08 Jan. 13
Living at the mercy of a battery is not half as much fun as it would
seem. Every night before we can go to sleep we have to check the battery power
and do a quick calculation to determine if there is enough power to last us
through the night. If we have enough, great, no problem, unless we are
expecting rain in the morning of course. If we don’t have enough well, then we
have to decide what we can switch off, usually the fridge first, sometimes the
fridge and freezer. This doesn’t seem like such a big deal, however the freezer
may defrost overnight and then we have to toss all the food or eat it all in
one day. Even on a good full sun day we are still a bit shy on power. Our
current MPPT charge controller can handle a maximum of forty amps. If we added
two more 85 watt panels our system would be at its maximum. If we need any more
than that we would have to upgrade our MPPT charge controller to the next size
up. It never seems to end.
09 Jan. 13
It is fascinating just how quick the time rushes by, one minute it is
January, and the next it is December and Christmas. I feel a bit despondent
about this dream trip at the moment considering it has taken us nearly two
years to move about eighty miles.
I thought by now we would be halfway across
the world. But still here we sit. I called a friend Dave at new years, he joked
with me stating that we are obviously not in a hurry. Wow if that was just the
truth I wouldn’t feel so miserable. The truth however is that our original plan
was finite, with a beginning and an end. Our finances had been tailored towards
this plan. Now the finances have become a pressing issue. One that has to be
addressed before the end of this year when we will be officially broke. This is
the primary reason for our extended stay here. Our first plan is for me to
finish my book that I started writing about two years ago but haven’t been
consistently working at. So now I wake up in the morning, have my regular six
or so cups of coffee and a couple of cigarettes. Then I launch the dingy from
the back of the dive platform and load my laptop and the two water bottles.
Saying goodbye to Lola and the kids I head off for the yacht club. When I get
to the other side of the channel I tie up the dingy onto the walk-on. Next I
take my laptop and walk to the yacht club where I can plug into power and type.
If we had enough power on the boat I would stay on the boat in the spare room
and do my work, however, we don’t have enough power so this will be my routine
for the next while. I am hoping to finish the book by the end of February.
After that Lola will edit it and we can send it to a publisher. If this plan
fails,…. Well,…. I am not sure what we will do. Maybe we will look for some
kind of work or perhaps start a new business again.
11 Jan. 13
Yesterday we decided to take a small trip into town to the sugar storage
facility near the harbour. We drove passed it a few times and seen a sign
offering tours so decided it might be interesting. The tour started at ten and
consisted of a brief introduction to the sugar industry as a whole followed by
a short video about the industry. The tour guide or public relations representative
then took us on a short but informative tour around the facility. Apparently
the facility stores enough sugar in its three silos to supply the world’s sugar
needs for one year and the sugar industry provides enough work for two percent
of the South African population, approximately one million people. Lola said
she found it fascinating that so many people worked in the sugar industry and
she had never even met one person involved in the industry before. Thinking
about what she said for a while I remembered that that I knew someone once a
long time ago. This guy used to be one of my instructors when I was in the
military. I am not sure if he actually did anything in the industry but someone
in his family owned about half of the industry at the time. The original owner
of our boat, even though we have never met him, is apparently a sugar cane
farmer. So I suppose we do know one person and have heard about another.
A few days ago we got off the boat and went to have a swim. When we got
of the dingy and walked towards the pool Kyle was given the task of rubbish
disposal and went towards the dustbin to throw away our rubbish from the boat.
We were still heading in the direction of the pool when I heard Kyle get all
excited shouting “dad…dad… you have got to come here.” Kyle normally gets a bit
excited about everything so I wasn’t in to much of a hurry to get to him and
asked him what was wrong on my way over. He got even more excited and shouted
“no dad, you just have to see this snail.” At this point my interest level
decreased even more as I thought to myself what could be so exciting about a
snail. I have seen millions of the little slimy creatures before and unless
they were steaming hot and covered in a cheesy garlic sauce, I don’t care much
about seeing another one. However, to my surprise this was no ordinary snail.
It compared to the giant roaches in Richards
Bay
 |
| standard snail |
 |
| Monster snail |
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