19 Aug. 13
Wow, what a great weekend. On Saturday morning Gavin, Lola’s 2nd
cousin came to pick us up and took us to a place called Lavender Blue for
breakfast. An awesome venue set in the countryside with a few tables placed
around a water feature. His wife Marlene met us there and we all enjoyed a good
breakfast. When we left Lola and Kyle went with Marlene to the mall and Rauen
and I went with Gavin to the spar to buy some meat for a braai at their place.
On route Gavin’s cell rang and he answered while I grabbed the steering wheel
and steered the car. Typical man stuff, Gavin working the pedals whilst
concentrating on his conversation with me negotiating the road. Yes I know,
First for woman insurance gives woman a better rate, but men have much more fun
so don’t really mind the extra payments.
I followed Gavin around in the Spar as he picked out the best cuts for
the braai. When we got to the tills he swiped his card to pay and the teller
tried to pass him his bill. He waved his hands at her and said “If you give me
that slip I will put all this stuff back in your shelves and walk out of your
shop.” I laughed but understood exactly why he did it. If you look at the price
of food nowadays you will stop eating and want to grow all your own food.
They live in possibly the best neighbourhood in East London and for the
first time since we arrived here I liked the neighbourhood and the houses. That
evening we met Gavin’s sister Doreen and her husband Nick, had a fantastic
braai and a few drinks before going to bed in their spare room. In the morning
we helped them move around some furniture before Doreen fetched us for a potjie
pot at their house. We spent the afternoon at their place and they brought us
back in the early evening. When we arrived home at Yrumoar we invited them on
board for a cup of coffee. After doing the grand tour of our home we sat in the
cockpit drinking coffee and I noticed “the look” appear on Nick’s face. I have
seen “the look” before on many people’s faces, perhaps even on my own at some
point in the past. That distant far away look that tells you someone is
dreaming about places never seen before waiting to be discovered somewhere over
the horizon.
21 Aug. 13
We have pretty much done everything we wanted to do here so the time has
come to find a weather window. We could’ve left yesterday but my book still
hasn’t arrived and we have to collect it before we go. I still want to do some
reinforcing in our starboard hull by adding a few layers of fibreglass in the
bilge. It’s not mission critical but the hull creaks as we head through the
waves and I would be more comfortable if it didn’t. I am sure that the creaking
is due to the damage caused when they dropped Yrumoar in Richards Bay and even
though we added a few layers of glass already I think it needs more, another
five layers or so should do it.
25 Aug. 13
We are still waiting for my book to arrive so I decided to get started
on the hull repair and a few other small things. We have a wet locker at the
back of the boat and it fills with water when we sail making everything in it
soaked. Hence the words “wet locker”. Anyway I grinded around the drain hole
and will close it at the same time as adding the glass in the hull making it a “dry
locker” instead. Just when I thought I was ready to lay the glass I heard one
of the boys in the bathroom struggling to empty the toilet. The toilets take
priority over all other repairs and I stopped my work and removed the toilet to
service and clean it. It is a regular job on the boat and I have done it more
times than I have ever wanted to and hate doing it. Plumbing has always been
low on my list and I would never choose the job if I could avoid it. Anyway I
removed the toilet and stripped it. Once I had all the pieces separated I
discovered the waste water impeller had cracked in half so decided to strip the
spare toilet and use its parts to fix the boys one.
The job took most of the
day and it was already late in the afternoon when I had the toilets back in
place. I tested the toilet about ten times and it worked. A while later I heard
Kyle running and running and running the toilet. I didn’t want to ask him if
everything was okay and hoped I was imagining the noise. As he continued
running and running the toilet I eventually had no choice but to ask him if the
toilet was working. The answer I already knew. So I huffed and groaned down the
stairs with a kettle of boiling water and poured it into the blocked toilet
flushing it a few times and knocking the pipes against the hull. It worked and
the toilet emptied. I tested it another ten times and then I asked Lola to go
down and test it and tell me what she thinks I should do. Lola tested it five
or six times and came back up and told me she also thinks it is working. So we
agreed and forgot about the toilet. Later in the evening Rauen went to the
toilet and guess what, yes you guessed it, it did not flush. This time my
boiling kettle water trick didn’t work either and I had to strip the pipes.
Stripping the pipes is not as easy as it sounds as they fit together very
snuggly and require a lot of force to separate them so I grabbed the pipe with
all my might and pulled. If I could relate that moment to a movie title it
would have to be seconds from disaster. I pulled and twisted and yanked and
jerked until finally the pipe suddenly broke loose. I don’t have to mention
what happened next but there is a saying that involves a fan that would fit
just perfectly. This was not at all what I had in mind for a Saturday
evening.
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