Old Murphy again

23 Jan. 13

On Sunday we finally managed to get ourselves back onto the proverbial horse by heading out to sea on Yrumoar. It has taken some time for our courage to return after our last trip and all of the crew, including myself, obviously took a small knock in our self confidence from the gale. We planned to go out on Saturday but the weather decided to keep us on the boat instead, pouring buckets and buckets of rain water onto Yrumoar forcing us indoors. Sunday morning the sun finally showed its face and we started our preparations. First we had to make new lizard lines. A lizard line is a floating line that joins the two ropes, one at the front and one at the back of Yrumoar, that are used to anchor the boat. The lizard line serves the purpose of keeping the two lines together so that they can be found again after they have been untied from the front and back of the boat. If we were on a monohull we would only have one set of lines, however Yrumoar is a Catamaran so we had to make two lizard lines as we have four lines attached to the boat, two lines on either side. Once the lizard lines were ready we started the motors and Kyle released the front two lines whilst Lola and Rauen released the back lines and used them to pull Yrumoar backwards between the jumble of ropes and anchors that lay hidden underwater. After they had pulled Yrumoar about halfway past the hidden traps they dropped the lines. This was my signal so I engaged reverse gear on both motors and moved Yrumoar backwards until Lola shouted the all clear back to me. I changed one motor into forward gear, keeping the other one in reverse and spun Yrumoar into the channel. Once she had her nose pointed in the right direction I changed the other motor into forward gear and we slipped quickly down the channel. Its is quite a long drive down the channel into the harbour and out to sea so it took us about forty five minutes before I could contact port control on the radio to request permission to exit the harbour. In front of us a huge fully loaded container ship was also leaving port and the voice in port control instructed me to keep clear of his outbound vessel. His instruction was definitely not necessary as this monster loomed in front of us like a floating mountain of steel leaving us feeling rather small and insignificant. We followed the monster out to sea slipping slowly further and further behind as he powered his massive diesel engines thrusting himself out into the ocean and away over the horizon. By the time we finally left the harbour and met the ocean swell he had disappeared out of sight.

Finally we were free and alone in the ocean again. The swell was gentle and the wind was calm. We decided to open the furler sail and cut the motors, not using our main sail for this first practice run, hoping to allow ourselves a bit more time for confidence building. The autopilot squeaked away happily as we floated silently on a gentle breeze with the harbour and Durban city getting slowly smaller and smaller in the background. It was about eleven in the morning when Lola decided to make some mini pizza in the oven and I turned on the gas. Lunch went down well and we continued sailing until about two when we jibed around and headed back towards the shore line. Closing in on the shore we tacked again and started sailing towards the harbour mouth watching the people play on the beech as we sailed close by. Getting closer to the harbour mouth we had to tack and head out to sea again in order to line ourselves up with the entrance. Two more tacks and we finally lined up with the harbour mouth and sailed into port.

It was a beautiful day sail and we all gained back a small bit of our lost confidence. However, no sailing trip is complete without some or other catastrophe. Getting back onto our lines did not go as smoothly as our flawless exit. One of our lines decided that we needed a diving lesson and tangled itself firmly around our sail drive preventing us from reaching the front lines and leaving us swinging around helplessly. Fortunately we have an empty mooring next to us leaving us with a lot of space. After studying our problem for a while and not finding an easy solution, Rauen volunteered to dive into the filthy water. I was glad we had him as crew as I watched his body and head disappear under the filthy water again and again in an attempt to free the tangled rope’s strangle hold on our sail drive. After numerous dives we finally came to the realisation that we would have to cut the ropes. I gave Rauen our bread knife and a spare rope and watched him go down again. He first attached the spare rope to the underwater rope to ensure we would find the anchor again and then he cut the rope and we were free.

Harbours are not the cleanest place in the world and this one in particular has about seven rivers flowing through industrial sites pouring chemicals, filth and poisons into it leaving the water brown dirty and disgusting. After his diving excursion, we had to take Rauen straight to the showers and allow him to shower with soap, three or four times in a row to ensure he doesn’t suddenly grow and extra eye on his forehead.

Yesterday Pat arrived and the two of us took a drive to Richards bay to have a look at the damage on his boat. He was in a bit of a rush so I didn’t get enough time to see everyone that I wanted to see there. Luckily we will be returning again next week to fetch the boat and sail it down here so I will get a second chance to see the friends I missed this time.

25 Jan. 13

Again I am having a raging battle with the marine toilets. Just yesterday I told Lola that the toilets are behaving themselves quite well for a change. It seems my words weren’t even cold when Lola went downstairs to use my nemesis and came back up seconds later to inform me that it went on strike. Typical Murphy must have been waiting just outside the cockpit giggling to himself as he heard me go, “oohh yes the toilets are behaving themselves lately.” “ha ha ha, you mere mortal fool, let me show you a thing or two.”

This morning the fridge also decided to join in the strike action and refused to switch on. Owning a boat, yes,… let me see,…I am seriously questioning the wisdom of my decision. And here I was believing that wisdom came with age, well in my case it seems to be followed closely by stupidity. I suppose it is just another one of those fallacies that we are trained to believe from a young age.

27 Jan. 13

Ahh the Mainstay sailing dream. I stripped out our toilet and Lola cleaned out the pipes in this filthy harbour water. She must love me a lot. And then….. wait for it….. yes you guessed it, the toilet still refuses to work so we spent the whole day digging in our own crap for nothing. Like I said, the mainstay dream come true.