07 Aug. 11
So a few more days have come and gone with painfully slow progress on the boat. The boxes are installed but not yet complete. We managed to repair one of the multiple leeks in Kyle’s room but still have a few to solve.
The last two days have been spent indoors again trying to avoid the never ending rain. I found the guy we bought the boat from and told him that he sold us a piece of rot and that he knew about all the problems on the boat. He of course denied having any knowledge of the problems and said that the boat passed a hull inspection by SAMSA. Okay he did give me that so called hull inspection done by SAMSA but then I have to question the competence of the inspector or if he was bribed. If he did even a half arse inspection using a blind guy with a stick he would have found the problems so one or the other is fake and bullshit.
We decided to do the repairs using a material called airex instead of the wood since the stuff cannot rot like wood does. So a few days ago we took a trip to Durban and bought two sheets of the stuff. It costs about twice the price of wood but the future benefit seems to outweigh the cost. Typically as life seems to be going at the moment we bought the two sheets one for the deck repairs at 12mm thick and the other for the bridge deck repairs at 20mm, using the sizes of the existing wood as a guide, only to find that we should have bought the deck thickness at 10mm and the bridge deck at 15mm. The reason for this is off course that once you add the fibreglass to the stuff it increases the size by about one and a half mm for every layer of glass and you have to glass both sides.
13 Aug. 11
The last few days have seen my mood change from sombre and moody back to the old Barry who was a positive and generally happy fellow. Lola commented that she prefers me when I am happy in her words she said “when you are happy, you are extremely happy”. “But when you are sad you are also extremely sad”. I suppose that makes me slightly bi polar.
Yesterday I finally managed to master the art of mixing and applying the fairing compound to the repairs that we have already done. This was after many unsuccessful attempts involving much frustration. The boat looks like a complete wreck at the moment with all the ceilings removed and tools everywhere. I have learnt such a lot about the construction process that was used to build the boat by stripping it that I now feel a lot more confident to take on the required repairs.
22 Aug. 11
We tested some products to see which one most suited our needs for the bridge deck repairs and decided that we would use a closed cell foam core instead of the balsa wood that the boat has in at the moment. By using this we eliminate future wood rot problems as this stuff is like a type of plastic and a bit of water getting in doesn’t really matter anymore.
27 Aug. 11
The other day I was speaking to this guy here at the club about our blocked toilets, when he asked me if we have any portlights in the toilet. I told him no we have a normal 12 volt light in the toilet. To which he repeated himself asking if we have any portlights. I told him yes we have one port light and one starboard light. The port light is red and the starboard green. He stood there for a while with a strange expression on his face and stared at me, then he just shook his head and walked away. Later I realised a portlight is actually a window.
28 Aug. 11
We seem to attract the slightly younger crowd and have always got along with the upper teen and early twenties group. A few times now we have had the five or six people in this age group on the boat for a gathering which turns into a raucous drinking affair ending in the early hours of the morning. This doesn’t help towards the progress of the boat the following day but has lifted our spirits somewhat and given some enjoyable times even on the hard.
Today we are going to fit the new ceiling in the passage after having ripped out the old one a few weeks ago in our quest to discover the condition of the deck. We have also planned another trip up to Joeys to surprise my daughter on her 21st birthday. This is exciting times and I am looking forward to seeing two of my kids again. Technically my daughter turning 21 makes her a fully fledged legal adult now but for me she will always be my little girl even when she turns fifty one day. For once I am hoping she doesn’t read my blog and ruin the surprise so perhaps I will only post this after the weekend has passed.
The weather here the last two days has been rather miserable but worked perfectly in any case due to the fact that we partied a bit hard on Friday night and thus I was slightly incapacitated yesterday. We spent most of the day in bed with Lola reading a sailing adventure called “The walkabouts” to me whilst the rain pattered gently on the decks above our heads making it an almost perfect day.
07 Sep. 11
Never start a journey on a Friday was a discussion that Lola and I had when we were planning this trip to Joburg. I eventually dismissed the old sailing superstition by saying that we were going in a car and certainly old king Neptune’s power surely doesn’t reach that far inland so Friday it would be. We got up early on Friday morning and packed our bags ready to leave. I got off the boat and walked down to the car park to fetch the car. A few minutes later I was back on the boat and broke the news to Lola that the car’s battery was flat and wouldn’t start. So we all walked down to the car park to push start the car. On the way to the car I roped in some of the boatyard workers to help push the car and with a short push in reverse gear managed to start the motor. So king Neptune was instantly defeated. Or was he? We packed the car and left at about eight. The sun was up and there was a beautiful clear blue sky overhead. The previous day the barometer had dropped and I told Lola that whilst we were away there would be a blow in the bay and we should miss it. We turned on the radio and listened to east coast radio playing music in the background.
The news came on we asked the kids to be quiet and turned up the radio to catch up on current affairs in the country. When we are on the boat we don’t watch TV or listen to the radio so we are a bit out of touch with reality and this was a perfect opportunity to catch up. After the bad news, it seems to always be, the traffic presenter informed us that an abnormal load would be travelling from the bay to Vryheid thereby blocking our path back up to Joburg. He mentioned that they would be considerate and pull over every so often to allow cars to pass.
We caught up to the abnormal one about twenty minutes later and spent the next two hours of our journey doing ten kilometres an hour in first gear behind him with no way to pass. Strike two for the king? Eventually after an eternity had passed someone with a flat tyre coming from the opposite side made Mr abnormal stop and we were allowed to get passed.
Then king Neptune spoke to his contacts and the wind started to blow. As we made our way across the winding mountain pass the wind picked up debris from the recently cut sugar cane farms and sent it hurtling across the road and into our car. Lola kept ducking inside the car as the pieces of cane bombarded the window on her side of the car. At one point a large piece of corrugated tin roof from one of the rural shacks came flying across the road in front of our car making me swerve and hit the brakes in order to avoid being hit. The wind continued to howl and blew us across the lanes at times all the way to Volksrus. At one of the many roadwork stop goes we wanted to exit the car and have a smoke break. Lola could not open her door to get out and I had to get out from my side of the car and help her open her door. Outside the car the wind lifted our t shirts and tried to snatch the cigarettes from our mouths.
Eventually we started to move again and as we drove off a gravel road next to the roadworks together with the wind sand blasted our car to such an extent that I thought we would have to re-spray the paint work. The radio presenter announced that the road between Malmoth and Vryheid was closed due to runaway fires that had set the saw mill on fire and the smoke across the road made passing impossible. Lucky we had just completed that section of the road so the king must have underestimated our travelling speed and we had thus thwarted his plan.
The rest of the journey went by without incident and we arrived safely at our destination at about half passed four. The journey that would normally have taken six hours took eight and a half.
The rest of the weekend went by so quickly and we had very little sleep rushing from my brother’s house to my daughter’s 21 to and old friend’s house party and back. We tried to spend as much time with each of my kids and friends in such a short time span as is possible but the time just is never enough and I find myself wishing we had stayed longer. The next time I will get to see them will only be in December and then who knows after that.
