At last some sunshine and we can continue with the repairs. The dive platform that we extended is now finished and that along with the bridge deck requires fairing and painting to be completed. Yesterday we went to an internet café to update our blogs. After two hours we weren’t able to load the photos yet so we decided to just give the photos a miss. After we laid fibreglass today I was sitting on one of those plastic garden chairs behind the boat whilst Lola was packing our shower bags when suddenly I heard what sounded like a bird flying into the starboard backstay and then falling onto the deck somewhere. Lola shouted “Barry, what was that?” I scaled the ladder as quickly as I could since I could still hear the “bird” scurrying about on the boat. Lola came out into the cockpit and asked me again what all the commotion was about saying that she thought the new dive platform had broken off. I told her about the bird story and we both looked around on deck. To my surprise Lola found a fish lashing about on the bimini roof. Wow the bird must have dropped it by accident and it hit the backstay on its way down landing on the roof. I put it back in the water but I am not sure if it will survive. But just imagine fish on the roof whilst the boat is on the land, surreal is all I can say.
17 Nov. 11
It’s just after five in the morning, overcast, hot and extremely humid. As I sit here in the cockpit my body feels hot and clammy with a consistently damp top lip no matter how many times I wipe it dry. From one extreme to the next seems to be the weather system down here. The high humidity today may prevent us from laying fibreglass since it is not only affected by the rain but also by the humidity. Tiny little near invisible insects are landing periodically on my back just out of arms reach and cause me to stretch my arms over backwards every few minutes to chase them away and scratch. Yesterday we fitted Rauen’s new portlight in his heads. That means his new window in his toilet. We also cut a hole in the deck to fit a new hatch in Kyle’s bedroom but need to fibreglass around the edge first before we can install the hatch. Using the mould that I made the day before Lola completed our starboard dolphin nose and started with the port one so today we will probably complete the port one weather permitting of course.
19 Nov. 11
Well we managed to fit the hatch in Kyle’s room after grinding most of the fibreglass that we had laid the day before off. What a waste of time that was. Today the oven glass door exploded whilst I was grinding open the keels. In fact it exploded after I had finished the one keel and sat down under the boat to have a smoke break. I heard a loud bang and heard something falling on the floor above my head. Then another sound of falling objects like marbles bouncing on the floor. I was still pondering the sound when Lola called me and told me that the oven door exploded. I asked her if she was cooking something and she said no she was busy sending an sms to our son Rauen who had flown up to Jo-burg to visit his dad. So no real reason for the glass to shatter and we still cannot explain what would have caused this.
Rauen flew up to visit his dad and granny in Johannesburg on Friday morning. Well here we go again. Never start a journey on a Friday. As I have said before this superstition shouldn’t be applicable to car or airplane journeys. But it seems once you get involved with sailing or boats in any way whatsoever everything changes and suddenly these superstitions are applicable no matter what form of transport you may chose. So on our way to the airport we see the newspaper headline that reads SA Airlink leaves its passengers in the lurch again. We turn on the radio and the news reporter’s voice announces that all flights from Richards Bay and Durban have been cancelled due to fog. When we arrive at the airport the passengers from the previous flight are all still waiting. Anyway to cut a long story short this was Rauen’s first flight on an airplane so he was very excited as well as a little intrepid and the news didn’t help the intrepid part much. We explained to him that the take off wasn’t the problem but the planes landing from Johannesburg had a problem caused by the fog and they couldn’t see the runway so he didn’t have to worry. After many hours delay the fog lifted and the first plane landed. Rauen’s flight was supposed to leave at nine but eventually left at twelve.
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| All struted and waiting for the new boards to set |
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| Taking a break |
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| Wood rot? like I've never seen! |
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