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.