So this morning I look back just to discover that I typed my first blog for the year on the 7^th and missed the 10^th. That shows how well I manage at sticking to new year’s resolutions. I don’t think I have ever stuck to even one of my resolutions in the past but I believe I will still be making them every year. I wonder why I would set myself up for failure on an annual basis.

Even though Lola and I had sundowners last night and went to bed quite late I still managed to get up at four this morning. Looking at the sunrise this morning was worth the pain. I managed to take a photo just before the sun decided to show its face over the hill. Sadly photo’s are never as good as the real thing.

14 Jan. 13

Still in Durban, not sure what we are doing yet. It looks like a good weather window on Wednesday and we have discussed the possibility of taking it but I don’t want to tell anyone just yet in case we change our minds.

This morning I was up at four again but the sunrise wasn’t as pretty. Now I am sitting at the yacht club trying to make some progress on my book. The rain has stopped and it is boiling hot here. I have so much sweat pouring down my back that I cannot sit against the back rest of the chair without getting glued to it. I asked the club office if they could scan and email some of Rauen’s school documents for me but it seems their scanner is on the blink. We will have to take the documents to a postnet this afternoon when we go and post Amy’s passport to her.

Amy finally bought her ticket to Scotland and will be leaving on her gap year sometime later this month. I am excited for her, and also a bit nervous at the same time.

I still don’t know what is happening with Keagan’s car, if it is still standing in Montrose halfway between here and Jhb, or anything.  

16 Jan. 13

We changed our minds and decided to stick to our original plan of staying here for a while longer. I am starting to make some progress on my book and hope to complete it before we set sail. A friend that we met some time ago in Richards Bay and again on the cruise ship asked me to do some repairs on his boat. His boat is moored in Richards Bay so on Monday we are going for a drive up there to assess the damage. If we decide to take on the work we will sail his boat down here and do the work. He has a full racing Monohull so sailing her down here should be exciting. I am also looking forward to seeing some of the old familiar faces again.  

At about five this morning I sat and watched as an American boat dropped the mooring lines and left. This boat has been three quarters of the way around the world so the crew, husband and wife combination, would obviously have a lot of experience. However as I watched them reverse out I noticed that they forgot to untie one of the mooring lines. After reversing out far enough they turned to head down the channel with the rope still attached to their back cleat. There was nothing I could do to help and they were to far away from me to shout a warning to them that they would hear over their engine noise. So instead I just grabbed hold of my head with both hands and held my breath, waiting for disaster to happen. Then it happened. They motored forwards for a while gaining speed when the rope suddenly became taunt and pulled them to an unplanned stop, swinging the front of their boat sideways towards the other moored boats. I watched helplessly as panic set in and saw the wife running around on the decks trying to push them away from the other boats. The husband quickly found the problem and untied the line but it was already too late as they had drifted onto the other boats. For a while time stood still, and I held my breath as I watched both of them pushing themselves away from the boats. Then, just as quickly as it began, it was over and they were in the channel motoring away as if nothing had happened. I gave a sigh of relief and started to breathe again. So it seems no matter how long you have been doing this, or how far you have come, mistakes are inevitable.

17 Jan. 13

Last night as we were sitting in the cockpit Kyle suddenly shouted, “dad …dad… there is a huge bug behind you!” I spun around not knowing what to expect, and there it was. Possibly the largest cockroach on the planet sitting about a foot behind me obviously planning his attack. I jumped straight into action, after possibly yelping like a little puppy with his foot stuck in a fence, shouting at Lola. “quick pass me my sword!” “your what?” she answered. “my sword!” I repeated shouting louder this time to avoid any uncertainty. “you don’t have a sword!” she shouted back. “okay then,” I calmed to a milder panic state. “pass me the fly swat instead.” She passed it to me quickly and I shot into action jumping up onto the deck and swatting violently at the spot were the mutated roach stood waiting. Somehow my carefully aimed shots missed him and he decided to unleash his attack aiming straight at my feet. He scuttled towards my feet at such a high speed that I lost sight of him and panic set in as my mind could see him running up my leg. I jumped about from one foot to the other trying to miraculously keep both my feet in the air at the same time but soon realised the impossibility of my quest. Fortunately his advance missed and he slipped through under my feet and between my legs unscathed and ran behind a bucket. Fortunately Lola kept her mind calm and dispatched Rauen on a mission to fetch the Doom. Rauen arrived with the poison and sprayed behind the bucket. Working in perfect synchronisation Lola removed the bucket as Rauen sprayed the now vacant space. The roach however anticipated this manoeuvre and had already left his hiding place behind the bucket and found another hiding place behind another bucket in the cockpit. Fortunately Rauen spotted him in his hiding spot and emptied about half the can of doom onto him. Being a mutant roach he simply ignored the doom and ran straight into the cockpit. At this point I shouted at Rauen to pass the doom to me and proceeded to spray the rest of the can directly onto him. Now I am not sure if we imagined this, but at this point he seemed to just get bigger and bigger as he consumed the poisonous doom. Luckily I was still armed with the fly swat and since he was now within target reach and in plain site, oh and of course a bigger target due to the doom feeding, I managed to swat him. I had to swat him a few times of course, to ensure he was not going to come back to life and I didn’t just knock him senseless for a short while. Once we had disposed of his now dead flat body overboard, Rauen, Kyle and Lola burst out laughing. They laughed so much that I too started laughing not really sure what I was laughing about. Then through the laughter Rauen explained. “ha ha ha …dad…ha ha ha …dad…you looked like one of those Mexicans in the cowboy movies…ha ha ha …dad… ha ha ha one of those Mexicans in the cowboy movies dancing about as someone is shooting at his feet….ha ha ha …dad…ha ha ha.   Yes very funny.   

18 Jan. 13

I watched another boat from America leaving this morning. Even though I didn’t get to know Steve and Pat very well, and I know that they are just going across to point yacht club for a while and not actually leaving today. Still I felt a small tinge of sadness as I stared longingly at their stern motoring slowly down the channel getting smaller and smaller as the distance between our boats increased. I am quite uncertain if the sadness had anything to do with them at all or was just my own longings for what I don’t know.

New year and a monster snail

08 Jan. 13

Living at the mercy of a battery is not half as much fun as it would seem. Every night before we can go to sleep we have to check the battery power and do a quick calculation to determine if there is enough power to last us through the night. If we have enough, great, no problem, unless we are expecting rain in the morning of course. If we don’t have enough well, then we have to decide what we can switch off, usually the fridge first, sometimes the fridge and freezer. This doesn’t seem like such a big deal, however the freezer may defrost overnight and then we have to toss all the food or eat it all in one day. Even on a good full sun day we are still a bit shy on power. Our current MPPT charge controller can handle a maximum of forty amps. If we added two more 85 watt panels our system would be at its maximum. If we need any more than that we would have to upgrade our MPPT charge controller to the next size up. It never seems to end.      

09 Jan. 13

It is fascinating just how quick the time rushes by, one minute it is January, and the next it is December and Christmas. I feel a bit despondent about this dream trip at the moment considering it has taken us nearly two years to move about eighty miles.

I thought by now we would be halfway across the world. But still here we sit. I called a friend Dave at new years, he joked with me stating that we are obviously not in a hurry. Wow if that was just the truth I wouldn’t feel so miserable. The truth however is that our original plan was finite, with a beginning and an end. Our finances had been tailored towards this plan. Now the finances have become a pressing issue. One that has to be addressed before the end of this year when we will be officially broke. This is the primary reason for our extended stay here. Our first plan is for me to finish my book that I started writing about two years ago but haven’t been consistently working at. So now I wake up in the morning, have my regular six or so cups of coffee and a couple of cigarettes. Then I launch the dingy from the back of the dive platform and load my laptop and the two water bottles. Saying goodbye to Lola and the kids I head off for the yacht club. When I get to the other side of the channel I tie up the dingy onto the walk-on. Next I take my laptop and walk to the yacht club where I can plug into power and type. If we had enough power on the boat I would stay on the boat in the spare room and do my work, however, we don’t have enough power so this will be my routine for the next while. I am hoping to finish the book by the end of February. After that Lola will edit it and we can send it to a publisher. If this plan fails,…. Well,…. I am not sure what we will do. Maybe we will look for some kind of work or perhaps start a new business again.       

11 Jan. 13

Yesterday we decided to take a small trip into town to the sugar storage facility near the harbour. We drove passed it a few times and seen a sign offering tours so decided it might be interesting. The tour started at ten and consisted of a brief introduction to the sugar industry as a whole followed by a short video about the industry. The tour guide or public relations representative then took us on a short but informative tour around the facility. Apparently the facility stores enough sugar in its three silos to supply the world’s sugar needs for one year and the sugar industry provides enough work for two percent of the South African population, approximately one million people. Lola said she found it fascinating that so many people worked in the sugar industry and she had never even met one person involved in the industry before. Thinking about what she said for a while I remembered that that I knew someone once a long time ago. This guy used to be one of my instructors when I was in the military. I am not sure if he actually did anything in the industry but someone in his family owned about half of the industry at the time. The original owner of our boat, even though we have never met him, is apparently a sugar cane farmer. So I suppose we do know one person and have heard about another. 

A few days ago we got off the boat and went to have a swim. When we got of the dingy and walked towards the pool Kyle was given the task of rubbish disposal and went towards the dustbin to throw away our rubbish from the boat. We were still heading in the direction of the pool when I heard Kyle get all excited shouting “dad…dad… you have got to come here.” Kyle normally gets a bit excited about everything so I wasn’t in to much of a hurry to get to him and asked him what was wrong on my way over. He got even more excited and shouted “no dad, you just have to see this snail.” At this point my interest level decreased even more as I thought to myself what could be so exciting about a snail. I have seen millions of the little slimy creatures before and unless they were steaming hot and covered in a cheesy garlic sauce, I don’t care much about seeing another one. However, to my surprise this was no ordinary snail. It compared to the giant roaches in Richards Bay and looked like some sort of mutation had taken place. I have never seen such a monster snail. If it was served up as escargot it could almost feed the whole family.

standard snail

Monster snail

Invited and uninvited guests

07 Jan. 13

This choice of life has so many ups and downs. The ups over December was the two visits by Amy and Keagan. They arrived near the beginning of the month and would only stay for a few days, about a week or so. The sudden surprise trip to Mauritius however seen Keagan leaving a day before he was due to leave, and made Amy stay longer since her and Dean accompanying us on the trip. Getting Amy onto the trip was an event all of its own. Her passport had lapsed and she had to apply for a temporary one which she managed to get just a few hours before departure. To add to her and our trauma her car broke down the night before we were due to leave on her way back from the airport to collect Dean. This left us in a predicament since Keagan was going to use her car to get back to Johannesburg. As we were out of time and our options were limited, Keagan took our car in the morning. We decided to ignore the problem until we came back so we left Amy’s car at the bluff Yacht club waiting on our return. At some point during all this I had to inform my X and this conversation went from nice, calm, and civil, to screaming argument in five seconds flat as only conversations about money with X’s can turn, leaving me with anger issues that I still haven’t managed to deal with.  Dealing with the X over the last few years had become amicable and at times even pleasant. I felt she had forgiven me for my misguided youth that lead to the final breakdown in our relationship and that we had eventually become friends. This argument however made me realise just how fragile such a friendship can be.

Amy and Dean caught the Greyhound bus back to Johannesburg and Keagan drove down with our car to visit and wait for the repairs to Amy’s car. This gave me a second visit with Keagan and we spent an enjoyable New Years Eve watching fireworks from the cockpit of Yrumoar.

The car was eventually “fixed” and Keagan attempted his return journey yesterday. I say attempted because it wasn’t successful and he had to leave the broken down car in Montrose about halfway into his journey. My X had to drive down and collect him there. Since she isn’t communicating with me at the moment I don’t know what is going to happen next.

Besides the multitude of flies and mosquitoes we also had another visitors on Yrumoar. One morning whilst sitting drinking coffee in the cockpit I noticed a movement right next to the cushion I was sitting on from the corner of my eye. As every other brave man would do I instantly jumped up and stood about two metres away in a perfect Ninja defensive position scanning the area, fully prepared to take on any intruders. The intruder noticed my threatening stance and swiftly found a hiding place behind the cushion I had been sitting on just seconds ago. But unfortunately for him my years of military training kicked in and I leapt forward grabbing away the cushion and thereby eliminating his safe hiding place, leaving him helpless and in full view. Now that I knew exactly what I was up against I shouted for Lola, my faithful and always willing companion. When she appeared in the cockpit I instructed her to pass me the weapon of mass destruction. She shot me a confused look and questioned me with the words, which weapon of mass destruction do you want this time. I instantly understood her confusion and told her the weapon of mass destruction that also doubles up as a dustpan and little broom. Oh, and adding to that I also told her to bring the camera so that we would be able to document proof of our intruder before I disposed of him. The intruder fought bravely for a full minute before I finally managed to overpower him and retreat his brave little armoured body back overboard. How he managed to get on board is still a bit of a mystery, but I suppose with his tiny claws and obviously mean climbing skills I shouldn’t be surprised if he attempts another invasion soon.

Mauritius

30 Dec. 12

Its been a long time since I typed my blog but a lot has happened so I guess I’d better start. Nothing seemed to be happening on the job market probably because it was December and everyone was closed so we decided to give it a rest until next year. Lola’s sister, Kim works for MSC and has offered Lola trips on one of their cruise ships every now and then when she has a special offer. Up till now I have always stubbornly refused to go. I am not really sure why I never wanted to go but I think it had something to do with shopping malls. Those big cruise ships remind me of giant shopping malls on the water. Anyway her sister had another special offer and Lola had finally worn me down so we accepted the offer and found ourselves in a giant shopping mall on our way to Mauritius. We set sail on the 18^th December and passed the southern tip of Madagascar about two days later. The coastline was clearly visible but from our vantage point on the MSC Sinfonia about five miles from the coastline we couldn’t see much, just a couple of sand dunes. It was about one in the morning of the next day when we passed by Reunion island and this provided a better view with all the lights from the island twinkling away at us like small stars just above the water. Reunion island is obviously well developed considering all the lights we could see but that was all we could see in the dark. We docked in Port Louis, Mauritius at about nine in the morning of the 22^nd.

On our first day we caught a water taxi into town and walked around the water front shops trying to find something different. The city of Port Louis has an interesting mixture of architectures with many modern sky scrapers. A large number of the buildings have a definite Indian influence but most are just like all modern cities.

The heat was stifling and we negotiated our way through the overcrowded streets and into Macdonald’s for an ice cream. We noticed that all the local shops found in SA are also in Mauritius. KFC, Macdonald’s, Steers and even the Keg were all near the waterfront. The city centre itself was like all city centres, overcrowded and slightly run down. The only difference to Johannesburg city centre was the large number of scooters. Everywhere you looked people were racing around on scooters. Crossing any of the roads was a life altering experience with a thousand scooters racing towards you at top speed. None of them made any attempt to slow down but instead just lay on the hooter as they came bearing down on anyone that tried to cross in front of them. At one point I had to grab Rauen’s arm and swing him onto the sidewalk to get him out of the way of one of these lunatic riders. A short while later Lola had to scream out a warning to me as I was nearly run over by a different lunatic.

After a while we had enough of town and sat down at one of the many small restaurants. We studied the menu for a while and decided that the food was to expensive and not anything different or special so ordered a couple of cokes instead. When our cokes were done we did a quick calculation and counted out the money we would need including a ten percent tip for the waitress. The waitress had lost interest in us and I considered just placing the money on the table and leaving but I eventually managed to get her attention and asked her for a bill. When the bill arrived I was surprised to find that we were short by another fifteen percent. The amount on the menu didn’t include tax of fifteen percent which is added afterwards. So we dug out the wallet and added the amount with the newly calculated tip.

We decided to save some money and walk back to the boat. It was quite a long walk in the heat and we nearly got run over a few more times, this time by the many cars but we managed to find our way back. In SA pedestrians have the right of way, but in Mauritius it is obviously different.

We had a booked tour set up for our second day and we were collected at seven in the morning by a small tour bus. The bus ride was exciting through the mountains on the small winding roads and our tour guide was very informative. He told us all about the history of the country and pointed out the different plants and animals. We stopped at a large impressive statue of one of the Indian gods and a few other touristy spots on the island. Our last stop before returning to the boat was at one of the many beautiful beeches. The beech was surrounded by a reef and the water was perfect clear and blue. The scene was idyllic with the Indian Ocean crashing on the reef in the distance and the flat calm crystal clear water lying calmly waiting on the beech. The only things that spoilt the setting was the many power boats and hundreds of people everywhere. We managed to find a small bit of shade in amongst the crowds and set our towels on the beech sand. Perhaps it is the South African in us, but we then took turns watching our bags and swimming making sure someone was always on watch at the bags. The ride back on the bus was quite boring as we travelled along the coast line and between the various towns. If you are from SA and have been to Actonville in Benoni you will know what the towns look like. The land is divided into extremely small plots. Perhaps about two or three hundred square metres each. Some of the plots have big houses in comparison to the size of the plot. Others have corrugated steel shacks. None have gardens. This makes the area look overcrowded, run down, and poor.

Due to our limited budget we decided to stay on the boat on our last day and we spent the day getting grey hairs worrying about Amy and Dean. They were also on the cruise and had decided to go to the aquarium on the last day. In typical Amy style they left the boat quite late in the morning with little time to spare and arrived back late. In the meantime we were running around on the boat panicking that they wouldn’t be back on time and I already discussed the option of leaving Lola on the boat and waiting for them on land if they didn’t make it.

The trip back was pretty much the same as the trip there. How did I enjoy the trip? Well, I did enjoy spending time sitting watching the ocean go by, looking out towards the horizon and dreaming about what lays on the other side of that horizon. I enjoyed spending time with Amy and Lola and occasionally Dean would join us. Kyle and Rauen disappeared on the first day and we hardly seen them for the entire trip. This would be an ideal holiday if you needed a break from your kids.

What I didn’t enjoy was the multitude of people everywhere and standing in long queues for everything. Some of the queues were pointless and I even asked one of the guys in one of the queues what the queue was for. He told me he wasn’t sure but just stood there in the line anyway. I decided that it must be human nature to form a queue whenever you are not sure what you should be doing.   

               

Would I go on a cruise ship again? The first time I typed this my answer was, no,.. I don’t think so,.. now, a few weeks later my answer is, maybe, perhaps.

Out and about in Durban

30 Nov. 12

We went to gateway, the shopping centre that is reputed to be the largest shopping centre in the southern hemisphere. At gateway we planted another tap root in the form of a suit. I haven’t owned a suit for as long as I can remember, but now, I will need one to go for interviews so our second tap root was planted.

Yesterday we drove to the lion park about fifty kilometres from Durban. We managed to get some stunning photos of a fairly tame rhinoceros, some elephants and of course the lions. On the way back we decided to stop at the valley of the thousand hills. The view was great but our camera just isn’t good enough to capture the image that meets your eyes. I believe that highways are a bit like using cheat codes to play computer games so we turned away from the highway and onto a twisty windy back road. Our map book did not have this road on it, but I decided that we would find our way back anyway. We drove along for about an hour through a township with thousands of people everywhere. Eventually we started getting nervous and decided to stop and ask for directions. I called some young teenage boys across and asked them where this road goes to. They stood talking amongst each other in Zulu. Only one of them could speak a few words in English so he would rattle off to his friends and they would rattle back to him shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders. They seemed to take turns pointing in opposite directions and eventually we figured that we weren’t getting any help here so continued forward in the same direction. About another hour later the road made a small circle and ended. I have heard the song by Talking Heads, road to nowhere, but never thought much about it. Now at least we know what is at the end of that road. We did eventually find our way back, using the cheat codes.

04 Dec. 12

My mother, stepfather and some of their grandkids came down to Amamzimtoti for the week so we spent the last three days visiting them in their flat. One of the many things that are missing when you live on a boat is a bath so being able to use their bath was like a breath of fresh air. They are unfortunately still experiencing problems with my siblings, their children, and thus my brothers and sister. I feel sorry for them having to deal with such issues at this time in their lives.

Strike action on route to Toti

On a positive note, Amy has finished her exams and completed her bachelors’ degree in marketing. I haven’t made any progress towards finding employment yet but it is still on the agenda.