Monday, January 25, 2010

Back to the grind stone

Almost half way through January, time flies, faster and faster as you get older. So far this month I have managed to keep my attitude positive and haven’t been disappointed in myself, ….yet. Lola and I are busy planning to go and do our coastal skippers licence down in Langebaan in the cape. We found a sailing school in the monthly magazine that offers the training on a Wildcat 35, which will solve at least two questions for us. One the wildcat, being our yacht of choice to purchase, and two, sailing on the ocean on a catamaran, how does it compare to a monohull. This is going to be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to it. We are trying to book for end March beginning April which will allow some time for work to settle into the new year, and I should be just about ready for a holiday by that time.

18 Jan. 10

It has begun already the month is not even over yet, in fact, it is just past halfway and already I have to polygraph my operations manager because one of the employees has accused him of stealing their final pay. The joys of Africa, never ending. The polygraph will be done on Wednesday so lets wait and see before we go jumping to conclusions.

25 Jan. 10

Wow what a surprise he failed the polygraph test and owned up during his hearing held this morning, now why not come clean in the first place and save me the time and money wasted. I quite liked the guy which makes me feel a bit down and disappointed, but life will go on. In a way it works out better for me when I eventually rid myself of this beast of burden it becomes one less thing to worry about.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Heavy weather sailing

Back to row with the other slaves on Monday past and the year at work started off with a visit to the labour department at 08h00 on the 4th of January. The government always fun and informative to deal with, but I decided that this year was going to be good no matter what so dealing with the officials went as expected, slow and in circles with no real joy. You know I think the problem is that people actually don’t speak the same language even when they do. For example Lola and I went to see a client at Honda on day. Whilst sitting in the reception area Lola commented upon the size of the reception, I assumed that she was speaking about the receptionist that was also rather large and we had a ten minute conversation about the subject with neither of us realising that we were not speaking about the same thing at all. It was only later on in the day when we touched on the subject again that we realised what had happened. So if this can happen to two people that actually know each other well imagine trying to communicate with a strange government employee about a subject that neither of you actually understand.

Back to Richards bay, beautiful place, we are going to attempt to move there onto the yacht that we have not bought yet, some time maybe this year or next year latest if all goes according to plan. So please hold thumbs.

This month I have read “heavy weather cruising” and it seems the more you read about storms and the ocean the more scary it becomes, perhaps it is easier not to read anything and just go. These authors are also very controversial, every book about heavy weather sailing that I have read so far tell you the basic methods used in these conditions, but each author has a different opinion as to when to use which method and they all seem to contradict each other. I suppose that each person has to decide at the time for himself which method to use in which conditions, hopefully they all have some merit.

Bliksem

New Year, new beginnings, this year is definitely going to be better than last year because we are one year closer to leaving on our sailing adventure. “Bliksem” a very versatile, Afrikaans, South African word. This is the word that comes to mind when I think off some parts or if fact some people from last year. Also a word I think about when I read the book “Heavy weather cruising”. “Bliksem” is in fact the South African word for Lightning but has other meanings as well such as “I hope the lightning doesn’t bliksem my mast” which means I hope the lightning doesn’t strike my mast, which could also be said as “I hope the bliksem doesn’t bliksem my mast. The word can also be used in “bliksem that was fast.” Which means wow that was fast or “did you see that bliksem run” which means did you see that person (derogatory) run. Bliksem is possibly the most versatile South African word. Anyway back to reality, December came and went by like a flash. We went down to Durban on the 15th to visit Lola’s sister for a few days. This global warming problem seems to be affecting the world already, because it rained and the weather in Durban was awful mostly everyday. This however did not change our planned visits to the marina in Durban to find out the costs of mooring. Wow R4500 per month excluding water and electricity, this is expensive but we did anticipate that it might be so we also went to the bluff yacht club to investigate. The bluff yacht club is located on the wrong side of the harbour in the very industrial side of town and this option was also abandoned. After our compulsory visit to the cruising connection we bought some books to study and left Durban for Richards bay.
Richards bay is about 160 kilometres from Durban on the north coast. We travelled via the alternative route because I believed that it would be more interesting and has no toll roads. It turned out to be a scenic drive but nothing spectacular and took forever, so next time, pay the toll fees.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

True 'sailing" experience

02 Dec. 09
Don’t think we will remember how to sail anymore it has been that long since we have last been to the boat. Read some guys blog the other day and he said something that really makes sense when it comes to sailing. He said that it takes ten minutes to learn 90 percent of what you need to know about sailing and you will spend the rest of your life trying to get the other 10 percent.
Lola and I have been discussing the possibility of opening a different business that is dependant on only the two of us as opposed to having a whole lot of minimum wage employees that have the sole purpose of driving me insane. We will keep you informed on the decision, and the progress.

07 Dec. 09
Saturday morning we went to the spar to get rolls, ice and salads for the weekend but the spar had none of the above. This was at about half past 10 in the morning and I told the manager that he has a badly organised store, he started to explain about the ovens that need to heat up but I don’t really care about that, all I wanted was some rolls and how does he bake the salad in the oven, not to mention the ice. So off we went to Heidelberg pick and pay instead. Once we got on the water Lola hoisted the main sail and we were off in a northerly direction sailing at about 2 knots. I opted for this direction so that we would be beating into the wind on our way out but would be able to have a good fast run back with the wind from behind on the return journey. All of us, especially Kyle, are nervous at the moment due to the last couple of rough sails that we have experienced and I wanted to make the trip as enjoyable and gentle as possible for him and us in order to regain some confidence.

09 Dec. 09
We just made it back into the marina when the wind picked up and the hail and rain started to bucket down, I think: had we been caught in that, that would have been the end of our sailing trip and a camper would have replaced the yacht. We spent Sunday repairing one of the many window leaks. The stripping out of the window was pleasant enough but once we got the window out and cleaned off all the old “ silicon” we discovered that we did not have a silicon gun with us in order to replace the window. I went into town but all the shops were closed except for the jet ski shop and they where kind enough to give me an old broken one which they had lying around. Lucky me I thought, and I have to say thank you to the mechanic in the shop for searching through his workshop and finding this for me. The rest of the job did not go well and with the use of the broken gun I managed to get “ silicon” everywhere. I also taught some new language skills to the rest of the people on the marina, sorry people, I apologise. Because of the leaking window, one of the bed cushions in the bow went mouldy and had to be recovered so we took this to an upholster, wow there goes my Christmas lunch, it seems every time you look at the boat it costs more money, and the list of repairs seems to never end but gets longer and longer.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Plan delays?

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.


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.

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.