Can we get to beach?

03 Oct. 12


Even though I know we only have about a week left here before we go I can’t seem to find that excited feeling I am supposed to have. I can’t help but feel that we are never actually going to leave and Yrumoar is going to become just another one of those many “broken dream” boats that I see all around the boatyard, staying here forever and slowly rotting away. I am hoping that I feel like this because we travelled back here from Durban instead of continuing forward to East London. Perhaps the excited feeling will return the day we leave, or once we get to Durban.

08 Oct. 12

I have somehow become the local “advisor,” inspecting work done on peoples boats and informing them whether or not the work was done correctly. I don’t know how this happened considering how many boatyard engineers work here in the boatyard, and the fact that I am still a newbie at this.

I still don’t feel very inspired or excited as the time just keeps on marching by and we still just sit here. The sale of our walk-on is complete and now we are waiting for the money to be transferred into our account. We have managed to tick some more items from the list but it doesn’t seem to get any shorter. We somehow manage to find a new item to add to the list every time we tick one off.

10 Oct. 12

We were hoping to leave before the weekend, but it seems that fate has another plan for us. We hired Kirsten to jump overboard and scrape off the barnacles that have already made themselves at home on our hulls. Whilst he was down there he noticed that our rubber sail drive boots had loosened themselves. So instead of leaving this weekend, we will be beaching the boat and fixing the boots.

Perhaps if we start doing something exciting instead of just fixing the boat, fixing the boat, fixing the boat, I will feel inspired again. But for now, I am just so totally bored and sick of fixing the boat. Even the beauty of this place has lost its lustre and I can’t seem to find anything that interests me anymore. I haven’t even been able to write a letters to my kids since I haven’t got anything to say.

13 Oct. 12

Yesterday we hit rock bottom. We checked the tides and walked down to the foreshore during low tide to make sure that we had a spot to beach. There were two other catamarans already on the beach getting some or other things done to them, but it appeared as if we would be able to park next to one off them. After getting all the preparations done on the boat we decided to walk down to the foreshore again just before high tide to do a final check.

The spot we had selected was still available but the catamaran that would be next to us drifted all over the place and would make it difficult for us to beach. The owner of the boat had gone to town so we couldn’t even ask him to fix the problem.

I am still not sure exactly why, but at this point both Lola and I threw our toys out the cot and feeling very despondent came back to our boat. After stomping around on the boat and snapping at the kids every now and then we landed up in a full blown argument. Lola ended up in tears and I felt guilty for making her come on this “dream” boat to hell.