Toilet troubles and good friends

19 Aug. 13

Wow, what a great weekend. On Saturday morning Gavin, Lola’s 2^nd cousin came to pick us up and took us to a place called Lavender Blue for breakfast. An awesome venue set in the countryside with a few tables placed around a water feature. His wife Marlene met us there and we all enjoyed a good breakfast. When we left Lola and Kyle went with Marlene to the mall and Rauen and I went with Gavin to the spar to buy some meat for a braai at their place. On route Gavin’s cell rang and he answered while I grabbed the steering wheel and steered the car. Typical man stuff, Gavin working the pedals whilst concentrating on his conversation with me negotiating the road. Yes I know, First for woman insurance gives woman a better rate, but men have much more fun so don’t really mind the extra payments.

 

I followed Gavin around in the Spar as he picked out the best cuts for the braai. When we got to the tills he swiped his card to pay and the teller tried to pass him his bill. He waved his hands at her and said “If you give me that slip I will put all this stuff back in your shelves and walk out of your shop.” I laughed but understood exactly why he did it. If you look at the price of food nowadays you will stop eating and want to grow all your own food.

They live in possibly the best neighbourhood in East London and for the first time since we arrived here I liked the neighbourhood and the houses. That evening we met Gavin’s sister Doreen and her husband Nick, had a fantastic braai and a few drinks before going to bed in their spare room. In the morning we helped them move around some furniture before Doreen fetched us for a potjie pot at their house. We spent the afternoon at their place and they brought us back in the early evening. When we arrived home at Yrumoar we invited them on board for a cup of coffee. After doing the grand tour of our home we sat in the cockpit drinking coffee and I noticed “the look” appear on Nick’s face. I have seen “the look” before on many people’s faces, perhaps even on my own at some point in the past. That distant far away look that tells you someone is dreaming about places never seen before waiting to be discovered somewhere over the horizon.

 

21 Aug. 13

We have pretty much done everything we wanted to do here so the time has come to find a weather window. We could’ve left yesterday but my book still hasn’t arrived and we have to collect it before we go. I still want to do some reinforcing in our starboard hull by adding a few layers of fibreglass in the bilge. It’s not mission critical but the hull creaks as we head through the waves and I would be more comfortable if it didn’t. I am sure that the creaking is due to the damage caused when they dropped Yrumoar in Richards Bay and even though we added a few layers of glass already I think it needs more, another five layers or so should do it.

 

25 Aug. 13

We are still waiting for my book to arrive so I decided to get started on the hull repair and a few other small things. We have a wet locker at the back of the boat and it fills with water when we sail making everything in it soaked. Hence the words “wet locker”. Anyway I grinded around the drain hole and will close it at the same time as adding the glass in the hull making it a “dry locker” instead. Just when I thought I was ready to lay the glass I heard one of the boys in the bathroom struggling to empty the toilet. The toilets take priority over all other repairs and I stopped my work and removed the toilet to service and clean it. It is a regular job on the boat and I have done it more times than I have ever wanted to and hate doing it. Plumbing has always been low on my list and I would never choose the job if I could avoid it. Anyway I removed the toilet and stripped it. Once I had all the pieces separated I discovered the waste water impeller had cracked in half so decided to strip the spare toilet and use its parts to fix the boys one.

 

 

The job took most of the day and it was already late in the afternoon when I had the toilets back in place. I tested the toilet about ten times and it worked. A while later I heard Kyle running and running and running the toilet. I didn’t want to ask him if everything was okay and hoped I was imagining the noise. As he continued running and running the toilet I eventually had no choice but to ask him if the toilet was working. The answer I already knew. So I huffed and groaned down the stairs with a kettle of boiling water and poured it into the blocked toilet flushing it a few times and knocking the pipes against the hull. It worked and the toilet emptied. I tested it another ten times and then I asked Lola to go down and test it and tell me what she thinks I should do. Lola tested it five or six times and came back up and told me she also thinks it is working. So we agreed and forgot about the toilet. Later in the evening Rauen went to the toilet and guess what, yes you guessed it, it did not flush. This time my boiling kettle water trick didn’t work either and I had to strip the pipes. Stripping the pipes is not as easy as it sounds as they fit together very snuggly and require a lot of force to separate them so I grabbed the pipe with all my might and pulled. If I could relate that moment to a movie title it would have to be seconds from disaster. I pulled and twisted and yanked and jerked until finally the pipe suddenly broke loose. I don’t have to mention what happened next but there is a saying that involves a fan that would fit just perfectly. This was not at all what I had in mind for a Saturday evening. 

Nahoon Reef hiking trail

13 Aug. 13

We took our dingy for a ride up the Buffalo river. It was one of the things to do on the list and the scenery was beautiful, green valleys that run down to a rocky river edge with birds and Dassies playing on the shoreline. Here and there someone had declared their eternal love for their girl on the rocks with a spray can and it spoilt the pristine untouched beauty of the river, but for the most part it was completely uninhabited and wild. I must wonder if Petrus and Helda are still together or if he had a midlife crises and left her for his young receptionist with the big boobs. Or perhaps he became a drunk and they never got together in the first place except for that one perfect afternoon in summer when they took the romantic river cruise together.

Today we caught the taxi into town to go to the museum and have a look at the coelacanth on display along with the old human skull and footprint fossils found here. It took the best part of three hours to walk through and look at all the items on display and we were quite tired when we took the taxi back to Yrumoar. I have to mention the taxi driver. The one that we have had for the last two trips and not the owner of the taxi service that fetched us the first time. This lady drives like she is being chased by a huge dog and doesn’t believe in following distance at all so I find myself pressing an invisible brake pedal on the passenger side of the taxi and bracing myself for the inevitable impact that I feel is about to happen. Unfortunately my pedal doesn’t work no matter how hard I press it. To add to this the roads down here have been neglected by the government and have potholes and huge ditches across them everywhere. I slam on my brakes as I spot a ditch but she doesn’t even blink as her cars suspension creaks and knocks when she flies through the ditch with her petrified passengers.

 14 Aug. 13

So Bryan, another one of Lola’s childhood friends picked us up this morning at ten to go over to his house for lunch. On the way we asked him to stop at the post office so I could ask them to reroute my book that has finally landed in Durban. Typical it would arrive in Durban after we left but life wouldn’t be the same if things went according to plan anyway. We ate lunch and had a great afternoon but the time flew by to quickly and it felt we had just arrived when we left again. On the way back we had to stop at the post office again to write and fax a letter giving permission for the first post office to send my book to the second one here. Now we wait and hope it arrives.

 

15 Aug. 13

The Perfect Day:

Coffee with dolphins playing in the background this morning. There is no better way to wake up. An entire school of dolphins came swimming into the harbour this morning. We even spotted a few babys.

 

 

16 Aug. 13

The perfect day.

Yesterday morning started with the dolphins playing in the harbour while I had my coffee. Next I did a quick load of hand washing and hung it out to dry. Yes you may wonder why I do the washing. Well, two reasons. Number 1, I like doing it and number 2, Lola is allergic to washing powder. So anyway the weather was great and we decided to go to Nahoon point for the day. The taxi arrived a few minutes later with our regular Michael Schumacher as the driver and we flew across to the nature reserve in no time with me hitting the brakes again as usual. At Nahoon point we had the most amazing burger for lunch before we headed out on the constructed bridge walkways towards bat cave.

 

After a while the walkway ended and we strolled leisurely across the soft sandy beach for a while. Then we arrived at a rocky outcrop and stood wondering if the trail carried on or if we had missed bat cave somehow. After a while we sent Rauen ahead as our scout and he climbed over the rocks to look for a trail. A few minutes later he came back and told us he had found a way over the rocks and we should follow him. We are not the most adventurous and we clambered our way clumsily over the rocks. On the other side a few stairs led up into the cliffs and we walked up the stairs and over some more rocks. The further we went the more adventurous and daunting the trail became.

 

 

 

Sometimes we crossed over narrow pathways with a cliff face on the one side and a shear drop of about forty metres into the ocean on the other. I was at the back of the pack and felt panicked more than once as I watched Lola and Kyle trying to negotiate their way across the rocks and narrow slippery pathways. We continued climbing and sometimes crawling along until we found bat cave and the blowhole. The scenery on the hike was spectacular with small coves and huge breaking waves smashing into and across the rocks. Once we got to the cave we decided to continue forwards instead of going back and had to cross more treacherous cliffs and finally a huge sand dune that was sliding and falling over a cliff.

 

With the hike behind us we continued walking on the beach until we reached town, about four km away from the end of the hike. We had a waffle at Wimpy and decided to walk back to the boat instead of calling the taxi. A few hours later and one or two wrong turns in town we arrived back home to Yrumoar.

Nahoon point was by far the most enjoyable and exciting hike I have ever been on and all of us loved it wanting to go back again before we leave East London. Although we were all quite bushed we were to excited to go to bed and sat in the cockpit reliving the experience for a while before the kids went to sleep and Lola and I watched a spectacular thunderstorm out at sea. The perfect end to the perfect day.          

East London Harbour and the fish market

08 Aug. 13

When we woke up yesterday the dock across the water from us was half filled with Mercedes cars and more of them kept on arriving until late afternoon. I tried counting how many there was but could only manage an estimate of over a thousand and they just kept on coming and even parked some of them down the road that leads to the docks. Around lunch time an Autoliner arrived in the harbour and started unloading more cars and trucks. We sat watching them offload until we eventually went to bed and they were still busy. We don’t know what time they finished but this morning when we woke up a different autoliner had arrived and the cars are slowly driving into its belly. The entire dock and about a mile down the road is filled with parked cars and trucks and I am wondering how they will fit all these into the ship.   

 

09 Aug. 13

I don’t know what time they finished loading that ship last night but they were still busy when I went to sleep and only left this morning after I got up. We did a brief calculation and they loaded ten cars every four minutes with a short break of about ten minutes to fetch the drivers in the ship and take them to the next ten.

 

There was another ship wreck yesterday, this time it was a big cargo ship off the coast near Knysna. Fortunately sea rescue managed to rescue all the crew but it adds some more to our trepidation regarding this coastline. We had a big south westerly wind through here yesterday and the harbour was quite bouncy. I had to check our lines a few times and our fenders really took a beating against the steel yacht next to us. We decided we need more fenders and added this to our list.

 

10 Aug. 13

Yesterday was national woman’s day and I decided to take Lola out for lunch. I looked up the buffalo river and one of the buildings not far from us looked like a restaurant. We got off the boat and took a walk down the road across the railway lines towards the restaurant. When we got there we discovered it wasn’t a restaurant but a fish market so we bought some seafood mix and a fresh carpenter fish. We are expecting some visitors tomorrow for lunch so we decided we would use the fish to make Paella. When we got back the security guard stopped me and informed me I wasn’t allowed to take any photo’s in the harbour. I never asked her why and just thought about the video’s and pictures already on my blog. Hopefully she doesn’t go on the internet very often.  

 

12 Aug. 13

We had Lola’s aunt Max and the whole family come over for lunch. We got off the boat and met them on the landing where I briefed them how to get onto the boat. They all followed me gingerly across the rotten deck took one look at how we had to climb down the rusted ladder across the steel boat and onto Yrumoar and said no. I walked them back to their car and we went over to plan B. They would drive around to the yacht club on the other side of the river and we would go over with the dingy to fetch them. The wind was howling at 20 knots and the harbour was quite choppy so rowing across to the yacht club was not going to happen as the wind would blow us up the Buffalo river and we would only be able to come back once the wind changed direction and blew us back so Rauen fetched the dingy motor and we put in on the dingy. We haven’t used it for a while and had to fill it with petrol, quite a task in the bumpy conditions. After we got it filled I pulled and pulled and pulled the start rope. Just when I was about to give up it fired into life and we motored across the choppy harbour. It was a bouncy wet ride but we made it to the walk-on to fetch our visitors. Another bouncy wet ride later we were back at Yrumoar. Getting the people off the dingy was quite an experience since it was jumping up and down sometimes above and other times below the dive platform but once everyone was on the boat things returned to normal. Living on the boat has made us unaware of its movements and it was interesting to watch as the visitors tried to find their sea legs and stand still on the boat without holding onto something.

While they visited I made Paella with the fish we bought at the fish market and boerewors rolls for those who don’t like fish. After lunch we took them on another wet bumpy ride back to the yacht club. It was a great visit and we hope to see them again before we leave.

The dangers of the Sea

05 Aug. 13

What do I think of East London so far? Well it’s a small city with very few sky scrapers a tiny aquarium and a few beaches. We drove through it yesterday with a friend of Lola's who she had not seen in almost 17 years but kept in contact with through Facebook. We had lunch at their place and spent the day listening to the stories of old times. It was fun and we promised to take them sailing before we leave. Hopefully I am not lying this time.  

 

06 Aug. 13

So yesterday we climbed over the steel boat next to us and made our way carefully across the derelict docks to catch a taxi to the mall. The taxi arrived quickly but was one of those tiny chevy sparks and the four of us with our three diesel containers had to squeeze ourselves in like sardines in a can.

 

At the mall we posted some documents to the lawyers for the sale of our house, had lunch at Wimpy, filled our diesel containers and bought some groceries. While waiting for the taxi some guy came over and asked me what I thought about the weather and how I enjoyed my weekend. I knew his small talk was leading up to something but I answered him patiently and waited for the inevitable. I didn’t have to wait very long, about five seconds before he begged me for some money for food. Unfortunately for him I have lived in Africa my entire life and he was not the first guy to beg from me, he was possibly number six hundred and seven million so I just said no I don’t have a job either and have four kids to feed, after listening to my story I think he considered giving me some money for a split second but changed his mind when he looked at my shopping trolley. The trip back in the taxi was even more squashed and we had to load the groceries onto our laps filling the little car all the way to the roof.  

 

06 Aug. 13

Went to town again to fill our last two Jerry cans with diesel before the price goes up tomorrow. The lady that picked us up yesterday was also the owner of the taxi business and she had invited us to her house so today’s taxi took us over. She lives in a suburb named West Bank and on the way over I thought if this West Bank also has a Gaza strip next to it and is bombed every so often. Well, talk about the wrong side of town. The houses are old and small like the type they used to build as railway houses in the old days. The neighbourhood is run down to the point that it makes Brakpan look like an upmarket city. The roads had more potholes than tar and almost every house had a couple of unemployed people sitting on the porch looking rather used and miserable. She owned two properties next to each other and had converted most of the useable space into small flats filled with different families. In her house she had an assortment of parrots, cockatiels and some other birds as well as two small marmoset monkeys. We were given a tour of the house and the backyard that was filled with some wannabee race cars. The type they use on oval track racing. We hung around a while, had some coke, spoke about the town and went on our way again with an open invitation to visit or go out for supper before we leave. It was an interesting few hours and reminded me of my uncle Tolly. He also lived in some dodgy neighbourhoods and always had broken and half built cars filling his backyard.

 

07 Aug. 13

This dangerous coastline lives up to its reputation. While we were sailing down here Lola kept a constant eye on the barometer and checked the weather forecast regularly. The latest forecast before we arrived predicted 25 knots north easterly winds and we considered passing East London and heading onto Port Elizabeth. However, since we are relatively inexperienced and honestly quite petrified we decided to head into East London and wait for a milder prediction to come. On Friday while we were sitting in the cockpit safely tied onto the docks we watched as a yacht left the harbour. Lola and I spoke about them leaving and we believed they would be heading south taking the predicted 25 knot north easterly wind to get to Port Elizabeth. We spoke about this and decided that we wouldn’t leave on that weather window since it had to much wind for us. We prefer a prediction with no wind. Yes I know that sounds very un-sailor but we have discovered a prediction of 25 knots can easily turn into forty, add to that the land breeze that develops and suddenly you are sitting in 50 knots shitting yourself. So that window was not for us. Yesterday we read the newspaper and discovered that their yacht was heading north and had hit a reef and was shipwrecked on the wild coast shore. Fortunately all the crew survived but it reminded us of the dangers out in the ocean and added to our already petrified feelings.

 

S/Y Boundless is the yacht on the left

East London - An abandoned town?

24 Jul. 13

Our new raw water pump finally arrived and I had to strip the gear from the old one and fit it to the new one. Typical boat stuff, you buy a new part and it comes incomplete and you have to use pieces of the old part before you can use it. Not to mention the “half part” costs the price of a small house. Next thing to do is get into the engine room under the bed and refit the pump. I am so looking forward to the job, it’s all I can think about.

 

I discovered that I love walking on the beach so have dragged Lola andKyle off to the beach twice now in a week. Strange how we live on the ocean but getting to the beach is still a half hour car drive away, or an hour sail out of the harbour.

 

A few days ago a pelican decided that it was going to make our mast its home and landed on it bending our VHF antenna. Next it proceeded to crap all over our windows. By the time we got up in the morning we couldn’t see through the window under the mast it had so much bird crap on it. I went to investigate the source and spotted it sitting on the mast. I tried chasing it away but the mast is high and he just ignored me and continued empting his insides onto our window. I don’t know how many fish this guy ate but judging from the state of the window I think the oceans are now completely empty. I wanted to throw something at him but struggled to find anything on the boat that wasn’t going to come crashing through the windows on its way down. I thought about climbing the mast to chase him away but was afraid he could just bombard me with crap on my way up and by the time I got to him I would be blind. So I eventually crumpled and empty cigarette box and tossed it at him. It missed the target completely but he got the picture and flew away. After he left we cleaned up the boat and decided we need a plan of action in case he decides to make our mast his permanent home. The mast head has lots of equipment on it and we can’t have him damaging it.

 

Now I know my next paragraph is going to determine my future in the bird lovers community so I state this at my own peril. We went to the Toti mall and I bought a slingshot. In SA it is also known as a “ketty”. I don’t want to kill the pelican but I also don’t want him on our boat. I could’ve bought a pellet gun but as I said my intention is not to maim or kill the bird. Next I had to get some ammo for the ketty and we decided that some rubber balls would do the trick. The balls would have enough weight to make the ketty effective yet at the same time shouldn’t hurt the bird or more importantly our boat when gravity pulls them back down. We searched all over the mall but couldn’t find any shop that sold rubber balls. On our way out we noticed a pet store and went inside. They sold old bones and all kinds of pet toys and treats including some rubber balls, so we found our ammo. A bit ironic how we found our ammo to shoot a bird in a shop that specialises in spoiling animals. I did feel quite guilty when we stood at the counter to pay. Luckily they didn’t ask why I wanted so many rubber balls.  

 

After leaving the mall we went to the beach to practice with our new weapon. We found a wall in an empty car park and all took turns shooting. Lola and Kyle had never used a ketty before and would need some practice. My childhood quickly came back and I instantly knew how to use it and hit the target. I hope the pelican flew over and saw my skills making him find another home so I don’t have to shoot at him.

 

27 Jul. 13

This morning we went off to the Bluff flea market to have a look around. We have driven passed it a few times and it looked busy so our curiosity drove us to find out what everyone found so interesting. It wasn’t quite the typical flea market you would find up in Joey’s these days where it has become quite commercial and you would find the same things in various stalls and the same things in general at all the flea markets. Anyone who goes to the flea markets in Joey’s will know the products, some cheap Chinese Reeboks or Nike shoes, the same heavy metal T shirts, a few funny T shirts and a whole array of cheap toys. This market was like the old flea markets before cheap Chinese products flooded the markets. Some old tools, a few different electrical suppliers and even an old car or two. Of course there was a few stalls with the “what you would expect to find” and being in Durban, the capitol of India, the selection of hot and spicy Indian food was everywhere. We decided to stay local for a change and Kyle had a vetkoek and mince while Lola and I ate a boerie roll.

Then to our surprise we bumped into some old friends from Brakpan. They had moved down here about three months ago and we had a great afternoon catching up on the old times we had left behind. Tomorrow we are going to have a braai at their house and I promised to take them fishing some time before we leave Durban.

 

03 Aug. 13

Well it seems I am a man of empty promises since I didn’t take our reunited friends out fishing and instead left Durban to sail down the wild coast and onto East London. In my defence it all sort of happened at the spur of the moment. One minute we had no real plan to go anywhere and the next, Lola happened to look at the weather forecast and mention that it looks like a good window to head down the coast. From that moment it all became a blur and the next time I opened my eyes we were 20 miles offshore looking for the fast flowing current that rushes down the SA coast towards the cape.

 

 

 

Since Lola and I are not real sailors, she gets very sea sick while I have a knot in my stomach the whole time we sail, obviously worried about all the things that can go wrong, we decided to create a “safe word”. If either of us feels we cannot cope anymore one of us would say the word “lobster” and we would turn the boat around and head back to port putting the boat up for sale when we get there and forget about the whole sailing around the world thing forever. It was not the first time we discussed this option, in fact, we do it every time before a passage.

So true to form the knot arrived in my stomach before we even cast off and I could see the nervous tension written across Lola’s face. Anyway we left the harbour with this option in our minds and while searching for the current Lola started to feel sick and I gave her a bucket. She spent the next few hours speaking into the bucket while I watched her feeling very guilty that I was forcing her to follow my ridiculous dreams. After a while she had nothing left to offer the bucket and my guilt coupled with the stomach knot won and I uttered the word “lobster”.

 

Lola pulled her head out of the bucket and asked me if I was sure I wanted to go back. I said yes. We went inside and broke the news to the boys. Kyle, who doesn’t like sailing either, smiled and agreed instantly. But Rauen didn’t and anyone who knows him has surely seen the look of disappointment he can muster up and paste on his face. Lola and I looked at his disappointed face and went back outside. We sat down in the cockpit and looked out across the ocean in silence. Neither of us went towards the steering wheel and we didn’t broach the subject again.

 

After six hours we found the current and managed to stay in it till Port St Johns, about halfway, where we lost it again. I had been up for 24 hours at that point and went to sleep in the saloon while Lola and Rauen headed out to sea to find it. It was an uncomfortable sleep on a bouncy surface but I did manage to get about three hours of restless sleep before getting up again.

 

We still had a long way to go but they found the current and it pushed us along making up a lot of time. When we did our original calculations we anticipated doing between four and five knots arriving at East London on Friday morning at about eight. With the help of the current we averaged seven and arrived at East London nine hours earlier than planned and in the dark around eleven on Thursday night. I did not want to enter the harbour in the dark but the current kept pushing us even though we tried to slow ourselves down by dropping all our sails and running the motor at idle speed we reached the harbour mouth at one o clock and decided to go in.

Our pilot guide told us to tie up at Latimers Landing near the end of the small harbour. When we got to Latimers landing we discovered we would need a wooden plank to tie onto our fenders to create a fender board before we could tie onto the docks. Since we don’t carry large planks with us we decided to raft onto another yacht already tied onto the docks. Lola and the boys attached our fenders and I pulled up next to it. Rauen jumped across quickly tying our ropes onto it. We all fell asleep before the boat had even settled.

I woke up at about eleven and found everybody already awake. While I had my coffee some guy came over and started telling me that I was going to damage the yacht next to us and I should get some tyres and a plank to tie onto it. I thought about this for a while while he was still speaking to me and asked him if he had any tyres or a plank with him that he could donate to us since we don’t really carry these things with us. He stared at me and said no. I then asked him if it was his boat since he was obviously very concerned. He said no it belongs to some guy that died about six months ago. I asked him if they were related still sensing his concern. He said no, turned around without saying goodbye and left. It was a strange surreal conversation and I was confused. Anyway I forgot about him soon after he left and we all decided to go find a shower since we hadn’t had one in a while. We climbed across the steel yacht onto the docks and were very surprised by what we found.

 

The docks are made up of wood decking that was badly in need of repair and we had to pick our way carefully across the decking so as not to fall through. I wondered about the state of the decking but didn’t even notice that nobody was around. Some palisade fencing surrounds the decking and we found a gate tied up with wire to keep it closed and I also wondered why someone had tied it up. While I untied the wire I noticed all the shops were empty and the place was deserted then I turned around to look at our boat and noticed the sign. “Construction site, enter at own risk”.

So we discovered that all the businesses had closed down and Latimers landing is no more. As for showers, they don’t exist anymore either. Luckily the yacht club is across the river from us and we managed to row across and use the showers. I hope the rest of East London has more to offer and hasn’t closed down. I also hope the rest of the people are not as weird as the first one we met.