14 Jul. 10
How freaky is that? My dream was real and they did actually break into my house whilst I was dreaming about them doing it. Now if I can just dream who it was then I can direct the cops straight to them and solve the crime.
Anyway when we got back home Lola’s dad told me that they broke open the gate and then the alarm went off which must have scared them away. So the alarm paid for itself once again. Outdoor alarm systems are the future!
Yesterday Lola got a call from Lela, Rauen’s Grandmother, and she asked if we knew a lady by the name of Corinna. Now some time ago we had a boat at Bayshore Marina and I had mentioned in my blog about a guy named Jeff. His wife’s name was Corinna and her one grandson had invented a game called “Webs, Wands and Waterfalls” which Rauen had received for his birthday from Lela. Anyway it turns out that Corinna is actually Rauen’s Aunt, small world.
19 Jul. 10
Still waiting for the outcome of the last CCMA case that interrupted my holiday. Our next trip to the boat will be sometime in early August, on the first long weekend that comes along, and I can’t wait. It is funny how you can actually miss an object, a piece of fibreglass with some windows and sails. But it does happen, the longer I am away from the boat, the more I miss the boat.
Met a very interesting, and helpful guy called Barry, on a yacht called Tiana. He was busy moving his rudder aft as it was to far forwards and thus the boat was not easy to steer. He told me that he started sailing in Cape Town some time ago and had sailed around the world all the way to Richards bay. He was planning to sail in the forties back to Australia after the modification to Tiana. Barry was kind enough to leave his project and come down to our yacht to assist me with the sails and gave me some amazing advice. Thanks Barry, hope to see you in Aus when we get there.
20 Jul. 10
Today was an excursion to the licence department in order to change ownership of our car from the bank into our name. I’m not sure how other countries do it, but here in Africa when you finance a vehicle the bank retains ownership of said vehicle until you have paid it up. This wasn’t always the case, but I believe that too much fraud caused the change.
Always such an interesting experience dealing with government departments, I wonder if it is the same all over the world, or if our government employees are specially trained to be like this? It doesn’t seem to matter which government department you are dealing with, all the employees seem to have the same mannerisms. I would say attitude but it’s not really an attitude, more a none attitude.
Somehow government departments haven’t ever heard of bottlenecking, they always have one window that everybody has to go to, and many windows that are never used and don’t seem to have any purpose.
22 Jul. 10
Having another man PMS day for some or other reason and can’t seem to snap out of it. I’m not sure if it’s because of how I feel (I have again quit smoking) or what, but everybody, and his sister, wants to speak to me today and it’s just not what I’m in the mood for.
27 Jul. 10
Another week to wait before we can go down to Yrumoar, and its only Tuesday today with the rest of the week still ahead. The man pms seems to be gone for now at least. I’m finding it harder and harder to wait because we seem to be in a state of limbo again, waiting for money, always waiting for something. The CCMA case outcome finally arrived and it was good news for us, we won the case.
I was looking through the photos of our last trip and noticed that I have been replaced by an old guy. This phenomenon I thought was only reserved for the old guy that is always in my way when I am trying to see myself in the mirror. I have tried to move suddenly and look past him, but he seems to know my every move and anticipates the move before I manage to see myself. He appears to have now moved to my photos as well.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Lists of repairs
10 July 2010
We took them on a day sail out of the harbour and I had to fetch Lindie from the fore deck, where Warren had left her, because she started to panic and couldn’t get back to the cockpit. Rauen of course fell asleep during the journey and slept so soundly that he didn’t know we had left the harbour.
We started to look around the boat in order to know where everything is, the more I look the more I see, sounds pretty obvious really. Every time I open a bilge or look at a fitting or open a window I find more things that need to be fixed. The list of repairs is going to become so long that it may take three lifetimes to get the boat ready, so I decided that some of the repairs will have to be done on route, and only the most necessary will be done before we depart. Lola made a great list of all the “necessities”.
I had a dream last night that someone had broken into my house and when I woke up this morning I told Lola about my dream and then I noticed, on my cellphone, that during the night my house alarm had gone off numerous times, so who knows. Perhaps it is because tomorrow our holiday comes to an end and we have to go back and row with the other slaves, or do I have a mental telepathy bond with my house.
We took them on a day sail out of the harbour and I had to fetch Lindie from the fore deck, where Warren had left her, because she started to panic and couldn’t get back to the cockpit. Rauen of course fell asleep during the journey and slept so soundly that he didn’t know we had left the harbour.
The closest I've ever been to my sister!
We started to look around the boat in order to know where everything is, the more I look the more I see, sounds pretty obvious really. Every time I open a bilge or look at a fitting or open a window I find more things that need to be fixed. The list of repairs is going to become so long that it may take three lifetimes to get the boat ready, so I decided that some of the repairs will have to be done on route, and only the most necessary will be done before we depart. Lola made a great list of all the “necessities”.
I had a dream last night that someone had broken into my house and when I woke up this morning I told Lola about my dream and then I noticed, on my cellphone, that during the night my house alarm had gone off numerous times, so who knows. Perhaps it is because tomorrow our holiday comes to an end and we have to go back and row with the other slaves, or do I have a mental telepathy bond with my house.
Fishing fromt he boat
7 July 2010
Fortunately our next visitors Warren and Lindie were due to come down in three days time so we could survive until then. If we became desperate we could have taken a walk around to Tuzi Gazi waterfront and find most of what we needed. I then called Warren and asked him to go to my house and break in to get my spare car keys. He did manage, without getting arrested, and on the Wednesday afternoon we had keys again.
Warren and Lindie arrived at 2 pm after being on the road for about 12 hours. They must have taken the scenic route, or did they get lost? The subject was not discussed again but they did agree to allow us to write down some directions for them to follow on the way home. Then the fishing began. We have a cheap Pick & Pay fishing rod on board and the kids tried it out using all sorts of bait, but once we tried some left over steak from the braai and Keagan caught his very first fish, Warren suddenly became a man possessed by an evil spirit. He would not stop fishing until he caught a fish, and once he caught the first one he needed another, and then another. In the morning whilst we were still asleep I heard him casting the line. By the time we got up he had one in the broom bucket and another on the line. After we ran out of steak the fish stopped biting, the mealies and ribs did not have any success and slowly the wind went out of Warren’s sails.
Fortunately our next visitors Warren and Lindie were due to come down in three days time so we could survive until then. If we became desperate we could have taken a walk around to Tuzi Gazi waterfront and find most of what we needed. I then called Warren and asked him to go to my house and break in to get my spare car keys. He did manage, without getting arrested, and on the Wednesday afternoon we had keys again.
Warren and Lindie arrived at 2 pm after being on the road for about 12 hours. They must have taken the scenic route, or did they get lost? The subject was not discussed again but they did agree to allow us to write down some directions for them to follow on the way home. Then the fishing began. We have a cheap Pick & Pay fishing rod on board and the kids tried it out using all sorts of bait, but once we tried some left over steak from the braai and Keagan caught his very first fish, Warren suddenly became a man possessed by an evil spirit. He would not stop fishing until he caught a fish, and once he caught the first one he needed another, and then another. In the morning whilst we were still asleep I heard him casting the line. By the time we got up he had one in the broom bucket and another on the line. After we ran out of steak the fish stopped biting, the mealies and ribs did not have any success and slowly the wind went out of Warren’s sails.
Our First Boat visitors
6 July 2010
Quite some time has passed since the last time I’ve written, not that I have been too busy because I haven’t, but my routine has been turned upside down this month. Firstly the Fifa soccer world cup is busy being played here in South Africa, therefore the normal school holidays were changed to suit the soccer. This worked perfectly into my favour and we decided to take a really long holiday on the boat. However because we have just bought the boat we had lots of visitors down to come and see and give their individual stamp of approval so to say. Our first visitors, Jason, Tammy, and kids arrived the day after we got here, so little had been done before they arrived. First we took them out into the harbour and then I asked if they wanted to do a harbour tour or go into the ocean for a sail.
The answer was obvious and I believe that both Tammy and Jason are now sold on sailing and are possibly going to see us on occasion somewhere around the globe once we manage to get going, if not sell up everything they own and buy their own boat. The evening was ended with a braai at the club house and after twisting Jason’s arm for about a micro second they decided that they would sleep over on the boat and head back to there holiday destination of St Lucia in the morning.
The morning came with the obvious bad luck and headache that always follows an evening of over indulgence. I believe that it is the Lord’s way of trying to make me behave with dignity instead, but I am sadly a very slow learner and seem to make the same mistakes all the time. So whilst attempting to climb off the boat I felt something slip out of my hands and watched in absolute horror as my car keys slowly sank into the depths. Jason attempted a dive rescue but after a few attempts came up empty handed. So now we were stranded without road transport.
Quite some time has passed since the last time I’ve written, not that I have been too busy because I haven’t, but my routine has been turned upside down this month. Firstly the Fifa soccer world cup is busy being played here in South Africa, therefore the normal school holidays were changed to suit the soccer. This worked perfectly into my favour and we decided to take a really long holiday on the boat. However because we have just bought the boat we had lots of visitors down to come and see and give their individual stamp of approval so to say. Our first visitors, Jason, Tammy, and kids arrived the day after we got here, so little had been done before they arrived. First we took them out into the harbour and then I asked if they wanted to do a harbour tour or go into the ocean for a sail.
The answer was obvious and I believe that both Tammy and Jason are now sold on sailing and are possibly going to see us on occasion somewhere around the globe once we manage to get going, if not sell up everything they own and buy their own boat. The evening was ended with a braai at the club house and after twisting Jason’s arm for about a micro second they decided that they would sleep over on the boat and head back to there holiday destination of St Lucia in the morning.
The morning came with the obvious bad luck and headache that always follows an evening of over indulgence. I believe that it is the Lord’s way of trying to make me behave with dignity instead, but I am sadly a very slow learner and seem to make the same mistakes all the time. So whilst attempting to climb off the boat I felt something slip out of my hands and watched in absolute horror as my car keys slowly sank into the depths. Jason attempted a dive rescue but after a few attempts came up empty handed. So now we were stranded without road transport.
Cruising Kitty
1 June 2010
The question of how we expect to afford this trip comes up all the time. Well, we have some properties that we will rent out. This will hopefully provide some of the income required. We also have some Google ads on the website, if someone goes to the website and clicks on the ads we earn a few cents, this will hopefully provide some small income as well. Then we have joined some affiliate programmes that sell products and e-products, and hopefully somebody buys some of these products as another source of income. None of these mentioned above have brought in any money yet, except for the properties, but these are not fully paid up yet, so hopefully they will bring in something once we get going. If not, well there is always fishing for food and growing veggies on the boat as an alternative. I am not sure if the alternative will work at all as even now being at home with lots of fertile soil around me in my yard, I haven’t been able to grow anything substantial or edible!
The question of how we expect to afford this trip comes up all the time. Well, we have some properties that we will rent out. This will hopefully provide some of the income required. We also have some Google ads on the website, if someone goes to the website and clicks on the ads we earn a few cents, this will hopefully provide some small income as well. Then we have joined some affiliate programmes that sell products and e-products, and hopefully somebody buys some of these products as another source of income. None of these mentioned above have brought in any money yet, except for the properties, but these are not fully paid up yet, so hopefully they will bring in something once we get going. If not, well there is always fishing for food and growing veggies on the boat as an alternative. I am not sure if the alternative will work at all as even now being at home with lots of fertile soil around me in my yard, I haven’t been able to grow anything substantial or edible!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Nightmares can be a reality too!
I went to Catholic school for Grade 1 and sometime during the year we were all asked by the teacher what we wanted to become one day when we are older. I listened to the other kids in the classroom one by one as they told the teacher about their dream of becoming a teacher, a doctor or an accountant and patiently waited for my turn to come. Eventually my turn did come, but when I told the teacher that I wanted to become an Indian the whole class burst into laughter. I did not see this as funny and thought that the class and teacher were laughing because they didn’t understand my dream properly, so I immediately started to explain that I didn’t want to be an Indian from India but that I wanted to become a red Indian that rides his pony in the plains of America and hunts buffalo for meat. This brought even more laughter and after what felt like a life time the teacher managed to control the little fits that she was experiencing and started to explain to me that this dream could never become a reality as it had to be something that you were born to be and wasn’t possible to become.
This was a reality checkpoint in my life, one that wasn’t easy for a young man to comprehend. The thing that I remember the most about that day besides the absolute embarrassment that I felt was the look on her face as she tried to explain the facts of the impossibility of the dream to me. The look that she gave me that day is hard to explain even now as an adult.
I am not sure if she was disappointed or shocked or just simply amused, but it is a look that will be in my memory forever. Now forty years down the line I see that same look from some of the people that I speak to and explain my new dream to. The moment I mention going on a sailing boat around the world the look arrives on their faces. To this day I am still not sure if the look is one of approval or dismay.
Nightmares can become reality.
More than once in my blog I have mentioned the fear of something happening to the boat whilst we are away. Well this last weekend trip to Richards bay was proof that not just dreams but also nightmares can become reality. Greg called me last week some time and informed me that he had received the balance of the money for the boat. He also then told me that the keys for the boat are on the boat in the usual place. Instant panic sets in and I discuss all the possibilities with Lola about all the things that could go wrong at this point.
Being the absolute paranoid people that we have become living here in Africa we quickly convince ourselves that leaving the keys in the usual place on the boat may be a good idea if you lived in Canada or New Zealand, but living in Africa, this is not just a bad idea but that by the time we manage to start the car and get to Richards bay the boat will be somewhere in Mozambique. So a trip to Richards bay is on the cards and we can no longer afford to wait the four weeks till June the 10th.
We decided that we would borrow a GPS from Wiekus and set the shortest route and get on our way straight after school on Friday. As luck would have it Rauen has a function at school on Friday afternoon till five and we can thus only get on our way at this time. So off we head at five with the sun about to set in an hour or so. The GPS tells us to get onto the N17 toll road and we promptly follow this instruction. This part of the journey goes off very well as the road surface is good and I feel we will be there in no time at all. At the end of this almost perfect piece of tar the GPS tells us to turn right towards Standerton. Then the nightmare begins, the sign said potholes for ten kilometres, there is no real road only potholes the size of the car everywhere. We land up being able to travel along at 30 km per hour for the entire 70 km piece of the journey. Next the road between Standerton and Volksrust. You know that time of the evening when it is not dark enough for your lights to be visible but you cannot see anything because it is to dark but not dark enough, well this piece of the journey was driven in that light with lunatics that have super twilight vision in trucks, carrying huge loads of coal, trying to speed along at one hundred and sixty km per hour. Yes, it was only a matter of time before one of them rolled his truck across the road. Luckily he didn’t kill anyone by this reckless driving technique. After we avoided the upside down truck the GPS instructed us to proceed from Volksrust to Ultrecht on a sand road over a mountain pass, and half way through, stopped working just before it told us which turn to take next. At this point we decided that road maps in a road atlas are so much better and we will in future always follow the charts so to speak. The rest of the trip down saw us avoiding large logs falling off the back of a truck on the next mountain pass. We eventually arrived at ZYC at 00h35.
Something did not feel right and we left the kids asleep in the car in order to go and open the yacht, but when we got to the slip where she was supposed to be my nightmares became reality. She was gone, nowhere to be seen, yet again panic sets in. Lola and I run around frantically from slip to slip trying to find her, all the time trying to think what to do next, who can we contact for help at this hour, has she really been stolen or did Greg take us for a ride and had he planned to sail away with our money from the start. These were some of the thoughts that ran through our minds whilst running around the marina trying to find the boat. Then she appeared, tied to another yacht next to the wall.
The emotions now go from relief for one minute to anger for the next. Who moved our yacht? And why did no one bother to inform us that she was going to be moved? And how were we going to get from the wall over someone else’s boat onto our boat with our kids? The wall was about a metre away from the other boat, and everything was wet and slippery from the dew. After a while we managed to calm down to a mild panic and fetch the kids from the car.
I pulled the ropes till the other boat was as close to the wall as I could get it and everybody jumped across. The next morning we went to meet Charles the manager of ZYC and he explained why our boat had been towed to the wall. It is amazing how things always look so much better after some sleep.
We decided that we would get some cleaning materials in town and head out for a sail around the harbour in order to familiarize ourselves with the area. After we purchased a harbour chart from the chandlery we started the motors and cast off the lines. Lola had to keep on running indoors to check the chart and pilot guide every time I saw a marker and said “So what marker is that and which side is the safe side to steer?” After a while she got quite mad with me and told me that next time I have to first give her some time to study the chart before we go.
This was our first trip on s/v Debenair, soon to be Yrumoar, and she motored along at 4 knots speed over ground at 1500 rpm. The trip around the harbour lasted for four hours and included pointing the nose out into the ocean. We could not raise any sails as the fitting of the solid bimini had totally ruined the sail plan. This will have to be task number two as task number one will have to be the fixing of the newly fitted solid bimini which was very poorly done.
By the time we got back to the marina, the tide had changed to low tide, and now not only was the boat that we tied onto about a metre away from the wall but the wall was about a metre higher. So we were stuck on the boat until the next high tide at about 10 am the next morning.
The homeward part of our journey went smoothly and we arrived home safely at about 8pm after leaving Richards bay at 1pm.
This was a reality checkpoint in my life, one that wasn’t easy for a young man to comprehend. The thing that I remember the most about that day besides the absolute embarrassment that I felt was the look on her face as she tried to explain the facts of the impossibility of the dream to me. The look that she gave me that day is hard to explain even now as an adult.
I am not sure if she was disappointed or shocked or just simply amused, but it is a look that will be in my memory forever. Now forty years down the line I see that same look from some of the people that I speak to and explain my new dream to. The moment I mention going on a sailing boat around the world the look arrives on their faces. To this day I am still not sure if the look is one of approval or dismay.
Nightmares can become reality.
More than once in my blog I have mentioned the fear of something happening to the boat whilst we are away. Well this last weekend trip to Richards bay was proof that not just dreams but also nightmares can become reality. Greg called me last week some time and informed me that he had received the balance of the money for the boat. He also then told me that the keys for the boat are on the boat in the usual place. Instant panic sets in and I discuss all the possibilities with Lola about all the things that could go wrong at this point.
Being the absolute paranoid people that we have become living here in Africa we quickly convince ourselves that leaving the keys in the usual place on the boat may be a good idea if you lived in Canada or New Zealand, but living in Africa, this is not just a bad idea but that by the time we manage to start the car and get to Richards bay the boat will be somewhere in Mozambique. So a trip to Richards bay is on the cards and we can no longer afford to wait the four weeks till June the 10th.
We decided that we would borrow a GPS from Wiekus and set the shortest route and get on our way straight after school on Friday. As luck would have it Rauen has a function at school on Friday afternoon till five and we can thus only get on our way at this time. So off we head at five with the sun about to set in an hour or so. The GPS tells us to get onto the N17 toll road and we promptly follow this instruction. This part of the journey goes off very well as the road surface is good and I feel we will be there in no time at all. At the end of this almost perfect piece of tar the GPS tells us to turn right towards Standerton. Then the nightmare begins, the sign said potholes for ten kilometres, there is no real road only potholes the size of the car everywhere. We land up being able to travel along at 30 km per hour for the entire 70 km piece of the journey. Next the road between Standerton and Volksrust. You know that time of the evening when it is not dark enough for your lights to be visible but you cannot see anything because it is to dark but not dark enough, well this piece of the journey was driven in that light with lunatics that have super twilight vision in trucks, carrying huge loads of coal, trying to speed along at one hundred and sixty km per hour. Yes, it was only a matter of time before one of them rolled his truck across the road. Luckily he didn’t kill anyone by this reckless driving technique. After we avoided the upside down truck the GPS instructed us to proceed from Volksrust to Ultrecht on a sand road over a mountain pass, and half way through, stopped working just before it told us which turn to take next. At this point we decided that road maps in a road atlas are so much better and we will in future always follow the charts so to speak. The rest of the trip down saw us avoiding large logs falling off the back of a truck on the next mountain pass. We eventually arrived at ZYC at 00h35.
Something did not feel right and we left the kids asleep in the car in order to go and open the yacht, but when we got to the slip where she was supposed to be my nightmares became reality. She was gone, nowhere to be seen, yet again panic sets in. Lola and I run around frantically from slip to slip trying to find her, all the time trying to think what to do next, who can we contact for help at this hour, has she really been stolen or did Greg take us for a ride and had he planned to sail away with our money from the start. These were some of the thoughts that ran through our minds whilst running around the marina trying to find the boat. Then she appeared, tied to another yacht next to the wall.
Our Yacht tied to the other yacht.
The emotions now go from relief for one minute to anger for the next. Who moved our yacht? And why did no one bother to inform us that she was going to be moved? And how were we going to get from the wall over someone else’s boat onto our boat with our kids? The wall was about a metre away from the other boat, and everything was wet and slippery from the dew. After a while we managed to calm down to a mild panic and fetch the kids from the car.
I pulled the ropes till the other boat was as close to the wall as I could get it and everybody jumped across. The next morning we went to meet Charles the manager of ZYC and he explained why our boat had been towed to the wall. It is amazing how things always look so much better after some sleep.
We decided that we would get some cleaning materials in town and head out for a sail around the harbour in order to familiarize ourselves with the area. After we purchased a harbour chart from the chandlery we started the motors and cast off the lines. Lola had to keep on running indoors to check the chart and pilot guide every time I saw a marker and said “So what marker is that and which side is the safe side to steer?” After a while she got quite mad with me and told me that next time I have to first give her some time to study the chart before we go.
This was our first trip on s/v Debenair, soon to be Yrumoar, and she motored along at 4 knots speed over ground at 1500 rpm. The trip around the harbour lasted for four hours and included pointing the nose out into the ocean. We could not raise any sails as the fitting of the solid bimini had totally ruined the sail plan. This will have to be task number two as task number one will have to be the fixing of the newly fitted solid bimini which was very poorly done.
By the time we got back to the marina, the tide had changed to low tide, and now not only was the boat that we tied onto about a metre away from the wall but the wall was about a metre higher. So we were stuck on the boat until the next high tide at about 10 am the next morning.
View from the cockpit tied to the wall
The homeward part of our journey went smoothly and we arrived home safely at about 8pm after leaving Richards bay at 1pm.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Yrumoar is ours!
04 May 2010
I contacted the previous and original owner of the boat last night to see if he could tell me the history of the future Yrumoar. He told me that he is not much of a sailor but that a friend convinced him that sailing was the way forward and he then had her built by a boatyard somewhere in Cape Town. She was launched in 1994 and after some sea trials one of the guys working at the boatyard sailed her up from Cape Town to Richards bay and Bennie took delivery of her. Bennie went on about two short sails of about 15 miles in total out of the harbour and then decided that he is definitely not a sailor. She then landed up floating at the marina walk-on for a period of time before he had her transported to his farm where she stood on the hard for a number of years. Bennie then sold her to Greg who did some work on her to suit his requirements, who then sold her to us. Not much of an exploring history for her, but this is about to change.
Lolly Jackson was murdered last night somewhere in Kempton Park. This was the breaking news for the day. He was the owner of a few businesses here in South Africa but was most known for being the owner of a number of strip clubs named Teasers. I would assume that being in his kind of industry would attract a lot of enemies.
12 May 2010
The bond on our house was finally settled today and thus we will be able to pay the balance of the boat’s money across to Greg, making Yrumoar a reality at last. I have been trying to contact Greg all morning to make the final arrangements but it appears that he is not available. We now have a long wait till the 9th of June ahead of us before we can go down to Yrumoar. Everything has been hanging in libido for some time now waiting for the banks and lawyers and we have been unable to do anything or spend any money in case something went wrong with the bond application, and we had to come up with a different way of obtaining the money to pay for the boat. No, we did not really have a contingency plan but would have considered robbing a bank or doing a “cash in transit” heist if we had to.
Now the work begins, we have to finish some of the half finished projects around the house in order to get the house ready for rental or sale, we are not sure yet whether to rent it out or sell it. This decision will have to be made before December. Once the house is ready we have to start preparing the boat for the journey. We have given ourselves about a year for the preparations and sea trials starting from next year. However a wise sailor once told me “make no plans, and stick to it”. So we shall see.
13 May 2010
Sitting at my desk at work looking at the picture of Yrumoar, which is my screensaver on my computer, and I start to daydream. When we bought our last boat, Bluefin at the Vaal we went down afterwards and checked the mooring lines and made sure that they were in good condition. We had to replace some of them so we bought some rope and made new lines. We also had to get some fairleads and fit them in order to stop the chaffing of the lines on the fibreglass. Now our new boat Yrumoar is floating at ZYC in Richards Bay, which is one hell of a long drive away, and we haven’t been able to go down since she became ours to check the mooring lines or see if she requires fairleads. We are only able to go down in about 4 weeks time at the beginning of June, but I’m not sure if we will be able to wait that long. I keep thinking that since I myself haven’t made and tied the lines to the marina they may not hold, and off she will float on a journey all by herself. The other panic that I feel is that one of the through hull fittings has not been closed and she springs a leak, and the bilge pump fails, glug glug glug. Down she goes. I want to phone the yacht club and ask someone to go and check up if she is still floating where I last saw her, but don’t know a single soul at the club. We left in such a hurry last time that I forgot to get a number for Ian who’s boat, Ocean Spray, is moored across from Yrumoar. Ian is the only person that we met on our last visit that I can remember.
18 May 2010
We seem to have reached a point where we have nothing interesting to say anymore. It is becoming harder and harder to make up a conversation about the trip ahead as we seem to have discussed all that there is to say.
19 May 2010
Just when we thought we have no more to say Lola and I had a small celebration last night to celebrate that we have passed our SSB radio licence without writing the test again. Okay to explain, a few days ago we contacted ICASA and made an appointment to write our SSB radio licence exam. When ICASA sent us the study material we noticed that it is the same as the last exam that we have already written, some time ago. When we wrote this original exam we didn’t have the correct study material, and it was like writing a Geography exam after you have studied for History, but we all passed anyway. It so happens that we wrote both the VHF and the SSB exam that day using the VHF study notes that we got from Offshore Sailing Academy, so needless to say we had absolutely no idea as to some of the questions and what the possible answers should be, but as luck would have it, the exam was multiple choice and thus we must have guessed the correct options.
We also spoke about what each of us is expecting from this planned trip and I was very surprised that I had no idea that Lola was excited about such different things to me. Lola is looking forward to Home Schooling the kids and, I did guess this one, studying the history of the countries that we visit. I on the other hand, am looking forward to the actual sailing and crossing of oceans, also the time that can be spent alone whilst on watch, time to reflect.
We are both looking forward to the many different cultures of the people that we would meet, and of course the beautiful sites that we will see. In order to get some assistance in the finance department I told Lola that perhaps with the use of Paypal we could get interested people to “buy us a local food” from which ever country we would be visiting. I would then be the guinea pig and eat this foreign food on a short video that interested people could watch and they would then get the opportunity to experience the whole thing virtually. I am hoping that I don’t die from this as I believe that some countries eat very weird stuff like worms, rats and bat wings.
I contacted the previous and original owner of the boat last night to see if he could tell me the history of the future Yrumoar. He told me that he is not much of a sailor but that a friend convinced him that sailing was the way forward and he then had her built by a boatyard somewhere in Cape Town. She was launched in 1994 and after some sea trials one of the guys working at the boatyard sailed her up from Cape Town to Richards bay and Bennie took delivery of her. Bennie went on about two short sails of about 15 miles in total out of the harbour and then decided that he is definitely not a sailor. She then landed up floating at the marina walk-on for a period of time before he had her transported to his farm where she stood on the hard for a number of years. Bennie then sold her to Greg who did some work on her to suit his requirements, who then sold her to us. Not much of an exploring history for her, but this is about to change.
Lolly Jackson was murdered last night somewhere in Kempton Park. This was the breaking news for the day. He was the owner of a few businesses here in South Africa but was most known for being the owner of a number of strip clubs named Teasers. I would assume that being in his kind of industry would attract a lot of enemies.
12 May 2010
The bond on our house was finally settled today and thus we will be able to pay the balance of the boat’s money across to Greg, making Yrumoar a reality at last. I have been trying to contact Greg all morning to make the final arrangements but it appears that he is not available. We now have a long wait till the 9th of June ahead of us before we can go down to Yrumoar. Everything has been hanging in libido for some time now waiting for the banks and lawyers and we have been unable to do anything or spend any money in case something went wrong with the bond application, and we had to come up with a different way of obtaining the money to pay for the boat. No, we did not really have a contingency plan but would have considered robbing a bank or doing a “cash in transit” heist if we had to.
Now the work begins, we have to finish some of the half finished projects around the house in order to get the house ready for rental or sale, we are not sure yet whether to rent it out or sell it. This decision will have to be made before December. Once the house is ready we have to start preparing the boat for the journey. We have given ourselves about a year for the preparations and sea trials starting from next year. However a wise sailor once told me “make no plans, and stick to it”. So we shall see.
13 May 2010
Sitting at my desk at work looking at the picture of Yrumoar, which is my screensaver on my computer, and I start to daydream. When we bought our last boat, Bluefin at the Vaal we went down afterwards and checked the mooring lines and made sure that they were in good condition. We had to replace some of them so we bought some rope and made new lines. We also had to get some fairleads and fit them in order to stop the chaffing of the lines on the fibreglass. Now our new boat Yrumoar is floating at ZYC in Richards Bay, which is one hell of a long drive away, and we haven’t been able to go down since she became ours to check the mooring lines or see if she requires fairleads. We are only able to go down in about 4 weeks time at the beginning of June, but I’m not sure if we will be able to wait that long. I keep thinking that since I myself haven’t made and tied the lines to the marina they may not hold, and off she will float on a journey all by herself. The other panic that I feel is that one of the through hull fittings has not been closed and she springs a leak, and the bilge pump fails, glug glug glug. Down she goes. I want to phone the yacht club and ask someone to go and check up if she is still floating where I last saw her, but don’t know a single soul at the club. We left in such a hurry last time that I forgot to get a number for Ian who’s boat, Ocean Spray, is moored across from Yrumoar. Ian is the only person that we met on our last visit that I can remember.
18 May 2010
We seem to have reached a point where we have nothing interesting to say anymore. It is becoming harder and harder to make up a conversation about the trip ahead as we seem to have discussed all that there is to say.
19 May 2010
Just when we thought we have no more to say Lola and I had a small celebration last night to celebrate that we have passed our SSB radio licence without writing the test again. Okay to explain, a few days ago we contacted ICASA and made an appointment to write our SSB radio licence exam. When ICASA sent us the study material we noticed that it is the same as the last exam that we have already written, some time ago. When we wrote this original exam we didn’t have the correct study material, and it was like writing a Geography exam after you have studied for History, but we all passed anyway. It so happens that we wrote both the VHF and the SSB exam that day using the VHF study notes that we got from Offshore Sailing Academy, so needless to say we had absolutely no idea as to some of the questions and what the possible answers should be, but as luck would have it, the exam was multiple choice and thus we must have guessed the correct options.
We also spoke about what each of us is expecting from this planned trip and I was very surprised that I had no idea that Lola was excited about such different things to me. Lola is looking forward to Home Schooling the kids and, I did guess this one, studying the history of the countries that we visit. I on the other hand, am looking forward to the actual sailing and crossing of oceans, also the time that can be spent alone whilst on watch, time to reflect.
We are both looking forward to the many different cultures of the people that we would meet, and of course the beautiful sites that we will see. In order to get some assistance in the finance department I told Lola that perhaps with the use of Paypal we could get interested people to “buy us a local food” from which ever country we would be visiting. I would then be the guinea pig and eat this foreign food on a short video that interested people could watch and they would then get the opportunity to experience the whole thing virtually. I am hoping that I don’t die from this as I believe that some countries eat very weird stuff like worms, rats and bat wings.
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