02 Nov. 09
I usually have a great sense of humour, but the business that I am in has stolen my sense of humour, I’m hoping it returns once I have rid myself of this terrible beast of burden. Unfortunately the business has not been easy to sell as it appears that nobody has money at this time due to the recession or who knows. After reading the Handbook of Offshore Cruising it appears that the anchor we bought drags when the wind changes direction and is difficult to loosen in mud. Well that’s just great as it seems that the wind at the Vaal always changes direction, and the bottom of the dam can only be mud, just my luck at the moment or perhaps my own stupidity for not reading the manual first before buying the anchor, well I suppose we will have to write this off to school fees, or perhaps the supplier will refund me if I take the anchor back.
05 Nov. 09
Thursday again, the day before Friday, have a whole sailing weekend ahead to look forward to, great. Went to CCMA on Tuesday for an ex employee that was dismissed because he absconded from work, and guess what, the twat failed to arrive, thus wasting everyone’s time, no surprise really the twat absconded from work in the first place why would he bother to arrive at the CCMA even though he summoned us to go there because he believes that he should not be fired for not coming to work.
09 Nov. 09
Monday again the weekends are definitely too short and could do with an extra day at least. The weather on Friday afternoon and Saturday was cold and miserable so we worked a little on our dingy and then just stayed on the boat in the marina and read a bit more of Still Cruising. On Sunday the weather cleared so we motored out of the marina to test the depth finder which seems to have a mind of its own, it starts of by saying that the marina is 8 metres deep then after a short while it just runs a simulation from 3 till 20 metres, we then reset the thing and select simulation off which then fixes the problem for a short while and then the cycle is repeated again, perhaps we don’t know how to set it up so we are going to look for a manual on the net but my opinion is that it probably looses signal and then goes into simulation mode. After motoring around in the bay next to the marina for a few minutes we decided to give up on the depth finder and head back in. We had some things at home to still do so we decided to call it a day and headed back home. Even though Sunday turned out to have the most awesome sailing weather of the year so far we missed it.
25 Nov. 09
Looking forward to Amy coming over today she will be away for a while on Matric vacation so will not see her for a while. Work has definitely been affected by the economic crises as we seem to only have little repairs to do as opposed to big jobs, which makes me panic as this may delay our plans even further into the future. Bought some fibreglass matt and resin yesterday and will start building a mould today, or tomorrow, for the missing board on our tender. Some guy at the hardware store told me to use floor polish on the mould to prevent the fibreglass from getting stuck to the mould, hope this method works but we will know soon enough. I haven’t even opened the packet yet but started to itch the moment the fibreglass packet was in my hand so looking forward to that as well.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Anchoring or not...
15 Oct. 09
Managing to get to the boat every second weekend at the moment which is better than nothing, but have some other commitments and it seems to work out. Once we start cruising these commitments should no longer exist and even if they do we won’t be able to stick to our commitments. Wow always wanted to say that sorry but I won’t be able to commit to that for the next 10 years or so, so you may have to wait a bit.
Had a really rough sail the other day we went out in the morning with quite a strong wind but didn’t expect the conditions to get worse. As we let go the ropes in the marina and I reversed out of our slip the wind got hold of our boat and Lola and Rauen had to jump to the starboard side of the boat to stop us from crashing into the boat next door to ours. At this time we should have known, but against our better judgement we motored out of the marina and into the dam. Sailing downwind towards the dam wall was pleasant enough but as the conditions started to get worse and worse we decided to turn back toward home, at this point we opted to sail with only a small head sail but discovered that this is not the best idea as our boat had huge weather helm and would not turn into the wind to allow us to tack. The waves were breaking over the bow as we attempted to motor sail back to the marina but got stuck between villains point and the island, after two hours of wet struggle and turning towards the island in an attempt to hide in the lee in order to get an angle upwind to pass villains point, we managed to get back. Whew scary but also fun.
19 Oct. 09
Friday was not a good day, and no sailing this weekend past due to work commitments. Today we took our world map and our Africa map and with the use of prestick stuck them on our dining room wall. We find that because our plans are still so far away in the future that the maps help to keep the dream alive. Nearly everyday we attempt to find ways to move the dates closer but to no avail. We have drawn the trade wind directions on the maps and have decided that we are first going to take a shake down cruise up the Mozambique channel and around Madagascar and see the sites on the east coast of Africa before heading down to Cape town and on to St Helena using the trade winds.
26 Oct. 09
Managed to get away this weekend and arrived at the marina early on Friday afternoon, the plan was to try out our new anchor. So we studied the map of the dam and went out looking for a suitable spot to drop the anchor. After about 2 hours of excellent sailing the wind suddenly turned around and started howling in the opposite direction catching us completely of guard with full sails flying, both Lola and I panicked as we thought the boat was going to capsize, but we managed to pull in the head sail and turned back towards the marina with only the main sail up and sailed back so no anchoring yet. The next day we started out again and had an almost repeat of the previous day but this time we weren’t caught of guard as we were sailing along in almost perfect weather when the wind changed direction. This time we knew what was next so we studied the water and saw the gust coming across towards us and rolled in the head sail just before the wind arrived. This changing of wind direction is making the anchoring out seem very difficult as we may have to move the boat in the middle of the night if the wind decides to change direction.
There doesn’t appear to be an anchorage that is protected from all sides, or at least from the two sides that the wind normally comes from. Well this is in the part of the dam that we have seen so far. We also bought a rigid tender this weekend and rowed across to Axel’s spot for a quick visit on Sunday morning to wish Peta a happy birthday.
Managing to get to the boat every second weekend at the moment which is better than nothing, but have some other commitments and it seems to work out. Once we start cruising these commitments should no longer exist and even if they do we won’t be able to stick to our commitments. Wow always wanted to say that sorry but I won’t be able to commit to that for the next 10 years or so, so you may have to wait a bit.
Had a really rough sail the other day we went out in the morning with quite a strong wind but didn’t expect the conditions to get worse. As we let go the ropes in the marina and I reversed out of our slip the wind got hold of our boat and Lola and Rauen had to jump to the starboard side of the boat to stop us from crashing into the boat next door to ours. At this time we should have known, but against our better judgement we motored out of the marina and into the dam. Sailing downwind towards the dam wall was pleasant enough but as the conditions started to get worse and worse we decided to turn back toward home, at this point we opted to sail with only a small head sail but discovered that this is not the best idea as our boat had huge weather helm and would not turn into the wind to allow us to tack. The waves were breaking over the bow as we attempted to motor sail back to the marina but got stuck between villains point and the island, after two hours of wet struggle and turning towards the island in an attempt to hide in the lee in order to get an angle upwind to pass villains point, we managed to get back. Whew scary but also fun.
19 Oct. 09
Friday was not a good day, and no sailing this weekend past due to work commitments. Today we took our world map and our Africa map and with the use of prestick stuck them on our dining room wall. We find that because our plans are still so far away in the future that the maps help to keep the dream alive. Nearly everyday we attempt to find ways to move the dates closer but to no avail. We have drawn the trade wind directions on the maps and have decided that we are first going to take a shake down cruise up the Mozambique channel and around Madagascar and see the sites on the east coast of Africa before heading down to Cape town and on to St Helena using the trade winds.
26 Oct. 09
Managed to get away this weekend and arrived at the marina early on Friday afternoon, the plan was to try out our new anchor. So we studied the map of the dam and went out looking for a suitable spot to drop the anchor. After about 2 hours of excellent sailing the wind suddenly turned around and started howling in the opposite direction catching us completely of guard with full sails flying, both Lola and I panicked as we thought the boat was going to capsize, but we managed to pull in the head sail and turned back towards the marina with only the main sail up and sailed back so no anchoring yet. The next day we started out again and had an almost repeat of the previous day but this time we weren’t caught of guard as we were sailing along in almost perfect weather when the wind changed direction. This time we knew what was next so we studied the water and saw the gust coming across towards us and rolled in the head sail just before the wind arrived. This changing of wind direction is making the anchoring out seem very difficult as we may have to move the boat in the middle of the night if the wind decides to change direction.
There doesn’t appear to be an anchorage that is protected from all sides, or at least from the two sides that the wind normally comes from. Well this is in the part of the dam that we have seen so far. We also bought a rigid tender this weekend and rowed across to Axel’s spot for a quick visit on Sunday morning to wish Peta a happy birthday.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
9/11 and the wild sailing
09 Sep. 09
Hoisted Greg up the mast to install my new wind indicator. This task looks quite scary and Greg being and old salt at the game obviously has a lot more faith in the winches than I have. He had his assistant do the winching and I tailed the halyard and watched as he was hoisted and clambered up to the top. Once he got to the top we took another halyard and attached a bucket with all the necessary drills and screws required and hoisted that up to him. Standing watching him from the relative safety of the deck I started to imagine having to perform this function out on a rough ocean with the mast swinging around and having to hold on for dear life, something to look forward to or not. With the new windex fitted we set sail across the dam to test the working and sadly there was not enough wind to really sail so after drifting about for a couple of hours we decided to call it a day and motored back to the marina. On Tuesday morning when I was washing the dishes I looked out of my kitchen window and seen that the top of the trees were blowing in the wind so we decided to bunk work and headed for the dam with two of my managers for a team building day. This turned out to be a great decision as the sailing was absolutely fantastic with just the right amount of wind to allow for a great sail. Neither one of the managers had sailed before but by the end of the day they both wanted to know if the boat will become a company boat for them to use once we set sail around the world, ha ha. I believe the bug has bitten.
14 Sep. 09
Had a really good weekend, Tammy and Jason on Friday night for Tammy’s nine eleven birthday party. I call this the nine eleven because her birthday is September eleven and afterwards it feels as if the twin towers collapsed on you. We were set to take my Mom and Stepdad sailing on Saturday morning but could not get up under the rubble until after midday. Lola myself and the kids did manage to get to the dam in the late afternoon as we also had arrangements with Axel and Peta for a braai that afternoon at four. At five when we eventually arrived we apologised for the lateness and the state we were in. The evening braai was good with good company, myself excluded, but here by eight we called it a night and went down to the marina got on the boat and slept. Now normally the bed is a bit uncomfortable but that night it was pure bliss being rocked to sleep gently. Sunday morning with a strong westerly wind blowing we left the marina and did some wild sailing. I call it wild because even though its just the dam the wind was howling and the boat was heeling over far enough to almost touch the water whilst standing in the cockpit. Now with my limited sailing experience we decided to reef the main sail and the Jib in order to get a less of a wild sailing experience. Whilst hove to Lola and Rauen did the main sail reefing one reef only as our sail only has one reef, and Lola reefed the jib with five rolls. The sailing was less wild and I believe just as fast and all in all made for great day out on the water.
Hoisted Greg up the mast to install my new wind indicator. This task looks quite scary and Greg being and old salt at the game obviously has a lot more faith in the winches than I have. He had his assistant do the winching and I tailed the halyard and watched as he was hoisted and clambered up to the top. Once he got to the top we took another halyard and attached a bucket with all the necessary drills and screws required and hoisted that up to him. Standing watching him from the relative safety of the deck I started to imagine having to perform this function out on a rough ocean with the mast swinging around and having to hold on for dear life, something to look forward to or not. With the new windex fitted we set sail across the dam to test the working and sadly there was not enough wind to really sail so after drifting about for a couple of hours we decided to call it a day and motored back to the marina. On Tuesday morning when I was washing the dishes I looked out of my kitchen window and seen that the top of the trees were blowing in the wind so we decided to bunk work and headed for the dam with two of my managers for a team building day. This turned out to be a great decision as the sailing was absolutely fantastic with just the right amount of wind to allow for a great sail. Neither one of the managers had sailed before but by the end of the day they both wanted to know if the boat will become a company boat for them to use once we set sail around the world, ha ha. I believe the bug has bitten.
14 Sep. 09
Had a really good weekend, Tammy and Jason on Friday night for Tammy’s nine eleven birthday party. I call this the nine eleven because her birthday is September eleven and afterwards it feels as if the twin towers collapsed on you. We were set to take my Mom and Stepdad sailing on Saturday morning but could not get up under the rubble until after midday. Lola myself and the kids did manage to get to the dam in the late afternoon as we also had arrangements with Axel and Peta for a braai that afternoon at four. At five when we eventually arrived we apologised for the lateness and the state we were in. The evening braai was good with good company, myself excluded, but here by eight we called it a night and went down to the marina got on the boat and slept. Now normally the bed is a bit uncomfortable but that night it was pure bliss being rocked to sleep gently. Sunday morning with a strong westerly wind blowing we left the marina and did some wild sailing. I call it wild because even though its just the dam the wind was howling and the boat was heeling over far enough to almost touch the water whilst standing in the cockpit. Now with my limited sailing experience we decided to reef the main sail and the Jib in order to get a less of a wild sailing experience. Whilst hove to Lola and Rauen did the main sail reefing one reef only as our sail only has one reef, and Lola reefed the jib with five rolls. The sailing was less wild and I believe just as fast and all in all made for great day out on the water.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Car Repairs
04 Aug. 09
Had to fetch my daughter Amy’s car this morning at her mother's house because it had broken down yesterday and had to be towed. Managed to push start the car and drove it off to Motolek in Boksburg. The owner himself assisted me and tested the battery and found that the earth wire was corroded. He instructed one of his workers to do the repair and did not charge me for this. In this day and age that is unheard of so I just want to thank Motolek Boksburg for their assistance.
Had to fetch my daughter Amy’s car this morning at her mother's house because it had broken down yesterday and had to be towed. Managed to push start the car and drove it off to Motolek in Boksburg. The owner himself assisted me and tested the battery and found that the earth wire was corroded. He instructed one of his workers to do the repair and did not charge me for this. In this day and age that is unheard of so I just want to thank Motolek Boksburg for their assistance.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Boat Tools
06 Jul. 09
You know I have given Lola so many ideas but she doesn’t approve of most, for example I told her we should all learn to ride unicycles because they would be easy to store on the boat, her comment was that people wouldn’t approve and would say things like here comes that circus family. I then suggested pogo sticks which she shut down even faster with bouncing fools. So my lets keep some chickens on board suggestion was only said as a joke.
14 Jul. 09
Had a day drift on Friday last week, the weather man said that the weekend was going to have cold weather so we decided to bunk work on Friday and take advantage of the day as it was nice and sunny, sadly no wind what so ever. Still better than work anyday. Trying my hand at writing a book have an idea but cant quite get further than a couple of pages. I find that you have to be in the right mood to write and with work and other distractions the mood doesn’t arrive.
So I decided to paste a sample of my attempt, hope its not to lame.
"Young freddys life was very confusing as a child, he never seemed to be the same as all the other siblings in his family and later on not the same as the other kids in his class. His mind was clouded and things didn’t seem real to him as if it was happening to someone else.
One day whilst playing alone on the playground at school he was joined by another kid in the game. This kid had been scaring him for some time and knew that young freddy had fear of him and took full advantage of this. At every opportunity he would sit next to young freddy and tease him. Sometimes he would wait inside the toilets where he knew he would catch young freddy alone and try to push young freddys head under the water in the toilets whilst flushing the toilet. Young freddy was pertified of water and could not swim and stayed clear of the water, but this did not stop the bully from increasing the fear and young freddy stopped going to the toilets unless there was lots of older kids in the toilets as this gave young freddy some sense that the bully would not try for fear of the older kids reprise.
Young freddy waited to see what his punishment would be this day as this other kid would be dealing out and young freddy would have to receive. This was the order of things in his life and in his confused mind he believed that. Even at home where most are safe young freddy,s life was ruled by an angry stepfather with a bad drinking habit. The man was large over 6 foot and abusive even when sober. Many times he would take young freddy into the yard and make him dig over the garden whilst sitting in a lazy chair and watched waiting for young freddy to tire then he would get up stumble over and lay a large fist into young freddy,s body. When young freddy cried he would beat him with the fist repeatedly until he stopped crying and lay unconscious bleeding on the floor.
The boy stared at him and young freddy could see the torment in his eyes. He tensed himself waiting for the inevitable. What felt like an eternity went by and the fear started to grow more intense with every passing moment until he thought he could take it no more. Young freddy considered running but his legs would not allow him to move, he was trapped by his own in ability to escape and thus had to be punished. The forehead landed hard on his face shattering bones and teeth and he could instantly taste the blood in his mouth. He felt his knees give way and his whole body shook as the back of his head collided with the solid concrete pathway. Instantly the blood ran down his neck and onto his collar. Then the darkness saved him and the fear and pain was gone.
30 Jul. 09
Its been a while since I have written anything, where to begin, this month has been very eventful but not in a good way. We have for some time been having theft occur at one of our clients and we have discovered after some serious investigating that some of our employees where involved. This has caused a lot of stress. The matter is still under investigation in order to establish how deep it went. Hope to get to the bottom of this and put it behind me. Can’t seem to focus on other things whilst this kind of thing is happening.
On a better note we went through to Deneysville to star marine the other day and bought a wind indicator, this should make sailing a lot better as I will now be able to see from where the wind is coming. The current wind indicator on the boat only shows apparent wind as it is installed to low at the back of the cockpit. I’m not sure how the previous owner used it as it is pretty useless to me. Also went over to Axel and Peta’s house the other day and had a bit too much of a good time, the evening was a lot of fun though and the next day babelas was worth it. I now have to decide if I am going to go up the mast to install the indicator or if I should get Greg to fit it for me next time we go down to the vaal. The weather has been absolutely terrible and cold so we haven’t been on the boat much the last couple of weeks. I have managed to remember to get my fluke meter into the boot of the car and hope to start to solve why none of the instruments on the boat work soon.
You know I have given Lola so many ideas but she doesn’t approve of most, for example I told her we should all learn to ride unicycles because they would be easy to store on the boat, her comment was that people wouldn’t approve and would say things like here comes that circus family. I then suggested pogo sticks which she shut down even faster with bouncing fools. So my lets keep some chickens on board suggestion was only said as a joke.
14 Jul. 09
Had a day drift on Friday last week, the weather man said that the weekend was going to have cold weather so we decided to bunk work on Friday and take advantage of the day as it was nice and sunny, sadly no wind what so ever. Still better than work anyday. Trying my hand at writing a book have an idea but cant quite get further than a couple of pages. I find that you have to be in the right mood to write and with work and other distractions the mood doesn’t arrive.
So I decided to paste a sample of my attempt, hope its not to lame.
"Young freddys life was very confusing as a child, he never seemed to be the same as all the other siblings in his family and later on not the same as the other kids in his class. His mind was clouded and things didn’t seem real to him as if it was happening to someone else.
One day whilst playing alone on the playground at school he was joined by another kid in the game. This kid had been scaring him for some time and knew that young freddy had fear of him and took full advantage of this. At every opportunity he would sit next to young freddy and tease him. Sometimes he would wait inside the toilets where he knew he would catch young freddy alone and try to push young freddys head under the water in the toilets whilst flushing the toilet. Young freddy was pertified of water and could not swim and stayed clear of the water, but this did not stop the bully from increasing the fear and young freddy stopped going to the toilets unless there was lots of older kids in the toilets as this gave young freddy some sense that the bully would not try for fear of the older kids reprise.
Young freddy waited to see what his punishment would be this day as this other kid would be dealing out and young freddy would have to receive. This was the order of things in his life and in his confused mind he believed that. Even at home where most are safe young freddy,s life was ruled by an angry stepfather with a bad drinking habit. The man was large over 6 foot and abusive even when sober. Many times he would take young freddy into the yard and make him dig over the garden whilst sitting in a lazy chair and watched waiting for young freddy to tire then he would get up stumble over and lay a large fist into young freddy,s body. When young freddy cried he would beat him with the fist repeatedly until he stopped crying and lay unconscious bleeding on the floor.
The boy stared at him and young freddy could see the torment in his eyes. He tensed himself waiting for the inevitable. What felt like an eternity went by and the fear started to grow more intense with every passing moment until he thought he could take it no more. Young freddy considered running but his legs would not allow him to move, he was trapped by his own in ability to escape and thus had to be punished. The forehead landed hard on his face shattering bones and teeth and he could instantly taste the blood in his mouth. He felt his knees give way and his whole body shook as the back of his head collided with the solid concrete pathway. Instantly the blood ran down his neck and onto his collar. Then the darkness saved him and the fear and pain was gone.
30 Jul. 09
Its been a while since I have written anything, where to begin, this month has been very eventful but not in a good way. We have for some time been having theft occur at one of our clients and we have discovered after some serious investigating that some of our employees where involved. This has caused a lot of stress. The matter is still under investigation in order to establish how deep it went. Hope to get to the bottom of this and put it behind me. Can’t seem to focus on other things whilst this kind of thing is happening.
On a better note we went through to Deneysville to star marine the other day and bought a wind indicator, this should make sailing a lot better as I will now be able to see from where the wind is coming. The current wind indicator on the boat only shows apparent wind as it is installed to low at the back of the cockpit. I’m not sure how the previous owner used it as it is pretty useless to me. Also went over to Axel and Peta’s house the other day and had a bit too much of a good time, the evening was a lot of fun though and the next day babelas was worth it. I now have to decide if I am going to go up the mast to install the indicator or if I should get Greg to fit it for me next time we go down to the vaal. The weather has been absolutely terrible and cold so we haven’t been on the boat much the last couple of weeks. I have managed to remember to get my fluke meter into the boot of the car and hope to start to solve why none of the instruments on the boat work soon.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Focussing on the goal
18 Jun. 09
Went to the paradise bike rally in Grasskop a few weeks ago on Axel’s bike. Had a good ride which brought back some really good memories of my own bike that I sold in order to buy the yacht at the Vaal. The weekend was great but it allowed me to decide that the goal of sailing around the world was the first and foremost in my mind. Lola and I discussed some of the things in the house that we no longer really use and decided to sell some stuff. We are going to compile a comprehensive list of everything that we own and decide which of these are towards the goal, the rest we will price and advertise for cash. We also decided that we will probably buy the Coplan Ocean Spirit 34’ hull, deck and bulkheads and we will complete the work in our front yard.
22 Jun. 09
Went down to the Vaal for a day sail on Saturday, it never fails to amaze me how little wind is required to move the yacht. Okay granted not very fast but movement none the less. To give you an idea, distance is very difficult to judge on the water and since none of the instruments on the yacht work, I have to estimate the distance at about 1 to 1.5 km from Bayshore Marina to the island. Well we left the marina at about 12h30 and motored straight out towards Deneysville for about 1 km then we cut the motors and just floated about for an hour or so. I felt a small breeze and decided to hoist the main sail and the headsail to see if we would move at all, and sure enough we started to move in the direction of the island. About an hour later we were at the island and two hours later we were back at the marina. So if you are in a hurry better get a power boat.
25 Jun. 09
Was speaking to Jeff at the marina, he owns a holiday 23 and a Bayliner, and he told me that his outboard motor was stolen along with a few other outboards. Very disturbing news, so he replaced his motor with a second hand one that he acquired and was testing the new motor on the weekend. I hope I spelt Jeff correctly because my daughter also knows someone called Jeff but his name is spelt Geoff. Also met another guy whose name eludes me right now but I think it begins with a M, Jeff talks very highly of him and his sailing experience so I want to make a point of getting to know him a bit better and see if he can give me some pointers.
Went to the paradise bike rally in Grasskop a few weeks ago on Axel’s bike. Had a good ride which brought back some really good memories of my own bike that I sold in order to buy the yacht at the Vaal. The weekend was great but it allowed me to decide that the goal of sailing around the world was the first and foremost in my mind. Lola and I discussed some of the things in the house that we no longer really use and decided to sell some stuff. We are going to compile a comprehensive list of everything that we own and decide which of these are towards the goal, the rest we will price and advertise for cash. We also decided that we will probably buy the Coplan Ocean Spirit 34’ hull, deck and bulkheads and we will complete the work in our front yard.
22 Jun. 09
Went down to the Vaal for a day sail on Saturday, it never fails to amaze me how little wind is required to move the yacht. Okay granted not very fast but movement none the less. To give you an idea, distance is very difficult to judge on the water and since none of the instruments on the yacht work, I have to estimate the distance at about 1 to 1.5 km from Bayshore Marina to the island. Well we left the marina at about 12h30 and motored straight out towards Deneysville for about 1 km then we cut the motors and just floated about for an hour or so. I felt a small breeze and decided to hoist the main sail and the headsail to see if we would move at all, and sure enough we started to move in the direction of the island. About an hour later we were at the island and two hours later we were back at the marina. So if you are in a hurry better get a power boat.
25 Jun. 09
Was speaking to Jeff at the marina, he owns a holiday 23 and a Bayliner, and he told me that his outboard motor was stolen along with a few other outboards. Very disturbing news, so he replaced his motor with a second hand one that he acquired and was testing the new motor on the weekend. I hope I spelt Jeff correctly because my daughter also knows someone called Jeff but his name is spelt Geoff. Also met another guy whose name eludes me right now but I think it begins with a M, Jeff talks very highly of him and his sailing experience so I want to make a point of getting to know him a bit better and see if he can give me some pointers.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Missing sailor
08 May 2009
Friday!!! Yes please. Love Fridays once we are sailing I am going to change the calendar to only have Friday, Saturday and Sundays. In fact every day will be Sunday, and when we need to party we will make it Friday, when we need to shop it will become Saturday. Definitely no Mondays! Anyway this week had no public holidays and was the first full week of work we have had to endure for about a month now. Hope to go sailing this afternoon. First we have a function at work for three of our employees that have been with the company for 10 years, so we are going to hand out long service awards this afternoon.
Last weekend we only managed to sail on Friday, public holiday, we took my sister and Warren with on their first sail. Warren enjoyed it but my sister nearly went overboard when a strong gust heeled the yacht over and she wasn’t holding on at the time. One hand for the yacht and one for yourself isn’t that what they say. Anyway we came home on Friday night but apparently a yacht went missing over the weekend skipper and all. I hope to find out more this weekend but have very little info at this time.
12 May 2009
Well so much for sailing this weekend, once you have kids everything changes. The plans you make are no longer your plans but are now guided by factors out of your control. Rauen had plans which in turn changed all my plans. Read in the citizen newspaper yesterday that they found the skippers body near Manten marina, but not too much detail yet and no real info. This weekend coming I am going with Amy to Pretoria to check out the varsity that she will be attending next year, open day. So as you can see my plans are not my plans, but it will be good to spend some quality time with my daughter so I am not complaining. Last night we went to Lola’s graduation ceremony at UNISA. I suppose she is now a qualified accountant. I am very proud of her. This one lecturer made a speech that nobody could understand, not even himself I think. Must be really tough to be this guy’s wife if he has one, unless she is Greek because he speaks a sort of English that only Greeks can understand.
19 May 2009
Weekend came and went, very eventful weekend. Went to Jason and Tammy on Friday night, almost got arrested for car theft in Jason’s new company car, some sort of problem with the number plates that were incorrect. I told Jason to let them take the car but he insisted that they can not, I understand why because the last car of mine that was taken to the police pound came back without wheels and a sound system. The previous one even came back without a petrol tank and only half the dashboard. The police always say “it came in like that” but I was present when the one was driven away by the police, and personally drove the other one and handed it in to them. When you try to take action against them and open a case the docket mysteriously disappears. On Saturday morning at twenty to five my alarm at home activated and when I went to investigate I found that someone had broken open my gate. The alarm must have chased them away because there was nobody in sight, however they had poisoned my dog and she had died so I am not impressed.
This morning they poisoned my neighbour’s dog and stole his wheels and sound system out of his car in his garage. I suppose we will now have to upgrade our alarm system again, we tend to upgrade every time an attempt is made and lucky for me we are in the security industry so we get the upgrades at cost, still expensive though.
25 May 2009
What a good weekend, on the water, been a while, it was great. Didn’t get to do much actual sailing but just spend time with Lola practising to park, whew she gets agro when things don’t go her way, but I managed to survive this and afterwards actually found it quite amusing, but not so much at the time. Found out a bit more about the sailor that went missing and actually remember seeing him go out on the Friday whilst we were on our way in, I still thought to myself that I must be a bit of a wimpy sailor because it was getting quiet rough on the water when we came back in and he was on his way out on a small open boat not much bigger than a dingy.
What I enjoy the most about being on the water is the feeling that your body has when you get off, the earth moves all the time especially when you are in confined spaces like the shower and it takes a few days to wear off, very inexpensive or shall we say bonus side effect like using some sort of drug without having to use any.
Friday!!! Yes please. Love Fridays once we are sailing I am going to change the calendar to only have Friday, Saturday and Sundays. In fact every day will be Sunday, and when we need to party we will make it Friday, when we need to shop it will become Saturday. Definitely no Mondays! Anyway this week had no public holidays and was the first full week of work we have had to endure for about a month now. Hope to go sailing this afternoon. First we have a function at work for three of our employees that have been with the company for 10 years, so we are going to hand out long service awards this afternoon.
Last weekend we only managed to sail on Friday, public holiday, we took my sister and Warren with on their first sail. Warren enjoyed it but my sister nearly went overboard when a strong gust heeled the yacht over and she wasn’t holding on at the time. One hand for the yacht and one for yourself isn’t that what they say. Anyway we came home on Friday night but apparently a yacht went missing over the weekend skipper and all. I hope to find out more this weekend but have very little info at this time.
12 May 2009
Well so much for sailing this weekend, once you have kids everything changes. The plans you make are no longer your plans but are now guided by factors out of your control. Rauen had plans which in turn changed all my plans. Read in the citizen newspaper yesterday that they found the skippers body near Manten marina, but not too much detail yet and no real info. This weekend coming I am going with Amy to Pretoria to check out the varsity that she will be attending next year, open day. So as you can see my plans are not my plans, but it will be good to spend some quality time with my daughter so I am not complaining. Last night we went to Lola’s graduation ceremony at UNISA. I suppose she is now a qualified accountant. I am very proud of her. This one lecturer made a speech that nobody could understand, not even himself I think. Must be really tough to be this guy’s wife if he has one, unless she is Greek because he speaks a sort of English that only Greeks can understand.
19 May 2009
Weekend came and went, very eventful weekend. Went to Jason and Tammy on Friday night, almost got arrested for car theft in Jason’s new company car, some sort of problem with the number plates that were incorrect. I told Jason to let them take the car but he insisted that they can not, I understand why because the last car of mine that was taken to the police pound came back without wheels and a sound system. The previous one even came back without a petrol tank and only half the dashboard. The police always say “it came in like that” but I was present when the one was driven away by the police, and personally drove the other one and handed it in to them. When you try to take action against them and open a case the docket mysteriously disappears. On Saturday morning at twenty to five my alarm at home activated and when I went to investigate I found that someone had broken open my gate. The alarm must have chased them away because there was nobody in sight, however they had poisoned my dog and she had died so I am not impressed.
This morning they poisoned my neighbour’s dog and stole his wheels and sound system out of his car in his garage. I suppose we will now have to upgrade our alarm system again, we tend to upgrade every time an attempt is made and lucky for me we are in the security industry so we get the upgrades at cost, still expensive though.
25 May 2009
What a good weekend, on the water, been a while, it was great. Didn’t get to do much actual sailing but just spend time with Lola practising to park, whew she gets agro when things don’t go her way, but I managed to survive this and afterwards actually found it quite amusing, but not so much at the time. Found out a bit more about the sailor that went missing and actually remember seeing him go out on the Friday whilst we were on our way in, I still thought to myself that I must be a bit of a wimpy sailor because it was getting quiet rough on the water when we came back in and he was on his way out on a small open boat not much bigger than a dingy.
What I enjoy the most about being on the water is the feeling that your body has when you get off, the earth moves all the time especially when you are in confined spaces like the shower and it takes a few days to wear off, very inexpensive or shall we say bonus side effect like using some sort of drug without having to use any.
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