22 May 2012


We were supposed to leave today for East London but Otto, our autopilot decided to go on strike. Okay we knew the autopilot wasn’t working since our trip down from Richards Bay but we thought it was an electronic fault and the compass needed to be reprogrammed. Now at least we know that this wasn’t the fault. The drive belt inside the unit has broken. We were going to attempt the trip thinking that perhaps if we swung the compass the autopilot would reset its brain and work again. Leaving Durban with this hopeful knowledge was still reasonable enough for us. However knowing that we will have to hand steer the whole way and that there is absolutely no way that the autopilot will “fix” itself, we decided not to go.

Lola and I sat up last night considering our options at this point. We managed to source a new replacement belt in England. Lola called her mother and asked her to order the belt and deliver it to her office in England. Her mother would then be able to post it to us as a gift. This solves our autopilot problem but would take a few weeks at least. By the time the belts arrive my kids should also be arriving. After some deliberation we decided that we would rather play the waiting game in Richards Bay as opposed to waiting for the kids in Durban. The club and facilities are better and we still own our walk-on so wouldn’t have to pay for the mooring buoy here as well as still paying levies for the walk-on.

That is the thing with this kind of life. Nothing is set in stone and plans can change at anytime. We checked the weather and Thursday brings a small south westerly wind. So we will possibly be leaving here on Thursday morning at about one using a mild south westerly wind to push us back north west.

We have managed to replace all our lights on the boat with LED lights and now we will see if it makes a difference to our ever present power problems. I still haven’t fitted any of the solar panels that we bought but it is still on my, to do list. I have also changed the battery banks. We still have two banks but now five batteries are in bank one and only one battery in bank two. We use bank one as the house bank and charge it all the time with the solar panels and wind charger. Bank two will only be used to start the motors. Hopefully this setup works and I no longer have to flip from bank one to bank two everyday. The existing solar panels are managing at the moment to keep the batteries above twelve volts without the fridge or freezer switched on. Hopefully the extra panels that we bought will enable us to use at least the freezer.

25 May 2012

Well here we are back in Richards Bay! I never thought we would return this way, but that seems to be how the life as a sailor works. I would blame our autopilot for this return trip but otto doesn’t have to take all the blame. The showers at the bluff coupled with the inconvenience of not having the luxury of endless electrical power, is possibly more to blame. The fact that the office at the bluff isn’t very useful and I don’t believe we would actually get anything that is posted to us there was another factor.

The passage back.

I will begin at the very beginning, long before we actually left. A weather window opened up for a passage between Durban and East London. The window started on Tuesday morning and was predicted to end on Saturday in East London. A small low pressure was tucked in somewhere in the middle of the window and we decided that we would take the chance anyway. Preparations on Yrumoar started in earnest with Lola and I discussing the list and prioritising the jobs that had to be done before we could leave. The autopilot being number one on the list. Once we discovered that the belt had to be replaced and we would have to hand steer all the way, the plans changed. This was the moment we decided to return to Richards Bay. Hand steering for a one day passage wasn’t as daunting. So we discussed the plan and decided to use the small low pressure due to arrive on Thursday, to push us back up the coast.

We arrived at the bluff yacht club office early on Tuesday morning and asked the lady for a final account and a flight plan. She said okay and we sat around outside her office waiting. Then we decided to order breakfast from the galley and still sat around waiting for our account and flight plan. The breakfast arrived and we all ate. Then we sat around waiting. Eventually I started getting impatient and decided to knock on the office door and find out why we were waiting. Nobody answered and I knocked again. Still no answer, so I opened the door. Sitting behind a desk inside the office was a young man of about twenty five or so. Now I don’t know very many deaf twenty five year old men but I suppose they are out there. This one must have been one of those since he couldn’t hear the knocking on the door.

He looked up from behind his computer screen with his eyebrows raised to the centre of his forehead as if surprised to discover me in the doorway. I asked him if there was a problem with our account. He didn’t answer me but pointed towards another office behind him. I took this as a sign that I had to enter the office and proceed to the office behind him. I walked through his office to the next office and found the accounts lady. I wanted to ask her if she remembered me but decided that she may not understand what I meant so instead I asked her if there was a problem with our account. She said yes. I asked what the problem was. She said she didn’t know on which date we arrived. I wondered just how long she was planning to wait for a miracle discovery to arrive on her desk telling her on which date we arrived or if she was trying to build up the courage to ask us. I decided to tell her the date we arrived hoping to end our torturous waiting period. She said okay she will bring the flight plan and final account.

We sat around waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Eventually just before one o clock she came out of the office and handed us an account and flight plan. Lola sat down at a table and filled in the flight plan. She inspected our account and asked me for our bank card. Then we walked to the office door and discovered that it was locked for the rest of the day and everybody had gone home. Okay so we would have to settle the account in the morning and get the flight plan stamped and then organise a lift across town to port control.

Early the next morning we went to the office. Again I knocked twice and after remembering that the young man was possibly deaf I opened the door. Again he was surprised to see me. For a moment I thought we were in ground hog day, but when his lips moved and sounds came out of his mouth I quickly realised that he can actually speak and thus no ground hog day. Lola asked him if we could pay our account. He informed us that the accounts lady has the day off. Lola and I looked at each other in surprise and asked him how we were supposed to pay our account and have our flight plan stamped. He studied us for a while then reached over to the phone and dialled a number. I listened in on his conversation and it went something like this. “yes those people are here at the office.” Pause. “they want to pay.” “ah hu.” “ah hu.” “ah hu.” “um okay yes.” “who?” “Barry.” “Is he allowed to do that?” “ah hu.” “ah hu.” “okay.”

He placed down the receiver, picked it back up and dialled another number. “Can you come to the office?” Then he hung up the telephone and sat looking at us in silence. I couldn’t contain myself anymore and asked him what was happening. He then explained to me that Barry would come down to the office and stamp our flight plan. I told him that I was already standing in the office. He didn’t catch my joke, looked at me for a moment, and just walked into the back office. We followed him. In the back office he picked up the card machine and punched in some numbers. Then he asked, “cheque or savings?” Lola answered, “savings” and he passed her the machine.

After our rather strange office experience we went outside and sat down with one of the club regulars. I asked him what the young man in the office actually did. He told me that the young man spends the day watching porn on the internet. I laughed and then thought about what he said. In my mind I thought about porn movies and how we must have distracted the young man at the very moment in the movie when, if you loose focus and don’t concentrate, you would miss the entire plot of the movie. Then you would have to spend the rest of the movie trying to find out what happened. Yes imagine losing the plot in a porn movie. That would just spoil the entire experience and you would never know what actually happened. In reality you could leave for two hours, come back and I don’t think you would have missed a single thing.

Another one of the club members, Graham, had offered to give us a lift to port control. Lola and I walked into the hard parking and went to look for Graham. We found him in his workshop. Graham was in the process of building a st.francis catamaran. He showed us around his workshop and inside his boat. I had to admire his workmanship and the quality of his work. He was obviously a perfectionist and his project will be absolutely beautiful once he managed to finish it. I felt a bit envious of his boat but decided that I would still rather have our smaller and much older boat. I suppose if I had the money, maybe things would be different.

Graham kindly agreed to give us a lift to port control and we zipped quickly through the heavy Durban traffic. Lola sat in front and I sat on the back of his black Corsa bakkie.

The lady at port control was apparently new at the job and kept asking us for our disc. I had no idea what disc she was referring to and asked her repeatedly what disc she was talking about. She kept repeating that she needs to see our disc and even asked some other women in the office if we should have this disc. The conversation went around and around in a circle with her going, I need to see your disc, and me asking, what disc are you talking about? Eventually she sent for help and while we waited for help to arrive she perused our paperwork. Then she informed us that our paperwork was not the correct paperwork and handed us a different form from her desk drawer. I just looked at her and told her that this was the paperwork that we were given at the yacht club. Again our conversation started circling with her stating that we had the wrong paperwork and me repeating that this was the paperwork the club gave us. After a few minutes another guy arrived in her office. He checked our paperwork for about one second and told her to go and fax it to the port tower.

We left port control still not really sure if everything was in order. I told Lola that port control doesn’t actually know their job function. In my opinion port control has to ensure that you have paid all your bills pertaining to the port and that’s it. They shouldn’t have to check your boat papers or skippers ticket, this would be the job of the water police. When you exit Durban harbour for another local port you only have to see port control and don’t have to see the water police. This makes no sense to me. I could technically come into Durban harbour, take someone else’s boat and as long as I have a “disc” to show port control, leave on a stolen boat.

Back at the club we moved the boat from the chain mooring to the walk-on. This was also a first for us. After dropping all the lines the boat drifted across the ropes and I could only use the port motor because I was afraid of catching the ropes in our starboard motor’s propeller. Using the one motor only makes the boat turn in one direction. Luckily we had lots of space between us and the other boats around us and eventually managed to drift away from the ropes and into the channel. The only problem at this point was that we were facing the wrong way. The channel is a bit thin and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to turn us around without catching someone’s ropes. Easily solvable. We just motored backwards down the channel.

Nearing the end of the channel, Ashton, another one of the club members shouted out to us that it would take a very long time for us to get back to Richards bay going in that direction. We replied to him that we don’t actually like backtracking so this way we still feel as if we are travelling forwards. Then we just laughed and accepted that we were obviously idiots.

Lola and I had a few drinks and went to bed at about nine in the evening. Lola had set the alarm clock for one in the morning. I woke up at one when the alarm rang and reaching over with my toe silenced the rude machine.

Just after two I woke up with a start and realised we should have left already. We all jumped into action and by half past we were motoring through the harbour on our way to the ocean. The channel is quite long and it took about an hour to get to the harbour entrance, I called Durban port control on the radio and asked for permission to exit the harbour.

The voice over the radio from Port control informed me that they didn’t have my flight plan and asked me when I had sent it. I told him that their office had faxed it at about eleven in the morning the day before. The voice repeated to me that they didn’t have our flight plan. I stood in front of the radio with my palms towards the sky asking myself why my life seems to be constantly repeating itself.

The voice at port control eventually made an executive decision and after getting all our particulars gave us permission to exit the harbour.

The Durban harbour mouth had recently been widened, so according to our chartplotter, we sailed across the land as we exited the channel. The wind was predicted to blow westerly at about six knots with wave heights at about one metre. We motor sailed with one reef in the main. Our speed over ground with both motors running and the reefed main sail was sitting at five and a half knots.

About two hours out our starboard motor started getting hot and we turned it off. I am not sure why she gets hot since we have just replaced the raw water pump and she is pumping water through the exhaust. Once the sun came out we opened the roller furler and this added about one knot to our speed. The wind swung towards south west and we dropped the main since it kept masking the furler causing it to flap. The predicted wave heights of one metre and about twelve seconds apart wasn’t very accurate and we found ourselves crashing through waves of about two metres spaced less than six seconds apart. Every now and then our bows would plough into a wave and disappear for a second or two under water. At first the waves were coming at us from the front and we could predict which one was going to make the boat pitch. A short while after the wind had switched some of the wave were coming from the back and others still came from the front. The trip became more and more uncomfortable as the waves seemed to get more and more confused. After a while we could no longer tell which way the waves were heading and they seem to come from all sides.

We bounced about for the entire day taking turns at hand steering roughly following our course that we had used to come down with. At about half way we spotted a ship that appeared to be on a collision course with us. We continued on our course for a while and kept watching the ship. Eventually we decided that we would alter course and head straight towards the ship. Technically the ship should pass in front of us if we headed straight towards it. We stayed on the new course for about an hour and the ship just stayed in front of us not moving at all. At this point we decided that the ship was anchored and changed back to our original course.

Passing durnford point took painfully long, but eventually we turned back towards land and started heading towards the harbour. We entered the harbour mouth at about nine in the evening and phoned Ryun to catch our lines. Motoring around in the harbour at night is quite daunting. Everything seems closer than it is and distances are very deceiving. Even though this is our home port and we have been in and out of this harbour many times, it is still a bit nerve racking.

Somewhere along the way Lola and I had the conversation again. Is this really what we want to do? Do any of us actually enjoy this? We even discussed a list of alternative plans and decided that we should follow one of these alternatives. Lola said she would prepare a cost analysis and we would look at the viability of these alternative plans. Will we continue? Who knows? At this point I compare the passages to pregnancy. Nobody enjoys being overweight and ugly. The entire time there is a feeling of trepidation waiting for something to go wrong. Nearing the end takes forever and becomes more and more unbearable. Then the panic caused by the impending pain of childbirth sets in. Then suddenly it is all over, and how quickly we forget.

27 May 2012

Being back in Richards bay feels a lot like coming home. I suppose the amount of time we had spent here does make it like home. We have had many visits from old friends that we made here. Last night we were invited onto a boat from Mayotte named “Mtoro.” The evening started a bit slow since they speak very broken English and we only know about five words in French. But soon enough we all started speaking the international language of Richelieu brandy. We even joked that the bottle of brandy became a French to English translation book. It was lots of fun and we discovered that even though Richelieu brandy is advertised as French brandy, it isn’t sold in France. The name Richelieu is also an infamous name of a priest that turned bad and did some horrendous deeds. Well I suppose the name is then apt for the brandy since it can sometimes control your mind and turn you from a normal person into an insane beast.