05 Feb. 12
Managed to stick the scuppers on yesterday which officially ends the bridge deck repairs. After many sweaty hours of struggle frustration and a little bit of swearing we also stuck the name Yrumoar onto the front sides thus branding her with our chosen name. We still have to paint the back steps and put the other two stickers with the name onto the back but decided to wait until after our hull inspection on Monday to do this. Our life raft came back from servicing so now we are going to have to find an accessible yet out of the way place to keep her. Servicing the life raft cost over four thousand rand and feels like a rip off but I suppose in the event of actually having to use her we would be overjoyed that we did service her. Today we have a guy coming around to make a stainless steel bracket to attach our new second hand wind charger. We will have to paint the charger and make a new cover for it since the old one is shattered but with our newly acquired skills in fibreglass this shouldn’t be to much of a challenge. Lola is dealing with the official side of things making a million phone calls and sending emails to everyone and their sister trying to make sure that officialdom doesn’t prevent us from leaving once the boat is ready. Of course everyone and their sister wants a piece of the pie and thus the bank balance is disappearing in front of my eyes with every email sent.
My thumb is feeling a bit better today for the first time since I hurt it on the front deck. It has been very frustrating to work, or in fact do anything, without the use of my right thumb. I will still have to watch how I touch anything since tom thumb is still a bit sensitive to touch on the one side but at least he has stopped throbbing.
Yesterday the question of weapons on the boat came up whilst having a conversation with Linda the Australian Israeli and Afgani the Russian Israeli. Afgani reckons that he would like an M16 or an Ak47 on his boat when the pirates approach he would fire some rounds into the air to let them know that he is armed. He also believes that the pirates don’t want your boat but that they want to take you alive and use you in order to get ransom paid to them. I have debated this very question in my mind many times and perhaps if I had access to a South African R4 with a laser site and five or six hundred rounds I would want to take it with me. Or better still have a twenty mill with high energy explosive rounds mounted on each bow and one on the crows nest up the mast that would definately be the solution to any small military invasion. But since I don’t have access to these weapons of mass destruction and I don’t believe that any country in the world is going to believe me when I try to convince them these are purely for self defence purposes, we probably won’t be taking any guns. I can just imagine my conversations with customs officials. “No sir, I promise these limpid mines attached to the hulls are for underwater diver attack prevention, oh, and occasionally also used for antifouling since everything on a boat has to have two purposes.” Customs, “ and the hand grenades!?” Me “we use them to blast out any bacteria in our water tanks of course” Yup the more I think about it the more I believe it should work.
06 Feb. 12
We have the guy from SAMSA coming today to do our hull inspection and he told Lola over the phone that he wants us to strip all our sea cocks so that he can inspect them. Not one or two of our sea cocks, but “all of our sea cocks”. When Lola told me this I was busy sanding our port bow and the fact that he wants to inspect “all” of our sea cocks irritated me slightly so I started mumbling under my breath “ huh huh huh all of our sea cocks hey” does this twat know that I now have to get my hands into the bilges and strip the plumbing pipes. Not one or two of them, but “all” of them. Fortunately after a while my mind gained control of itself and it started to see the reason he would possibly want to see “all” of our sea cocks. When I had finished mumbling and groaning to myself I went into the saloon on the boat. I called Rauen and Kyle and told them that when the guy came for the inspection the three of us would have to stand naked in the saloon. The stared at me with disbelieve in their eyes until I explained that I would be the only one that would have to be naked but since the guy wants to inspect “all the sea cocks” and there are three boys on the boat, we would “all” have to be naked.
Last night we went for KFC after spending most of the day up in the pub at the yacht club. I drove Debbie’s car since we no longer own a car and because I only had two vodkas for the whole day as apposed to Debbie that had perhaps a little more wine than that. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach at take away places and I couldn’t finish my food so still have some chicken for today.
The guy finished our wind charger bracket in the late afternoon yesterday and we now have to drill a few holes and install it onto the boat. It always sounds easier than it is but hopefully this time not a mammoth task.
I miss my kids a lot this morning. Not knowing exactly when I will see them again is what makes it so hard for me to cope.
Rauen suffered from a huge stomach cramp last night before he went to bed so I hope he is going to be okay this morning.
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