Sailing Course in Langebaan

9th April 2010

No politics today, just want to reflect on the sailing course that we attended. When we arrived at Cape Town Airport we had to find our luggage on a very poorly marked conveyor. This was not the case at Oliver Tambo in Joey’s that is well marked out at the luggage conveyors. After finding our luggage we proceeded to Avis rent a car to collect our bottom of the range Kia and travelled by road to Langebaan. The first impression that you get of Cape Town when you get out of the airport is the view of Table Mountain. This beautiful scene is then destroyed when you glance next to the freeway and see all the tin shacks and the absolute poverty of Africa.

As you drive along to Langebaan you leave the built up area and start to see the natural Cape bush called fynbos, looks a bit like a semi desert and has very few trees. Once we arrived in Langebaan we found the sail training school offices in the mall quite easily from the directions that they supplied, not that I believe you could really get lost here as their is not very much out there. The owner of the sailing school Jaco met us at the office and led us down to the marina at Mykonos.

Jaco then left us at the marina to look around whilst he tried to organise a yacht for us to use for the sailing course as the Wildcat that he used before had been sold. After a couple of hours of walking around on the marina and waiting we started to become worried that Jaco was not able to arrange a catamaran for the course and called him to ask for a progress report so that we could unload the rental car and have a place to put our stuff, and a place to sleep for the night. We agreed to sleep on a L34 for that night as the cat that Jaco had arranged would only become available later that night. So we unpacked the rental car and met two other guys on the L34 that were also on course. We grabbed an early night and in the morning went off to Avis to return the rental and met at the sailing school to start our course.

Day 1: Spent till about lunch time at the training school office and discussed planned routes, and bought some provisions from Pick and Pay. Thereafter we moved our stuff from the L34 to an Ocean Spirit 401.
The owner of the cat then took us for a quick motor sail in the Harbour to show Jaco the basic workings of the yacht. After we dropped the owner and his son back at the marina, we motor sailed to Saldana bay yacht club for an evening braai. On the way we noticed that the Port engine does not pump water and was starting to overheat and smoke, the owner had told us that he had a problem with the port motor and had just replaced the impeller, but this was obviously not the only problem. We continued with our journey and tied up at the yacht club, after the braai we went to sleep.

Day 2 : Motored around the harbour for about three hours trying to fix the port engine, but to no avail. Then we were supposed to sail on to Dassen island but Jaco decided that we should rather head for danger bay. We sailed in swells of about three meters to danger bay and dropped anchor for the night, in a beautiful and totally secluded anchorage. We set the anchor alarm and had to reset it during the night, but the anchor did not drag, we must have set the alarm too sensitive.

Day 3: Sailed back to Mykonos in almost perfect sailing conditions.

Day 4: Sailed from Mykonos to Paternoster, dropped anchor and used the dingy to shore to the restaurant. Later on the way back in the dingy a wave crashed over all of us and needless to say the very cold water of the Atlantic ocean was not pleasant.

Day 5: Sailed a couple of hours then motored back to Mykonos, to fill up with diesel. We then navigated through the narrow channels of the lagoon and anchored at Kraalbaai.

Day 6: Motored back to Mykonos, collected our upgraded car, departed back to Cape Town international airport and then on to Gauteng to row with the other slaves.

Politics

8th April 2010

I don’t really like to speak politics being a white male in South Africa I don’t really have a right to any opinion because my ancestors had some really bad ideas and thus I will be punished for this. The Bible even tells you that you will be punished for the sins of your grandfather, or is it great grandfather. Anyway I was really proud to be a South African in the new South Africa and had great hopes that this country was going to work together and succeed. Now however at the moment things appear to be turning south faster and faster. Political statements like shoot the boer leaves me with what choice, I may not be a boer or am I. What seems to be the definition of this boer, do I fall into the boer category and how long must I wait to find out. Do I wait till they arrive at my door in large numbers to kill the boer and then try to convince them that I am an English speaking South African, will this make me not a boer. Am I now faced with the dilemma of having to choose a side and what choice do I really have? I would have to choose the white side because my skin colour is white and where does this leave me?


Every white person that I speak to has the same dilemma as I do, well okay not every white, I do know one or two white people that have never quite accepted the new South Africa and are still living in the past, I cannot help these people, nobody can. The problem at the moment being that the uncertain future will make everybody choose sides and is creating a massive rift in the country between black and white.

What about my wife and kids? I feel extremely unsafe at the moment and see no future for my kids in this country. I watch the news and see the panic on Helen Zille’s face after the murder of Terreblanche, and I think to myself, if she is panicking what does she know that I don’t? Do I go and join the ranks of the AWB because even though I have always disagreed with them and their narrow minded policies, they may be the only protection against the government and the impending war that seems to be about to begin? The history of Africa shows us just how bad Africans can behave with mass genocide being the order of the day throughout the African continent. So why would South Africa be any different?

Coastal Skippers Course

Went into the bathroom at work today and found toilet paper pieces all over the place, so I started to wonder if someone in the office has a shredder butt, there can be no other explanation for this phenomenon, at home this never happens, but at the office I see it all the time. Fortunately the paper is unused so maybe they have shredder hands or just don’t know how to use toilet paper, perhaps we need to offer a training course at the office for this complicated process.

Coastal skipper practical done, or at least a part of it, sailing on a cat for the first time, what can I say, I am sold. Cat sailing is no different to sailing a monohull, except that the cat does not heel over and that it is noisy with the water slamming a lot under the bridge deck. This slamming was not uncomfortable but did take some getting used to. We did not experience any bad weather so I am not sure how uncomfortable this slamming can become, however at 20 knots of wind the sailing can be very exhilarating and exciting. The cat feels very stable and nothing moves from the place where you have left it. I remember that on our Vivacity we had to make sure that everything was stacked securely before you set sail, we used to put the cold drinks into the sink in order to ensure that they didn’t fall around all over the place but were still easy to reach when needed. On the cat you could just leave your glass filled with cold drink anywhere you wanted and it would be just where you left it when you needed it. I am not sure if this would be the same in heavy weather but for the conditions that we experienced this held true.
The other issue that I was concerned about was tacking, I have read some where that a cat does not tack well, so we put this to the test, and I found hardly any difference to my Vivacity when it comes to tacking, granted we did have good wind which always helps when tacking any boat. I am not sure how the tacking will be in light winds, but even on my Vivacity tacking wasn’t easy without speed so I assume the cat will behave the same.

25550 days to live

09 Mar. 10


According to the Bible we have only 25 550 days to live, that is if we survive to be seventy years old. So when I get to work on a Monday and I start to wish it’s Friday then I am wasting these precious few days at my disposal. This has been an ongoing cycle for me for the past few years, so this needs to change because you only have one chance to make one day special at a time. If you waste today you cannot make up tomorrow for today, because today is gone forever and can never be replayed. I am not sure how exactly to achieve the most of each day yet, but will try different methods each day to find out how to do this. I am not saying that I need every day to be absolutely perfect but perhaps if I can achieve one or two perfect moments in each day as a starting point, then I may get closer to the goal.

My mother and stepfather came to visit me the day before yesterday uninvited, so I suppose a surprise visit. My real dad left when I was little and was never to be seen again, I heard he committed suicide a few years ago. My sense of humour is possibly a bit uncouth as I now tell people that my dad was a swinger, because he hung himself from the rafters. Hope I didn’t offend anybody. Anyway back to the visit, I say uninvited because I don’t like visitors at the best of times, and I need to be ready for visitors before they arrive thus I like some notice period. There are a few select people that can pop in at any time and I don’t mind but most of my family doesn’t fit into this category.

My stepfather and I have never really seen eye to eye, and although I try my best he seems to be able to bring out the worst in me. I always feel as if he is baiting me into an argument. I am not sure if this is my imagination or if it is real but thus I try to avoid him as much as possible. Anyway we all survived the visit and I said that we will see them again in Richards bay on Yrumoar in December, they thought this was a joke but I hope to avoid them until then…at least until then.

23 Mar. 10

The Long weekend came and went by in a flash, even though we didn’t do anything but just hung around at home, the time just flew by. I tried to teach my youngest son Kyle how to ride a bicycle this weekend but after many hours of no success I gave up and asked Lola’s dad to try, and guess what, five minutes later Kyle was riding up and down the road all by himself. I am obviously not a very good teacher for bicycles.

On Sunday this week we are flying down to Cape Town to do our practical part of our coastal skippers licence. We have arranged to rent a car in Cape Town and drive to Langebaan where the sailing school is situated. This is the only sailing school that offers the course on a catamaran so we would get our first taste of sailing on a cat. How do I feel? Exited, nervous and a whole mix of emotions that I can’t explain.

25 Mar. 10

Went surfing on the net onto Windfinder to see the forecast for the sailing course over the next few days and it seems the weather is going to play along for the first few days at least, with light winds of up to 10 Knots and wave heights of about 2 metres. The weather seems to get slightly worse here by the 30th with 20 knots and 4 metre waves. The forecast further than that is not yet available. In order to try and judge the wave heights I measured to the top of my house roof and this was about four metres, wow how high do these waves get out there? You know being on the ocean only once before on the day skippers course a few times with small waves off the coast of Durban, and then dam sailing at the Vaal Dam for the past year on weekends only, may not have prepared me for these waves. Fortunately we will have a competent skipper on board, or so I hope, as my experience is definitely not enough yet and I think this will help in gaining some much needed knowledge and hopefully some confidence.

We are packed and ready to go already but I am not sure if our Pep stores Dry-Macs are really the correct sailing gear for the Cape waters. We did ask the lady at Sail Due South training school and she advised that we should be fine as long as we have warm clothing, and that we should wait till after the course to decide to buy wet weather gear in order to see just exactly what we would require. Our plan of sailing up the east coast of Africa to more moderate climates may not require such heavy weather gear, but I don’t really know this with my limited knowledge and hope that my decision is the correct one. I do know that Lola will do lots of research before we leave so we should have a better idea. I also intend to ask advise from other sailors that have done a similar route closer to the time.

Goodbye to the old, hello to the new

Drove down to Richards bay on Monday, met Greg the owner of Debenair, and we knew instantly that she was the one, the future Yrumoar.
So we made an offer and agreed upon a price and payment plan. Afterwards we drove through to Durban and spent the night with Lola’s sister and brother in law, Kim and Darren, and in the morning we drove back to Gauteng. Total distance covered one thousand five hundred kilometres in two days. I believe that we will be making this trip quite often in the next few months and although it is far the roads are excellent and the trip doesn’t take that long. The week before this we got a call from Danie to view our Vivacity and we met him on the Saturday at the Vaal. He seemed impressed with Bluefin and said he would confirm on Monday. Whilst driving down on Monday we received his call and made arrangements for the following Saturday to meet again. We decided to go down to the Vaal on Friday night to spend some time getting her ready for Danie’s visit on Saturday morning and met him on Friday night at the restaurant. After a short visit with him we went down to Bluefin to get her ready and have our last sleep over, but the shore power kept on tripping and whilst trying to find out where the problem was on the marina we went past Nikitu and met Gus and Pauline. This turned out to be a very interesting evening and we eventually got to bed at four in the morning. Needless to say we where not very fresh on Saturday when Danie arrived but we did take him out for a quick sail and then down to the bank to finish our business. Whilst sailing back into the marina Kyle our youngest son started to cry and told me that you don’t know that you love something until it is gone so he would miss Bluefin, shame, I understood how he felt.

Selling Bluefin

Spoke to the owner of the fair-weather 39 again and made an arrangement to view on Monday next week down in Richards Bay. He managed to send me the pictures yesterday and she looks just about perfect. I have been absolutely inundated with phone calls from people that are interested in buying my Vivacity 24’. If I knew I would have such a response I may have made the price higher, go gumtree, and the ads in junk mail and the sailing magazine haven’t even come out yet.

Remembering Bluefin

Took one of our employees to the Mugg and Bean this morning, for coffee, to explain our plan to him and hopefully where he fits into the greater scheme of things. Lola put our 24’ Vivacity up for sale on Gumtree, this is the South African version of E-Bay, last night and this morning I received a call from a guy to enquire about moving her to Midmar dam in Natal. I explained that she is a twin keeler and can easily be placed on a trailer. He told me he would contact me next week Thursday as he is coming up to gangsters paradise (Gauteng Province) on business, and to view her. It will be a sad moment in my life to let her go as she has provided me and the family with many happy memories, and also some much needed experience as to what owning and sailing a yacht is about. I did my first solo sail on her last year and went around the island on the Vaal. She also taught Lola to cook excellent meals on board whilst under sail both on a braai and on her gimballed gas stove. She taught me that you can point her closer to the wind than the wind instrument allows and still make good headway. She taught me how to use teamwork in the family in order to dock on a windy day without sinking and damaging other boats next to me. Yes she will definitely be remembered.