12 Jan. 13
It has been raining on and off for the two days so we have been trapped
on the boat. I decided to get up at four this morning to type my book so after
three stiff brandies last night I went to bed at eight. I am not sure what time
Lola came to bed but she likes to read herself to sleep and needs light to do
this. I had installed a light for her some time ago but the bed has made us
change direction more than once in an attempt at finding a comfortable place to
sleep. So this light is now on my side of the bed at my feet. Its an LED light
but still very bright. At some point I will have to move the light again and
hopefully it will be in the right place this time. Anyway, Lola was reading
away quiet happily until about one this morning when I eventually tossed and
turned myself awake. I am obviously not one of those guys that are afraid of the
dark so need the darkness to surround me before I can sleep. Besides this I
have never liked my feet being in the spotlight so I sat up and told Lola that
it was time for her to say her beddy byes and go to sleep, and without another
word I turned off the light. I don’t know if she was impressed by my behaviour
since she is still asleep but time will tell.
This morning the mist is hanging low enough over the hills next to us to
cover their tops. The water is flat calm and I can see the sky’s reflection on
the surface. If it wasn’t for the rubbish floating by it would have been a
perfect setting to wake up to.
13 Jan. 13
I made a new year’s resolution to type my blog everyday. So this morning
I look back just to discover that I typed my first blog for the year on the 7th
and missed the 10th. That shows how well I manage at sticking to
new year’s resolutions. I don’t think I have ever stuck to even one of my
resolutions in the past but I believe I will still be making them every year. I
wonder why I would set myself up for failure on an annual basis.
Even though Lola and I had sundowners last night and went to bed quite
late I still managed to get up at four this morning. Looking at the sunrise
this morning was worth the pain. I managed to take a photo just before the sun
decided to show its face over the hill. Sadly photo’s are never as good as the
real thing.
14 Jan. 13
Still in Durban ,
not sure what we are doing yet. It looks like a good weather window on
Wednesday and we have discussed the possibility of taking it but I don’t want to
tell anyone just yet in case we change our minds.
This morning I was up at four again but the sunrise wasn’t as pretty.
Now I am sitting at the yacht club trying to make some progress on my book. The
rain has stopped and it is boiling hot here. I have so much sweat pouring down
my back that I cannot sit against the back rest of the chair without getting glued
to it. I asked the club office if they could scan and email some of Rauen’s
school documents for me but it seems their scanner is on the blink. We will
have to take the documents to a postnet this afternoon when we go and post
Amy’s passport to her.
Amy finally bought her ticket to Scotland and will be leaving on her
gap year sometime later this month. I am excited for her, and also a bit
nervous at the same time.
I still don’t know what is happening with Keagan’s car, if it is still
standing in Montrose halfway between here and Jhb, or anything.
16 Jan. 13
We changed our minds and decided to stick to our original plan of
staying here for a while longer. I am starting to make some progress on my book
and hope to complete it before we set sail. A friend that we met some time ago
in Richards Bay Richards Bay
At about five this morning I sat and watched as an American boat dropped
the mooring lines and left. This boat has been three quarters of the way around
the world so the crew, husband and wife combination, would obviously have a lot
of experience. However as I watched them reverse out I noticed that they forgot
to untie one of the mooring lines. After reversing out far enough they turned
to head down the channel with the rope still attached to their back cleat. There
was nothing I could do to help and they were to far away from me to shout a
warning to them that they would hear over their engine noise. So instead I just
grabbed hold of my head with both hands and held my breath, waiting for
disaster to happen. Then it happened. They motored forwards for a while gaining
speed when the rope suddenly became taunt and pulled them to an unplanned stop,
swinging the front of their boat sideways towards the other moored boats. I
watched helplessly as panic set in and saw the wife running around on the decks
trying to push them away from the other boats. The husband quickly found the
problem and untied the line but it was already too late as they had drifted
onto the other boats. For a while time stood still, and I held my breath as I
watched both of them pushing themselves away from the boats. Then, just as
quickly as it began, it was over and they were in the channel motoring away as
if nothing had happened. I gave a sigh of relief and started to breathe again.
So it seems no matter how long you have been doing this, or how far you have
come, mistakes are inevitable.
17 Jan. 13
Last night as we were sitting in the cockpit Kyle suddenly shouted, “dad
…dad… there is a huge bug behind you!” I spun around not knowing what to
expect, and there it was. Possibly the largest cockroach on the planet sitting
about a foot behind me obviously planning his attack. I jumped straight into
action, after possibly yelping like a little puppy with his foot stuck in a
fence, shouting at Lola. “quick pass me my sword!” “your what?” she answered.
“my sword!” I repeated shouting louder this time to avoid any uncertainty. “you
don’t have a sword!” she shouted back. “okay then,” I calmed to a milder panic
state. “pass me the fly swat instead.” She passed it to me quickly and I shot
into action jumping up onto the deck and swatting violently at the spot were
the mutated roach stood waiting. Somehow my carefully aimed shots missed him
and he decided to unleash his attack aiming straight at my feet. He scuttled
towards my feet at such a high speed that I lost sight of him and panic set in
as my mind could see him running up my leg. I jumped about from one foot to the
other trying to miraculously keep both my feet in the air at the same time but
soon realised the impossibility of my quest. Fortunately his advance missed and
he slipped through under my feet and between my legs unscathed and ran behind a
bucket. Fortunately Lola kept her mind calm and dispatched Rauen on a mission
to fetch the Doom. Rauen arrived with the poison and sprayed behind the bucket.
Working in perfect synchronisation Lola removed the bucket as Rauen sprayed the
now vacant space. The roach however anticipated this manoeuvre and had already
left his hiding place behind the bucket and found another hiding place behind
another bucket in the cockpit. Fortunately Rauen spotted him in his hiding spot
and emptied about half the can of doom onto him. Being a mutant roach he simply
ignored the doom and ran straight into the cockpit. At this point I shouted at
Rauen to pass the doom to me and proceeded to spray the rest of the can
directly onto him. Now I am not sure if we imagined this, but at this point he
seemed to just get bigger and bigger as he consumed the poisonous doom. Luckily I was still armed with the fly swat and since he was now within
target reach and in plain site, oh and of course a bigger target due to the
doom feeding, I managed to swat him. I had to swat him a few times of course,
to ensure he was not going to come back to life and I didn’t just knock him
senseless for a short while. Once we had disposed of his now dead flat body
overboard, Rauen, Kyle and Lola burst out laughing. They laughed so much that I
too started laughing not really sure what I was laughing about. Then through
the laughter Rauen explained. “ha ha ha …dad…ha ha ha …dad…you looked like one
of those Mexicans in the cowboy movies…ha ha ha …dad… ha ha ha one of those
Mexicans in the cowboy movies dancing about as someone is shooting at his
feet….ha ha ha …dad…ha ha ha. Yes very
funny.
18 Jan. 13
I watched another boat from America leaving this morning. Even
though I didn’t get to know Steve and Pat very well, and I know that they are
just going across to point yacht club for a while and not actually leaving
today. Still I felt a small tinge of sadness as I stared longingly at their
stern motoring slowly down the channel getting smaller and smaller as the
distance between our boats increased. I am quite uncertain if the sadness had
anything to do with them at all or was just my own longings for what I don’t
know.
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