2 May 2012
Right now I hate the F****g boat. They are designed to drain your bank account and demoralise your spirit. Our power problems are still not sorted. This morning Lola had to cook all our meat in the freezer because it all defrosted. The raw water pump that we stripped the other day has a pit mark in the shaft exactly where the seal fits. Volvo will not sell you a shaft so you have to buy an entire pump. Then they want you to sell your soul to the devil to be able to afford the new pump. It just makes me sick.
We are carting plus minus twenty litres of water per day onto the boat for drinking water and to wash dishes. We can’t brush our teeth, shower or use the bathroom on the boat since we have no water tanks. So every afternoon we get on the dingy, motor over to the yacht club, fill the jerry cans with water, brush our teeth and have a shower. Then we motor back to the boat and do nothing. I need to get the jobs ticked off the list so that we can move. It’s very difficult without power to get anything done, and as usual everything takes forever to do.
04 May 2012
Today is my sons 18th birthday and I won’t be able to see him. I will at least be able to give him a phone call and speak to him on the phone. I also write letters to both my son and daughter on a regular basis. It’s sad that they are unable to come with me on this trip and I wish things were different. This is however the reality of getting divorced. Once you have made the decision to get divorced you have to face the consequence that accompanies your action. Making the decision doesn’t make it any easier but your choices are gone so you have to live with the outcome.
Yesterday we called a few suppliers and the first one to arrive was Craig from GW stores. GW being the abbreviation for Global Warming. He called me once he arrived at the Yacht club and I raced over on our dingy to fetch him. I don’t believe that he has ever set foot on a dingy before as I watched him rush over and clumsily try to get on without loosing his composure. Boats do not provide a solid surface that sits still when you move your balance from land onto the boat. His one leg was still on the docks when his other leg stepped onto the dingy floor. The dingy decided that now was a good time to move as far away from the docks as the painter would allow. Craig tried to compensate for the “earth” that had suddenly moved away under his foot. I tried to move towards him but it all happened so fast and I could only watch as he proved that he could become a ballet dancer and did the splits. Luckily for Craig the dingy decided to give him a break and moved towards the docks again. He then managed to regain his balance and shot his other leg into the dingy as fast as humanly possible. We motored over to Yrumoar and Gavin repeated the exercise as he tried to jump as fast as possible from the dingy onto the dive platform. I felt so bad for him that I didn’t even have the courage left to tell him to remove his shoes. Once on Yrumoar he tried to understand how we live without television and electricity. He admitted to me that this was his first visit on a yacht. We explained to him that everything is powered by the batteries and thus we do not require a normal household electrical connection. After he finished making his notes he eyed the dingy suspiciously and this time he decided that going with both legs at the same time was the possible answer. We all watched as he pounced into the dingy. He hit the floor slightly passed the centre and continued moving. The dingy rocked over making him loose the little balance he had left. We all held our breath thinking that he was about to go overboard. Somehow he managed to stop himself milliseconds before going right over the dingy and into the water. The ride back to the docks also proved interesting as the dingy decided to give Craig the true cruising experience. About half way the motor died and we had to oar the rest of the way to the docks. Now we have to wait and see if he is going to charge us extra for the “danger” factor involved.
Kim and Darren, Lola’s sister and brother in law, came over to visit and brought us some fuel for the dingy. We really enjoyed their visit as we haven’t seen them for quite some time. We just sat around at the club and burnt a few steaks on the braai.
The club house itself makes me feel as if we are time travelling back to the seventies every time we go there. It’s not just the furniture and fittings that has dated but also the people seem to be trapped in that era. The club lights fires on Wednesday and Saturdays and everybody comes together for a social evening. We attended the first Wednesday evening braai and got to meet some of the local club members. I sat around watching all the interesting characters making some light conversation with a few of them. Afterwards we sat on the boat reflecting on the evenings events and Ryun couldn’t stop laughing as he tried to comprehend where these guys bought their clothes. The one guy in particular was wearing bell bottom trousers that came straight from John Travolta in Saturday night fever.
Living on a boat is such a different life that it becomes hard to explain. A few days ago the wind picked up and we all amused ourselves for about an hour just watching the volt metre climb up and down as the wind drove the wind charger. We even took bets as to how high the voltage would go. In normal life there is no time for that kind of entertainment. I made this realisation yesterday when Craig tried to rush through our meeting as fast as his professionalism would allow in order to rush off to his next appointment. On the boat there is no rush and everything can just happen when it wants to. There is enough time to sit and watch a pelican slowly swimming by moving his body in fluid motions back and forth as his feet peddle under the water. There is enough time allowing for these moments to be savoured.
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