Action all round

23 Dec. 11


The last few days has seen some action here with a yacht catching fire and almost completely burning out. We were sitting behind the boat chatting to our neighbours when Lola, looking across the water seen a fire. The fire wasn’t very large a little bit larger than your average camp fire so we dismissed the conversation and continued making small talk. Then we heard the sound of a power boat roaring across the water at extreme speed and Lola commented that it’s a no wake zone and the idiot must slow down. And back to chitchat. Suddenly two or three cars came screaming across the grounds and we all commented that they should slow down and stop driving like fools in the boatyard. We were still discussing the idiots driving so dangerously when a fire truck came tearing threw the boat yard. Only then did it dawn on us what all the commotion was about when we stepped to the front of our boats and seen a massive roaring fire with a huge black cloud billowing across the sky. A yacht had caught fire and was rapidly being devoured by searing hot flames. The first small fire that Lola noticed was the tender that had melted loose and had drifted down steam past our view. The roaring power boat was trying to extinguish the fire on the tender.



The fire brigade eventually managed to kill the blaze but it was too late for the yacht to be saved. Being a catamaran she didn’t sink and was quite a site to behold all melted, distorted and soot covered with the mast leaning over precariously. The fire had been so hot that the boom melted away to nothing. The entire back of the boat and most of the bridge deck including the saloon and cockpit was completely gone, melted away. The front deck had collapsed and was distorted beyond use. The only parts that were recognisable were the two bows with the cross beam and trampolines still intact.



The night before last we invited some friends over for cocktails on the foredeck. The evening didn’t go quite as planned when Lola told our neighbour, Barry to get off our boat and he is never allowed back unless he apologises to her. I explained this incident simply but in reality it was slightly different. Lola asked Barry not to fiddle with the ropes that we tied up as temporary forestays to keep the mast up. He ignored her and tried to be funny by yanking the ropes even harder. Lola didn’t mince her words as she flew off the handle and explained that he was no longer welcome aboard. All I can say is there were lots of describing words used.

Burntout yacht - cockpit and saloon area

All that left of multi million rand sailing yacht

And the weather turns good...for a while

15 Dec 11


Yesterday was possibly the hottest and most humid day of this season. We struggled to work with buckets of sweat pouring out of every pore in our bodies as we moved about. At about eleven Lola and I decided that we could no longer stand the heat so we took a walk to the swimming pool for a quick dip to cool down. The water was so refreshing and the pool temperature was just perfect. There was a couple of people at the pool and I had a small moment of embarrassment when my new swimming shorts came off as I dived under the water making me lose concentration and forcing me to surface immediately after.. I hoped that no one had noticed but when I came back up Lola and Kyle where giggling away. The other people said nothing but I could feel that they had noticed so I tried to avoid eye contact with everyone for a while. Fortunately the most they could have seen would have been a brief glimpse of my very white un-tanned butt. The humidity persisted and by the time we came back to the boat from the pool we where dripping perspiration and wanted to go back almost immediately.



We cut out a small piece of the coach roof and replaced the rotten wet wood with foam core. Besides the fairing sanding and painting that is required on the boat this repair is our second to last one that is required for now. Okay possibly our third to last. The port bow has some wood rot and still needs to be done as we did the starboard one already then we can start fitting solar panels a water maker and be on our way. All other repairs could be done on route or so we hope.



There is a new boat parked next to us at the moment and this morning I was woken up at four by the new neighbour’s cat jumping into our bedroom hatch and landing on our bed. Fortunately I like cats so wasn’t to perturbed by it.



Today being the 15th would have been the day we would have to pay salaries to our staff. Oh how things have changed without this huge responsibility hanging over our shoulders. I still feel stressed out just thinking about it. Now that stress is gone but has been replaced by another, are we going to survive financially? Owning and managing your own small business has many stresses and pitfalls but money used to come in on a regular basis and even though it was never quite enough it did keep us afloat for the most part. Now every cent that we spend is gone forever, never to be replaced. The thought of that fact gives me cold shivers down my spine.



16 Dec. 11

Today is a public holiday here in South Africa and also my mother’s birthday. The public holiday and her birthday are not related but conveniently help me to remember her birthday. Raining again today and yesterday so I am limited to indoor work on the boat. I managed to sand the fairing compound that I stuck on with a trowel a few days ago on the bottom of the bridge deck yesterday but cannot continue adding more since the products are very weather dependant. It’s a long and tedious operation since you trowel the stuff on then sand most of it off just to trowel more on then sand most of it off again. This cycle can be repeated a few times dependant on how experienced you are with the stuff and how fussy you are about the finished product. My neighbour here on the hard, also called Barry, told me that someone told him, and I quote his words “if a man galloping past on a horse looks at the boat and thinks it is fair, then it is fair.”



20 Dec. 11

Only five more days till Christmas and six till my Daughter arrives. Christmas is great but I am way more excited about the arrival of my oldest child as she is by far my favourite daughter. I can say this because it is true and because she is technically my only daughter.



We started painting over some of the repairs that we have completed using 2K automotive paint. The paint gives a nice finish even though it makes any and all imperfections visible. Fortunately my eye sight isn’t what it used to be and neither Lola or I are very fussy about perfection, we are more about how well it works, so it doesn’t matter. The durability of the paint will have to be judged in time. Taking the decision not to bother fairing some of the repairs may allow us to stick to the plan and still be on our way by the end of January which means we will still be able to leave within this sailing season all be it on the tail end of the season.

Dolphin nose nearing completion

Piecing it together

Kyle loves his new hatch

We start on the steering box

We start fairing the steering box

Painted...

Morale - when things go wrong...

2 December 2011


The night before last night we went to the grand opening of the new yacht club wet deck. It was a fine evening with fair weather so sitting outside by the water was very pleasant indeed. Lola became quite engrossed in conversation with Michelle who is sailing with her three daughters and her husband on a classic monohull made from bamboo. The boat has beautiful lines but isn’t for me since the maintenance must be an absolute nightmare. As I sat watching all the different characters around me I felt a little removed not being involved in any of the conversations but rather just sitting on the sideline. This made me think that perhaps I am not a very interesting person since I haven’t got any stories to tell or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood to make small talk. Still I quite enjoyed the evening feeling as if I wasn’t really there like a spectator to a sporting event on television as opposed to a participant.



Yesterday we managed to fit the new starboard bow and glassed in on from the inside. What a messy and uncomfortable job. The space inside is really small and I could barely fit inside. Lola had to wet out the cloth on Rauens bed, then pass it to me in this cramped excessively hot little space. I had to contort my body into different shapes and make the glass stick to the underside of the new deck piece. After an hour or so I couldn’t breathe from the fumes in there and had to get out. We managed to get it all done though except for the cross beam that just wouldn’t stick and kept falling down bringing with it all the fibreglass pieces that we were using to attach it.

Today it is raining again which is probably a good thing since my arms and my legs are covered in tiny little itchy red bumps.



03 Dec. 11

We managed to laminate the glass on the outside of the starboard bow and she is looking good. Still have one or two spots that need glass then we can apply fairing compound, sand fair paint and replace all the cleats and stainless steel. At the moment she looks a bit like a shipwreck with all the repairs unpainted but will return to her former glory once we paint.



09 Dec. 11

The rain that started yesterday and is still pouring into the boat today has revealed more leaks with the old leaks that we thought we repaired still leaking. Kyle’s bed is soaked again and the water is running like a small river down the inside of his newly installed ceiling becoming a waterfall at the ceiling joints and creating a dam in the middle of his bed and all across his pillows. I am so close to just giving up on this stupid piece of sh*t that it’s not even funny. Nobody seems to be able to give advice that actually solves the leaks and everybody changes their advice on a daily basis. Today they tell you to use one product and the next day that product is useless so why are you using it? It seems there is no answer to boat leaks even huge waterfalls like in Kyle’s room don’t have an obvious point of entry like a visible crack or hole. I mean you should surely be able to see where this water is coming from but no such luck. I am even considering charging an entry fee to people to come and view the waterfall it is so spectacular yet at the same time making me feel clueless and incompetent.

Kyle's new hatch

Working on a boat is always comfortable and easy

The start of our new dolphin nose

20 Nov. 11


Anyway the rain abated for a few hours today so we took the chance and laminated some fibreglass replacing the wood rot in Kyle’s room and strengthened the port keel with six layers of glass at the aft end of the keel. If the weather holds out tomorrow then we will jack the starboard side of the boat up to allow the fibreglass dent on that side to pop back out and then add six layers of glass to the starboard keel which would pretty much make the keels bullet proof, hopefully. Lola and I had a few moments of disagreements today which is very unusual for us but I believe it to be the left hand right hand brain thing. She is left handed and I am right handed which seems like a small detail, however we seem to see things from exactly the opposite angle. Sometimes we will argue over a certain thing just to discover that we are saying the exact same thing from the opposite side. A simple example would be to draw a line, I use the one side of the ruler as a reference and she would use the other side. Another example, when I place a heavy object like a transformer oil welding machine or a battery in the back of a bakkie, I would use my right hand to pick it up and place it on the left hand side of the bakkie. A left handed person would however use their left hand to lift the object and place it on the right hand side making it difficult for me to remove it from the bakkie using my weak arm. If I twist a wire before I put it into a lug or chocolate block I would twist it clockwise. A left handed person would usually twist it anti-clockwise ensuring that I would first have to unwind it before I twist it up again if I have to replace the lug for any reason in the future. For this and many other reasons I despise working on anything after a left handed person has worked on it before. And at this point I am going to be brave and just say it, I am right, ha ha.



21 Nov. 11

Today we jacked up the one side of the boat with the help of a friend down here. We then repaired the dented in keel by adding seven layers of glass near the back end. Tomorrow we will grind inside the bilge and add another few layers from the inside. Tonight the wind is howling away making the boat shake and rock on the jacks, a little nerve racking but not to serious. Even if it falls off the jacks it doesn’t have far to go. It may however ruin the work we did today. Only a few more days before my son arrives for a long visit. I am very excited to see him.



25 Nov. 11

Yesterday we drove to King Shaka airport in Durban and collected my son. So last night was celebration time again. Today we go to Richards Bay airport to fetch Rauen our other son coming back from his week long visit in Johannesburg. The persistent rain and bad weather down here continues to hamper our progress and eats away at our morale. Every morning I wake up to the south westerly wind with the rain and I feel my spirit just seeping out the hatch. The rest of the day is then ruined as I sit glumly in the cockpit and wait for the sun that never arrives.



26 Nov. 11

We had proper sunshine this morning for the first time in weeks but only till twelve, then it rained again. Yesterday the sun glimpsed through the clouds for a few minutes so I decided to take a chance and mixed some epoxy with micro balloons to fair the last piece we repaired and to cover a leak in Kyle’s room. As I started on the leak the rain came bucketing down and I sat getting drenched trying to epoxy knowing that it shouldn’t cure because it will be wet. At that moment my morale sank to the lowest it has been in a while. I actually felt like breaking down and just sitting in the cockpit crying like a baby. But since I am a “real” man I didn’t.



28 Nov. 11

That epoxy cured in the rain so we were lucky this time. Kyle room is nearly finished, today we should fit his new plastic ceiling and then he can move back into his room. This should make the whole family happy because we get our saloon back and we no longer have blankets pillows and teddy bears all over the place. Yesterday we took Rauen to Jacks corner to celebrate his 15th birthday. He managed to devour an entire kilogram of ribs. It always surprises me how much this kid can eat and still be as skinny as an Ethiopian on diet.

The new dive platform is erected - bigger and better



Filleting the dive platform in



Dive platform looking good

Boatyard happenings

15 Nov. 11


At last some sunshine and we can continue with the repairs. The dive platform that we extended is now finished and that along with the bridge deck requires fairing and painting to be completed. Yesterday we went to an internet café to update our blogs. After two hours we weren’t able to load the photos yet so we decided to just give the photos a miss. After we laid fibreglass today I was sitting on one of those plastic garden chairs behind the boat whilst Lola was packing our shower bags when suddenly I heard what sounded like a bird flying into the starboard backstay and then falling onto the deck somewhere. Lola shouted “Barry, what was that?” I scaled the ladder as quickly as I could since I could still hear the “bird” scurrying about on the boat. Lola came out into the cockpit and asked me again what all the commotion was about saying that she thought the new dive platform had broken off. I told her about the bird story and we both looked around on deck. To my surprise Lola found a fish lashing about on the bimini roof. Wow the bird must have dropped it by accident and it hit the backstay on its way down landing on the roof. I put it back in the water but I am not sure if it will survive. But just imagine fish on the roof whilst the boat is on the land, surreal is all I can say.



17 Nov. 11

It’s just after five in the morning, overcast, hot and extremely humid. As I sit here in the cockpit my body feels hot and clammy with a consistently damp top lip no matter how many times I wipe it dry. From one extreme to the next seems to be the weather system down here. The high humidity today may prevent us from laying fibreglass since it is not only affected by the rain but also by the humidity. Tiny little near invisible insects are landing periodically on my back just out of arms reach and cause me to stretch my arms over backwards every few minutes to chase them away and scratch. Yesterday we fitted Rauen’s new portlight in his heads. That means his new window in his toilet. We also cut a hole in the deck to fit a new hatch in Kyle’s bedroom but need to fibreglass around the edge first before we can install the hatch. Using the mould that I made the day before Lola completed our starboard dolphin nose and started with the port one so today we will probably complete the port one weather permitting of course.



19 Nov. 11

Well we managed to fit the hatch in Kyle’s room after grinding most of the fibreglass that we had laid the day before off. What a waste of time that was. Today the oven glass door exploded whilst I was grinding open the keels. In fact it exploded after I had finished the one keel and sat down under the boat to have a smoke break. I heard a loud bang and heard something falling on the floor above my head. Then another sound of falling objects like marbles bouncing on the floor. I was still pondering the sound when Lola called me and told me that the oven door exploded. I asked her if she was cooking something and she said no she was busy sending an sms to our son Rauen who had flown up to Jo-burg to visit his dad. So no real reason for the glass to shatter and we still cannot explain what would have caused this.



Rauen flew up to visit his dad and granny in Johannesburg on Friday morning. Well here we go again. Never start a journey on a Friday. As I have said before this superstition shouldn’t be applicable to car or airplane journeys. But it seems once you get involved with sailing or boats in any way whatsoever everything changes and suddenly these superstitions are applicable no matter what form of transport you may chose. So on our way to the airport we see the newspaper headline that reads SA Airlink leaves its passengers in the lurch again. We turn on the radio and the news reporter’s voice announces that all flights from Richards Bay and Durban have been cancelled due to fog. When we arrive at the airport the passengers from the previous flight are all still waiting. Anyway to cut a long story short this was Rauen’s first flight on an airplane so he was very excited as well as a little intrepid and the news didn’t help the intrepid part much. We explained to him that the take off wasn’t the problem but the planes landing from Johannesburg had a problem caused by the fog and they couldn’t see the runway so he didn’t have to worry. After many hours delay the fog lifted and the first plane landed. Rauen’s flight was supposed to leave at nine but eventually left at twelve.

All struted and waiting for the new boards to set

Taking a break

Wood rot? like I've never seen!

Progress slow but steady

15 Sep. 11


At the moment the wind is howling outside and I decided that sitting indoors is a better option. The wind is possibly the thing that scares me the most about this trip. It blows so hard that you think the boat is going to take off. Then you think surely it can’t blow any harder than that, then it does. Then you think no way could it blow any harder than that, then it again shows you that it can. Yes, so I suppose we will have to learn to deal with the wind since it appears to be our chosen mode of transport or “engine” as such.

The repairs on the bridge deck have started and I decided to use a permanent marker and write a short note to Lola on the core to remind her that I love her. Since our first piece of the repair is under our bed I thought it would be an appropriate place to do this. In my haste to get the repair done I however forgot. But all is not lost as the next piece is also under our bed and is in fact under our pillows so I will be able to make a note that would live forever under the skin of the boat and hopefully, wander into Lola’s dreams.

23 Sep. 11

We seem to have a few days with great progress followed by about a week of nothing but rain and more rain. The rain started on Monday, today is Friday and I have had about as much rain as I can stand. I tried doing some work but my mood doesn’t allow any real work to get done so I just potter about doing small tasks that could actually be done once we are back in the water. This process isn’t very rewarding but seems to be part and parcel of boating.

03 Oct. 11

Not much progress at the moment again due to rain. It did stop for a few days, long enough for me to cut out the next piece of the bridge deck but just not long enough to put the new core in and get that piece back up.

10 Oct. 11

At last the rain stopped and we managed to get the next piece up but then, as luck would have it, I woke up two days ago with huge puffed up eyes and a massive itchy rash all over my arms. So today I just took the day off and hope that by tomorrow I feel better again so that we can continue.

28 Oct 11

We decided that today would be Sunday and thus no real work will be done. We are hoping instead to have a casual and relaxed day. We made steady progress on the bridge deck repairs and only have one more piece to install as well as make a new dive platform. The wood rot extended over more than 70 percent of the bridge deck and the repair was therefore not a waste of time but rather essential. Looking back over the work done is rewarding and a little unbelievable considering that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing before we started. After the bridge deck the repairs to the deck will be a bit more creative and hopefully easier. We are still trying to get back in the water by December in order to still leave during this sailing season. So lets hope for the best.

29 Oct. 11

Today I miss my kids so much I could just die. I think it was caused by Mike leaving his family and heading down to Cape Town. Mike is another Barry here in the boatyards son. We are onto the last piece of the bridge deck and then the deck repairs can begin so a really large project is finally coming to an end and perhaps we can leave soon.

11 Nov. 11

Yesterday was Lola’s birthday so in the evening we went to the newly repaired Jacks corner with a few friends and celebrated. Earlier in the day we went to the mall and just walked about looking for an electronic piano to replace Lola’s original one that we had to leave behind since it was too big and heavy to take with on the boat. We discovered that electronic piano’s are expensive so gave the idea a miss for now and bought some movies instead. Yesterday and today the weather is bad again so not much progress on the boat repairs will be made. The yacht club has planned two events for this weekend with beer gardens and live entertainment so not much sleeping for us. My son Keagan is due to fly down for a visit on the 24th and will be staying till early January with my daughter Amy and her boyfriend Dean to follow just after Christmas. We are all looking forward to their visit as it has been a quiet a while since we last seen them.

12 Nov. 11

I decided to try and update my blog more regularly so that huge chunks aren’t missing in the plot even if it is just a short paragraph or a single sentence. Since I typed yesterday here goes, last night we had Dylan Nicholete and their two year old Daughter Kate over for supper. Lola made spaghetti bolognaise using Portuguese chicken spice so it had a bit of a bite. Not my favourite spice but it seems Lola likes it since she also used it the last time she made hamburgers. Both times I commented that there is something wrong with the food. Lola is a bright girl and an excellent chef why she decided that this spice was the way forward I don’t know but I hope she wasn’t offended by my obvious ‘what is wrong with this food’ statements, and at the same time I hope she gets rid of the spice. We eventually called it an evening at about two in the morning so today isn’t going to be very productive.

13 Nov. 11

The yacht club was a hive of activity for the last two days as they hosted a raft race with a beer garden and some stalls with a potjie pot competition. Lola and I walked over to the club grounds a few times, more due my insistence than hers, but eventually I had to admit to myself that the large crowd gatherings no longer hold an interest for me. The stalls are always just about the same, selling almost if not exactly the same goods as the stalls to be found at all these types of events. The crowds hang around in small noisy groups trying to compete against the overly loud music and perhaps each other. Nobody can actually hear what anybody else is saying so just pretend to have heard and understood what was said by smiling or laughing. In the early evening we decided to watch a movie on the boat. The wind was howling south westerly and it was raining yet again. As the movie began I heard a loud bang against the port hull of the boat but thought perhaps it was something blown over by the wind outside. Then another and another bang so I went outside to investigate the cause of the banging. To my surprise I found two young boys around thirteen years old throwing rocks at my boat. When I shouted at them the one bolted and his little friend started to follow him but then changed his mind and stopped. I leaped off the boat and gave stormed after the boys closely followed by Lola. The runner’s courage returned once he decided he cannot outrun us and his mate had already been caught. so he stopped to wait and find out his fate. Lola was so mad that steam was coming out of her hair and if these boys weren’t so young I am sure we would have killed them and buried their bones, but instead we marched them off to the club manager’s office and found their father. The man apologised for his kids behaviour and said that he would come around today to discuss any damage caused to the boat.

14 Nov. 11

Well to my surprise he didn’t pitch up or call, how amazing is the human race, so reliable and trustworthy. I guess I should have known better I mean anyone that sits in the beer garden all day not knowing that his brats are running around throwing rocks at other peoples property obviously wont take responsibility for his children’s behaviour. We checked the boat and couldn’t find any damage anyway so he chickened out for nothing. Well such is life.

Yesterday we managed to cut some of the materials for the bulkhead repair in Kyle’s room but couldn’t epoxy them in due to the weather. I am sure that we have lost more than half our repair time due to the consistent bad weather here. Today we are going to cut the material for the starboard bow repair but cannot epoxy that in either and I think you can guess why. We haven’t finished the bridge deck yet but decided that we will start with the deck repairs or at least start with the preparations since we cannot continue in this weather anyway.

Repairs and Joburg Trip

07 Aug. 11


So a few more days have come and gone with painfully slow progress on the boat. The boxes are installed but not yet complete. We managed to repair one of the multiple leeks in Kyle’s room but still have a few to solve.

The last two days have been spent indoors again trying to avoid the never ending rain. I found the guy we bought the boat from and told him that he sold us a piece of rot and that he knew about all the problems on the boat. He of course denied having any knowledge of the problems and said that the boat passed a hull inspection by SAMSA. Okay he did give me that so called hull inspection done by SAMSA but then I have to question the competence of the inspector or if he was bribed. If he did even a half arse inspection using a blind guy with a stick he would have found the problems so one or the other is fake and bullshit.

We decided to do the repairs using a material called airex instead of the wood since the stuff cannot rot like wood does. So a few days ago we took a trip to Durban and bought two sheets of the stuff. It costs about twice the price of wood but the future benefit seems to outweigh the cost. Typically as life seems to be going at the moment we bought the two sheets one for the deck repairs at 12mm thick and the other for the bridge deck repairs at 20mm, using the sizes of the existing wood as a guide, only to find that we should have bought the deck thickness at 10mm and the bridge deck at 15mm. The reason for this is off course that once you add the fibreglass to the stuff it increases the size by about one and a half mm for every layer of glass and you have to glass both sides.

13 Aug. 11

The last few days have seen my mood change from sombre and moody back to the old Barry who was a positive and generally happy fellow. Lola commented that she prefers me when I am happy in her words she said “when you are happy, you are extremely happy”. “But when you are sad you are also extremely sad”. I suppose that makes me slightly bi polar.

Yesterday I finally managed to master the art of mixing and applying the fairing compound to the repairs that we have already done. This was after many unsuccessful attempts involving much frustration. The boat looks like a complete wreck at the moment with all the ceilings removed and tools everywhere. I have learnt such a lot about the construction process that was used to build the boat by stripping it that I now feel a lot more confident to take on the required repairs.

22 Aug. 11

We tested some products to see which one most suited our needs for the bridge deck repairs and decided that we would use a closed cell foam core instead of the balsa wood that the boat has in at the moment. By using this we eliminate future wood rot problems as this stuff is like a type of plastic and a bit of water getting in doesn’t really matter anymore.

27 Aug. 11

The other day I was speaking to this guy here at the club about our blocked toilets, when he asked me if we have any portlights in the toilet. I told him no we have a normal 12 volt light in the toilet. To which he repeated himself asking if we have any portlights. I told him yes we have one port light and one starboard light. The port light is red and the starboard green. He stood there for a while with a strange expression on his face and stared at me, then he just shook his head and walked away. Later I realised a portlight is actually a window.

28 Aug. 11

We seem to attract the slightly younger crowd and have always got along with the upper teen and early twenties group. A few times now we have had the five or six people in this age group on the boat for a gathering which turns into a raucous drinking affair ending in the early hours of the morning. This doesn’t help towards the progress of the boat the following day but has lifted our spirits somewhat and given some enjoyable times even on the hard.

Today we are going to fit the new ceiling in the passage after having ripped out the old one a few weeks ago in our quest to discover the condition of the deck. We have also planned another trip up to Joeys to surprise my daughter on her 21st birthday. This is exciting times and I am looking forward to seeing two of my kids again. Technically my daughter turning 21 makes her a fully fledged legal adult now but for me she will always be my little girl even when she turns fifty one day. For once I am hoping she doesn’t read my blog and ruin the surprise so perhaps I will only post this after the weekend has passed.

The weather here the last two days has been rather miserable but worked perfectly in any case due to the fact that we partied a bit hard on Friday night and thus I was slightly incapacitated yesterday. We spent most of the day in bed with Lola reading a sailing adventure called “The walkabouts” to me whilst the rain pattered gently on the decks above our heads making it an almost perfect day.

07 Sep. 11

Never start a journey on a Friday was a discussion that Lola and I had when we were planning this trip to Joburg. I eventually dismissed the old sailing superstition by saying that we were going in a car and certainly old king Neptune’s power surely doesn’t reach that far inland so Friday it would be. We got up early on Friday morning and packed our bags ready to leave. I got off the boat and walked down to the car park to fetch the car. A few minutes later I was back on the boat and broke the news to Lola that the car’s battery was flat and wouldn’t start. So we all walked down to the car park to push start the car. On the way to the car I roped in some of the boatyard workers to help push the car and with a short push in reverse gear managed to start the motor. So king Neptune was instantly defeated. Or was he? We packed the car and left at about eight. The sun was up and there was a beautiful clear blue sky overhead. The previous day the barometer had dropped and I told Lola that whilst we were away there would be a blow in the bay and we should miss it. We turned on the radio and listened to east coast radio playing music in the background.

The news came on we asked the kids to be quiet and turned up the radio to catch up on current affairs in the country. When we are on the boat we don’t watch TV or listen to the radio so we are a bit out of touch with reality and this was a perfect opportunity to catch up. After the bad news, it seems to always be, the traffic presenter informed us that an abnormal load would be travelling from the bay to Vryheid thereby blocking our path back up to Joburg. He mentioned that they would be considerate and pull over every so often to allow cars to pass.

We caught up to the abnormal one about twenty minutes later and spent the next two hours of our journey doing ten kilometres an hour in first gear behind him with no way to pass. Strike two for the king? Eventually after an eternity had passed someone with a flat tyre coming from the opposite side made Mr abnormal stop and we were allowed to get passed.

Then king Neptune spoke to his contacts and the wind started to blow. As we made our way across the winding mountain pass the wind picked up debris from the recently cut sugar cane farms and sent it hurtling across the road and into our car. Lola kept ducking inside the car as the pieces of cane bombarded the window on her side of the car. At one point a large piece of corrugated tin roof from one of the rural shacks came flying across the road in front of our car making me swerve and hit the brakes in order to avoid being hit. The wind continued to howl and blew us across the lanes at times all the way to Volksrus. At one of the many roadwork stop goes we wanted to exit the car and have a smoke break. Lola could not open her door to get out and I had to get out from my side of the car and help her open her door. Outside the car the wind lifted our t shirts and tried to snatch the cigarettes from our mouths.

Eventually we started to move again and as we drove off a gravel road next to the roadworks together with the wind sand blasted our car to such an extent that I thought we would have to re-spray the paint work. The radio presenter announced that the road between Malmoth and Vryheid was closed due to runaway fires that had set the saw mill on fire and the smoke across the road made passing impossible. Lucky we had just completed that section of the road so the king must have underestimated our travelling speed and we had thus thwarted his plan.

The rest of the journey went by without incident and we arrived safely at our destination at about half passed four. The journey that would normally have taken six hours took eight and a half.

The rest of the weekend went by so quickly and we had very little sleep rushing from my brother’s house to my daughter’s 21 to and old friend’s house party and back. We tried to spend as much time with each of my kids and friends in such a short time span as is possible but the time just is never enough and I find myself wishing we had stayed longer. The next time I will get to see them will only be in December and then who knows after that.