November - December 2013 (Richards Bay)

Well this is it, Christmas is almost upon us, the decorations are up and despite yourself you just can't help getting excited :-)  School holidays have started and our not so large shopping mall is packed daily with people of all ages and sizes and even nationalities as our International visitors have increased as well - Silly Season indeed!!


Last month, while fixing the fitting on our deck for the main halyard, it has a really large spring that required being re-fitted to a large u-bolt,  Kevin made the fatal mistake of sitting on the front of the boat - not in the cockpit or even inside, to re-thread the spring - and voila, one bounce and over the side it went.  He immediately dropped a rope down exactly where it went over to be able to mark the spot, then jumped into his wetsuit and dive gear and after it he went.  Fortunately the water is much clearer in the Marina than it was at the yacht club, but there is still a lot of silt at the bottom that, when disturbed, makes visibility dreadful.  Well it was his lucky day, he found the spring immediately and whilst down there took a plastic scourer and brush to the bottom of the boat and rid us of our growth.  Together with the seaweed and little barnacles that grow on the boat there are little living organisms that become dislodged and swim around, one of which ended up in Kevin's ear, was really funny when out popped this little wriggling creature - well it was from the outside anyway....


We have made a breakthrough in the showering on the boat.  We modified the water capture tray in the bathroom and installed a float switch and Whale gulper pump on the outlet so that the water now shoots out of the side of the boat when you are showering instead of gathering in the bilge and being pumped overboard by the bilge pump.  For those that understand you will know how much better this is, for those that don't, it is brilliant not to have the water stagnating in the bilges and having to sponge it out once a week, soap scum and all!!  Now that we know it works we will do the other side.

Juanita & Lucas with the Ambassador

The 9th of November was Gaynor's birthday and Andy and Juanita were in South Africa, from France, for Juanita's brothers wedding the week before, so we took the opportunity and combined a visit with them both.  We had a great braai with them and Juanita's family on the 5th, Juanita's birthday, great to catch up with everyone, then Andy, Juanita and I went to de Wildt Cheetah Centre, close to Hartbeesport.  Lucas, Juanita's nephew works there, and what an interesting place it is.  They actually rehabilitate Cheetah, Wild dog, Vultures and Caracal and have specific Cheetah that they train as "Ambassadors" - these are the ones they use for interactive sessions, we paid the extra and got to stroke one, though doing so on a table in a conference room just felt incredibly false.  

Albino Honey Badger

Then it was off to the honey badgers, they have an Albino one and true to form it is really ugly, poor thing, then onto the game vehicles and up to the top camp where there were three Cheetah's.  

We stopped along the way at two of the Wild Dog camps, as we were the bearers of food we were very popular, guess thats how they keep interest.  The Cheetah's took a bit of encouragement but they eventually paid us some attention before being shooed into their night camp and being fed.

Then we meandered back past the Wild dogs, past the two Hyena, really old poor things, stopping to feed the King Cheetah and friend, King Cheetah's are rare and their markings make them incredibly beautiful, past the Vultures, so sad to see how many are disabled either by power lines, being shot, etc, but these Vultures breed and their young are re-introduced back into the wild.  Then past the Caracal's who were not in the least interested in us, then into the last Cheetah camp, again dinner was a popular event.

The Centre runs various projects working in conjunction with farmers to help keep Cheetah's alive in the wild and it was a really worthwhile visit.  Hopefully we were able to contribute in some small way too.


We had a braai for Gaynor's birthday with a couple of friends and Leanne, Kylie and Grant, got to meet Grants other daughter Audrey-Lee and Kylie's new boyfriend Dylan.  We also saw the Browns one last time as they flew out on Sunday, think next time we see them will be when we sail to wherever they are.  Sunday saw us packing our bags and heading for Sandton - Doll.  We were scheduled to head back to Richards Bay on Sunday but Toyota needed Kevin to stay on until Wednesday, logistically this was a bit of a problem as Graeme and Michelle had other guests arriving on Sunday, poor things, they make everyone so welcome sometimes they end up like a guest house.  Well Toyota did not see any problem with this and booked us into the Garden Court Sandton, just up the road from the Gautrain station and their offices.  Kevin used the train two days running to commute to Sandton from Centurion, what an absolute pleasure, no traffic, speedy and comfortable traveling, wow!!!

Sandton City is quite an amazing place.  The Square with its huge Statue of Nelson Mandela never ceases to buzz.  All types of people, from all walks of life, in various forms of dress, speaking in many languages, mill around shopping or dining or just, like us, wandering and wondering.  We were not in a self catering hotel so dining out was mandatory.  There is no end to the choices of restaurants and types of cuisine, but there is something about the word Sandton that seems to add a rather large percentage extra onto the cost of the food and most especially the wine!!  We just pretended we were on holiday, well mostly me as Kevin had to work, poor thing.  I hopped onto the train on Tuesday and met Gaynor at the Centurion station, had lunch with her, then back on the train, still can't get over how easy this impressive, state of the art train makes traveling.  WELL DONE South Africa.

Kevin had committed, earlier in the year, to getting his Coastal Skippers qualification under his belt by October.  This means that we will be able to sail 40Nm off shore on the African Coast, negating the need for us to have someone with the same qualification on board whenever we want to sail somewhere over night, basically giving us our independence.  A couple of people showed interest in joining Kevin as it was a self study thing and as the year went by and Kevin got busy work wise, the studying fell by the wayside a bit.  Then out of the blue, while we were in Pretoria, Dave, who had made an appointment with the convener,  convinced Kevin to join them in the exam.  This was a little problem as we had none of the study material with us.  Fortunately Kevin is a natural at this sailing thing so the navigation was not really an issue, the Colregs (Collision Regulations for prevention of collision at sea) were a different kettle of fish though.  This is parrot fashion learning of lights, sounds, shapes, buoys and rules of the road.  Modern technology is a wonderful thing and I was able to download them off the internet and read them to Kevin as we were driving to Richards Bay, nearly had us both asleep!!  

Money Penny

Anyway, after a real cramming session on Thursday with Dave, they wrote the Navigation part of the exam on Thursday and the Colregs on Friday.  This was to be followed by an interview and practical.  Mike offered his 34foot monohull, Money Penny for use as the examining boat which was accepted by the examiner.  This left Kevin and Craig scrambling to sail on her in the race on Sunday as they had never sailed on her before, an interesting experience as she is a pretty quick, LITTLE racing boat, they came back exhausted.

On our way back from Sandton we made a stop in Pietermaritzburg to visit Aunty Min who had just been admitted to ICU as she had had a heart attack.  She was so surprised and happy to see us and we were glad to have been able to spend a little time with her.  Sadly, Aunty Min passed away on Sunday 17 November at 95 and all our hearts broke a little, what an amazing lady who touched the life of everyone she met in some way...

The next week we were in Hibberdene and had to leave on Wednesday as Thursday was the practical day of the Coastal Skippers course.  As we were leaving Duban we saw an interesting phenomenon, a rolling cloud in the sky with seriously stronger than predicted winds (apparently this is very rare).  We raced the winds back to Richards Bay and arrived just before it hit, winds of over 50knots in the harbor, saw moorings bend and buck and one of the boats on the chain moorings at the club came loose, fortunately not too much damage done, but wild it sure was.  The next day it rained the whole day.  The practical was pretty miserable, they ended up out in the bay for four hours in the pouring rain.  At least they passed.  Now Craig, Kevin and Dave are all Coastal Skippers, woo hoo.

African Wild Cat

Graeme and Nicole came to visit for a week, what fun.  Nicole and I went to the Emdoneni Cat rehabilitation centre on Saturday, they have Cheetah, African Wild cat, Serval and Caracal.  Again we were there at feeding time, only their cages are so small and close together you walk a couple of paces from one to another.  We watched the animals being fed - chickens this time, at de Wildt it was cubes and things, looked a bit like swill.  We got to stroke and fondle the Cheetah in the enclosure without paying extra, that was quite nice, got some awesome photos of the cats as we were on foot with them, not in a vehicle.  

A blurry shot of the
offending finger biter

There were two cages of Serval, two teenagers and some older.  The young ones are obviously quite playful and the guide removed his watch to use as a tug toy to play with one.  He asked Nicole if she would like to hold the watch which she did and - yup, it bit her finger.  Resulted in a tetanus injection and antibiotics, eish.  

Graeme came down armed to the hilt with fishing gear, determined to catch something.  We left early Sunday and sailed up to Cape Vidal and back.  Saw dolphins and a big whale on the way up and nearly had a collision with a baby whale on return.  On the way back Graeme finally got a big bite, which, after some fighting, snapped the twine and swam off with the lure!!  We spent the night on anchor at the club, they had a party with live music on the go and it was lovely to listen to from across the water.  We went fishing again on Wednesday, this time Kevin had his new rod and reel Christmas present and we took Alan and Chrissy with, Alan being the secret fish catching weapon.  Well, sad to report that between 4 rods and loads of chum, no bites whatsoever!!  Maybe its our boat?

This Saturday, being cloudy and a little rainy we spent the day in the Hluhluwe/Umfolozi Game Reserve.  Picnic breakfast, lunch at Hilltop Restaurant - bit weird as we were really high up and so were surrounded by cloud - lunch in a cloud :-)  Amongst the ellies and rhino and impala and giraffe etc that we saw, we were privileged to twice see a spotted hyena, that made our day.  Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes and messages, I was truly spoiled. 

Well its almost the middle of December, that time when those that haven't already gone on holiday, go on holiday.  To everyone, have a blessed, safe and peaceful Christmas and a really Happy New Year.  If you are traveling, please go safely. 

Hope everyone gets what they wanted for Christmas :-) - We're hoping for some sunshine!!

September and October 2013 (Richards Bay)

The end of October - wow!!  The shops are selling Christmas decorations and wrapping paper is in abundance at all till points.  Once again, my resolution to buy gifts throughout the year to avoid the onslaught on the bank account in December - most especially the 24th - has amounted to naught!!

Well September was a celebratory month indeed.  Saturday 14th was Kevin's birthday, always an excuse for a "do" and this year was no exception.  Louis of Malongane arrived the day before with a case of 2M beer, fresh from Mozambique.  Karl arrived on the day with a case of Hansa and the party was in full swing.  SARU were kind enough to organise a rugby match for the morning of the 14th televised at the club, with breakfast, easy enough.  Then a full day of beer drinking, fishing and playing with the dinghy ensued.  
This was topped off with a cocktail party that night at the club, including snacks.  Kevin and Chrissy (whose birthday was the 13th) were given a birthday present each from the Nautigals and guys, a team of volunteers at the club that get together to organise fund raisers for good causes.  This time they did a collection for Kevin and Chrissy and presented them with a voucher each for a Game Drive and breakfast/lunch at Thula Thula Game Reserve.  


We anchored our boat in the channel just outside of the club as there were no available moorings and had great fun surviving with our own means, traveling back and forth in our tender boat.


Sunday morning was the Opening Season sail and first Sunday Sailing Race of the new season.  How amazing it was to see over 30 vessels, power boats, yachts, dinghies, even one of the foreign visitors joined in with their Catamaran and Karl went out on his own on Destiny, an all time record at the club.  We did the usual spin past Rod and Michelle our new Commodore and wife, then the water fights, then the Sunday Race.  All followed up with a braai and drinks.  

Tuesday was our wedding anniversary and Kevin decided to use his gift voucher, booked and paid for an extra one (me) and we went and did a Game Drive and lunch at Thula Thula. Thula Thula (www.thulathula.com) is a Game Reserve made famous by its late owner Lawrence Anthony and the rogue herd he adopted and which he tamed and now live freely on his reserve, the novel "The Elephant Whisperer" is the story of the herd, why they were so dangerous, how they were nearly destroyed and how Lawrence brought them around.  When he died of a heart attack in 2012 the elephants came to the house for three days to pay their respects and to mourn and they came and presented his widow the new babies, just like they did when they accepted Lawrence at the beginning.  

After spending time at this wonderful Reserve I am going to buy the book, I had already bought it once for a gift and never read it, now I want to.  They have two orphan rhino on the Reserve as well and it is sad to see that they have armed guards following them around the Reserve 24/7.  These guards have twice thwarted poaching attempts, once resulting in one of the rhinos being shot in the leg.  Being so used to human company they are naturally inquisitive and not afraid of people, so they are happy to get close to have their photos taken and they wander around the restaurant where patrons sit on the balcony, amazing.  All I can say is, we are going back!!  Our friends Chrissy and Alan used their voucher last week and had the rare experience of being charged repeatedly during their game drive by Mabula, one of the male elephants, what an experience.  The video clip is on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxA2H0h8Jok 

At the entrance to the estate

Waterbuck on the hill,
estate in background

We promised our friend Janet a visit, she lives in Nelspruit in a huge house situated on a stunning Nature Reserve, home to Kudu, Impala, Giraffe, Zebra, Waterbuck, Duiker, etc .  We made a trip of it, arrived there on Thursday afternoon and whilst Kevin worked 






I spent a day and a half playing with the 7 puppies she was fostering, as well as their mommy, her kids two puppies and their male dog Jack - 11 in total - heaven!!  













Saturday saw Janet, Kevin and I heading for the Kruger National Park, great excitement for me as I had never stayed over night in the Park before.  


Our aim - to find Leopard.  Leanne had been there a few weeks before and had lovely photos of animals, not least of which were a couple of awesome shots of Leopards and we wanted to find them too!!  Saturday was stinking hot, the temperature outside rose to 46 deg C and the aircon was battling.  Needless to say most of the animals were hiding under trees in the shade.  We still managed to find some lovely elephants and rhino and a fish eagle (very exciting), hippo's, a leopard kill in a tree, and as we headed to our camp for the night we spotted the Sable, a rare sight causing great celebrations.  

Yes, those are crocodiles!!

A braai in the bush under the trees with good wine and laughs and the animal noises in the background made it a day to remember.  Up early the next morning we spotted the Sable again, then on rounding a corner found a male elephant who wasn't too happy with us as company, flapping his ears and stomping - rather rude - so we decided to let him have his way and quietly reversed back the way we came and took another road.  Saw more rhino, elephants, lions, buck, giraffe, baboons, but the Leopard remained elusive.  

Eventually it was time to head for the exit and we took the long way round and that proved to be the right choice, there they were, mother and teenage cub Leopard, we were so excited :-)  What a weekend, we will be back, next is Cheetah!


Back home and the face of the wrek of the M/V Smart has changed.  After having successfully removed the coal, the authorities have, after 3 days of non-stop drag by two huge tugs and ropes, managed to pry the back of the wrek loose of the sand and drag it out to deeper waters and sink it.  We are now left with the remaining front, not sure when that is going to go.

Had a giggle at Kevin, we were taking photos, in the rain, of one of the visiting yachts for the news letter.  Under pressure Kevin whips his cell phone out of his pocket to take a photo with that, forgetting that in the same pocket he had earlier stuffed two R200 notes which, as per Murphy, flew out and landed in the water.  Whilst we desperately willed them closer, Neptune was having none of it and they started to sink.  Nothing left but for Kevin to strip down to his shorts and in he jumped - money laundering at its utmost!!  Summer is pretty much here and we are able to enjoy the outdoors again, had a lovely braai at the club, overlooking the channel, life really is good...

Kevins work has been progressing with Toyota and we have been traveling up and down to Hibberdene, it is only 45mins from my mom's house to work for him, versus 2 hours from Richards Bay.  Nice as we spend a couple of days and catch up on happy hour, the CRAFT club, bingo, bowling, and Kevin generally gets to do a bit of freelance computer fixing, always a welcome break.

We have re-mounted the fitting to the deck and our sail is back in commission again.  

Two Sundays ago we woke up at 6am and decided it was perfect weather for sailing so off we went, wind of around 20 - 25knots was awesome to sail in, of course the first sip of coffee 

I took from my mug blew right up into my face!  but we had a wonderful time.  

The club sail was taking place at 11am and on our return leg to join them we were escorted by a pod of dolphins swimming in the wake and bows of our boat, so exciting and just incredible.  We saw many whales too although it is coming to the end of whale season so they will be moving off soon.  







We had an exciting morning at the club on Friday 18 October as SABC2 broadcast their morning live program from the Yacht Club.  They had organised for a couple of guys to be fishing (a challenge as the rain came in sheets and the poor guys had to keep running for shelter) and some of the Stand Up Paddlers to be out on the water and Nomad the charter catamaran to do a sail past.  


Kevin and I were there at 4.30 to help with setting up, then at 6.30 we snuck back to our boat and headed out to the channel outside the yacht club to try to appear in the background of the broadcast as well.  Not sure if we made t.v. but wasn't for lack of trying :-)


Our bakkie is finally sold.  The little Micra ended up at Nissan for a couple of weeks as the wheel bearings needed replacement and the bakkie was put back into service again, obviously wasn't meant to be sold until we didn't need it any more.  Once we had the Micra back and all in one piece again, we received an offer that was acceptable and off she went, kinda sad :-(

Poor Gaynor ended up doing a stint in hospital, she ended up with hyper-thyroidism or Gravy's disease.  Her body was basically attacking her thyroid as it was over-producing and this was causing her pulse to race, dangerously high.  The specialist admitted her straight to hospital as a precaution and gave her a radioactive iodine pill which should destroy the majority of the thyroid, then the normal functions of the thyroid will be duplicated by medication for the rest of her life.  This is apparently an almost common ailment and those that have it suffer no long term affects (not even glowing in the dark!!).  

Fishing is becoming a big thing, my freezer now has to have a specific area for "bait" - frozen prawns and squid and sardines - and we head out into the channel trying for that ever-elusive shad!! theres still lots of puffer fish lol!!  After a day of glorified fish feeding, I am sure it would be easier to just throw all the bait in the water than to keep neatly tying it onto a hook and throwing in the water, only for the hook to come back empty, but seemingly I don't appreciate the delicacies of angling!  So we get back to our mooring, empty handed, not even a bite and Kevin decides to let the fish here nibble the last bait off his hook and voila, he nabs himself a neat little bream/stumpnose.  Made him throw it back of course, but we have photographic evidence that there ARE fish in Richards Bay.

It has been 3 years since we purchased our life raft and it required servicing to remain in date for our certifications so we took it to Viking in Durban.  As we had been advised by everyone, we got them to open it in front of us so that we at least know what our liferaft will look like if we ever need it and what it has in it.  Amazing how big it is, and now we know how it opens, makes us feel a bit more confident in our equipment and also realise that those dog biscuits they supply ain't gonna impress no one so extra food better be in the grab bag.



That time of year again also means the internationals start arriving en masse.  This is the time they cross the Indian Ocean, arrive in South Africa and make their way to Cape Town ready to cross to Brazil or just hide out in South Africa til hurricane season is over, then head back to Mozambique.  Our international arrivals area is starting to fill up!!

Cheers for now, happy shopping everyone :-)