It is already the middle of February, two months of 2014 have just evaporated!!! Christmas and the whole festive season also seemed to just whizz past. We were fortunate that Kevin needed to be at Toyota for two days just before Christmas and they put us up in a stunning B&B in Amanzimtoti - Ocean View, and they aren't kidding, it has the most magnificent balcony right on the beach, pity we were only there for one night!! Spent a day shopping for Christmas presents, with some assistance from Kylie and Dylan, for which we were all rewarded with lunch, Christmas shopping really is hard work, but I think I got good ones this year.
We became the "Love Boat" over December, very cute, on the 24th of December Jaco popped the "will you marry me" question to Nadine, 6 months to the day after they met, on our boat, and the answer was a resounding yes, followed by some tears and washed down with champagne.
Did my nerves a turn as Jaco had placed the ring in her glass of champagne and they were sitting on the front of the yacht by the trampolines and I had visions of her spitting the ring out and it bouncing overboard as things tend to do on the front of our boat and there we are sailing around the harbor, would never have found it again!!! Jaco was so organised, he had arranged with us a month before, then he brought champagne and glasses, cooked omelettes for everyone for breakfast and he had convinced Nadine that they needed to do a sunrise cruise to celebrate - something - we left the mooring at 04:30 as Nadine had to be at work by 08:00. Then as Nomad had left to take part in the Cape to Rio yacht race, there was a problem with a bride and groom that desperately wanted to take a harbour cruise with the wedding party and take their wedding photos and it HAD to be on a catamaran. We were asked really nicely if we would be willing to help, so on 28 December it was up and spit and shiny polish our boat ready for the show. Somehow things just never seem to go as planned though do they? On the phone we told the bride that we could only take 10 extra people, beside ourselves, on a harbour cruise, this is due to safety regulations such as number of life jackets, etc. Also the cruise was weather dependent and the wind was schedule to blow a gale at 16:00 that afternoon, should have been ok as they were going to be with us 15:00 - 16:00. We tried, unsuccessfully, to get it earlier but as per normal with weddings everything runs late, then to add insult to injury there was a power failure throughout Richards Bay so they were made even later by the lack of traffic lights. Eventually they got to us at 15:30, the wind had already swung and was starting to howl and they started streaming onto the boat, totaling 16, it seems that kids and the photographer do not count as passengers!!!! Kevin took a really good call and told them we would not be leaving the mooring as it was not very safe in those weather conditions so they took photos on our boat and left for the reception. So funny to see 13 pairs of eyes large as saucers, belonging to 13 bums sitting in the cockpit at the back of the boat, all too terrified to move, causing the back to sag quite alarmingly. The Bride and Groom had their photo session on the front and then they headed off to the Protea Hotel for the reception.
The international boats were making a steady flow out of Richards Bay, heading for Cape Town and eventually across the Atlantic. Our friends Phillipa and Kevin on Wanda left just before Christmas, not before Phillipa spoiled us with a beautiful show of Christmas Carols played on her violin - she used to be a violin teacher back in the UK. We got a chefs hat and Christmas oven mitt from Chrissy and Alan which came in handy for lunch. We got our stuff together and on Christmas morning we headed out in the direction of the Jolly Rubino wreck, determined that at some point we were going to get
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| Jolly Rubino Wreck |
to it, it is a wreck that sticks quite far out of the water, just south of Cape St Lucia, and every time we attempt to head up there we seem to end up turning back early for various reasons. Christmas day was no exception, the wind and waves made it very uncomfortable to keep going so we turned about half way up and popped our chicken in the oven then headed home, getting hungrier by the minute. (We did eventually make it all the way to the Jolly Rubino on 29 January 2014, one off the bucket list).We dropped anchor in the bay with two other yachts from the club and enjoyed a yummy lunch of chicken and salads and were entertained by many of "Richards Bay's finest" (our fond term for the loons that seem to pop out of the woodwork over weekends) who were enjoying themselves on the banks of Naval Island, they had obviously gotten into the spirits a while before we did, most amusing :-) especially the guy who was doing his best crab impersonation, falling face first into the water then crawling out nose first in the sand...
We had a lovely week of sailing and lazing around, even put up one of our hammocks, last years Christmas presents to us. It is as heavenly as it looks in those adverts, loved it.
We took our boat to the yacht club for New Years, had a lovely evening with friends, dreadful 2 man band that played but guess that bad music is better than none at all for a party. The club was full, lots of families braaiing and kids running around and everyone just having fun. Midnight was the usual horrid fireworks and flares and after a quick Cape Velvet with the Crichtons we tossed our lines and headed back to Tuzi Gazi. Arrived here to OJ from the luxury yacht Isis's birthday celebrations so we popped over to have a quick drink with them then bed as we were leaving for Centurion on the 1st.
Had a wonderful week, spent time with Gaynor, helped her sort out her business ventures and to get her horse, Smelly, transported to Volksrust where he is going to be in semi-retirement. He is living on a marvelously huge farm with other retired horses, some of whom he knows from Centurion, in big paddocks with grass and shelter and trees and all things horses love. Our very best friend and vet Gin is also the resident vet in Volksrust so we know he is in exceptionally good hands. The switch over to the new system at Toyota went very well, only a few gliches, another feather in Kevin's cap.
When we got back we conducted our own experiment - to see how long we could survive without buying anything from the shops. We got really inventive, made salads with tinned green beans and chick peas and mayo, fish cakes with tinned tuna and tinned potatoes, even tried soya mince which wasn't too bad. We baked a loaf of bread which lasted two days and ate what meat we had in the freezer. We went shopping on the fourth day as we had run out of some necessaries, but we didn't do bad at all considering it was not planned and catered for, purely a spur of the moment idea.
We were back nearly two weeks and then Nicole and Gaynor came to visit. What a ball, we loved having them and Bronte, our friends Ully and Vanessa's daughter was almost as excited about them being here, think she is fed up with mom and dad's company. We did great boat trips in and out of the harbour and dropped anchor so that they could swim in the sea.
We did half price sushi on Wednesday at Porky's - they make the best sushi - and we popped to St Lucia one day for lunch followed by a cruise on the St Lucia estuary to see hippos and crocs.
We were not disappointed by the hippos, were able to get up close, but seems the crocs are in short supply right now. Not too many complaints actually. Took Gaynor and Nicole to the Protea Hotel Imvubu Lodge where they have a resident croc so that at least they got to see that Richards Bay really does have crocs. 
Somewhere in that week Mickey, a crew member from Endless Summer, needed a bit of baby sitting and Kevin happily stepped up to the plate for a couple of hours.They also did a bit of SUPping (Stand Up Paddling),
a favorite past time around here, they all did really well
for their first time. One thing that became obvious about Richards Bay is that whilst we have wonderful places of interest such as St Lucia, Cape Vidal, Hluhluwe Game Reserve, etc...., there is a distinct lack of club/disco venues. We have awesome restaurants, a number on the water front at the Marina and one with a stunning view of the harbour. There is a lot for active people, sailing - as crew on yachts or dinghy sailing, fishing, canoeing and kayaking, SUPping, surfing, cycling, in fact there is no end to the outdoor activities available, but there are only two nightclub type venues, one that seems to cater mainly for lang-arm/sakkie sakkie (a form of dancing that looks like a cross between ballroom and windsurfing)
and one that plays really loud music and serves drinks. The one other place that used to be open was closed over December for trading without a liquor license, also a really loud joint but renowned for being a drug supply centre so most of us older folks are happy it is no longer. It is a common complaint from kids just out of school that there is nothing to do - didn't seem to bother Gaynor and Nicole over much, thankfully. Missed them as soon as they were on that bus!!!!
Richards Bay is an interesting little town indeed, real blue collar workers and as such some pretty rough and tough people. We had a boat called Two Amigos which arrived, caused a flurry of interest as its Port of Registration is Dana Point, this is where Kevin's brother Rodney has just moved so Kevin wasted no time sending him a photo. A couple of days later Captain Dave - the Australian skipper of the yacht Eliana returned from his brief holiday back home and just before departing for Cape Town warned us that one of the Two Amigos crew was an exceptionally loud and overbearing person, he had met them in marina's between Australia and South Africa and one of them made himself very unpopular everywhere.  |
| Crew from Galavanter on their way |
Funnily enough, we ran into the Skipper and crew of another American yacht, Galavanter, at the club who repeated that "this guy was the most obnoxious American he had ever encountered", he and crew on the other hand were a real fun crowd of guys, I think I feel really sorry for the friend and other Amigo, guess it takes all types....
While we were out sailing this weekend we got to practice a couple of things, I tacked twice just me and Bongani (the auto pilot) with Kevin watching and I hove to - a means of keeping the yacht still in the sea - basically pulling up the hand brake, and I put two reefs in the sail on my own - reducing the size of the sail when the wind gets stronger. Our skills are improving all the time, building our confidence in our ability to manage the boat on our own.
So now we are getting ready for a brief diving trip to Sodwana at the end of February then Inhaca in April, this time we are going for two weeks. We have had some severely hot days lately, true Jan/Feb weather in the Bay - 37.4degrees Celsius with 36% humidity. 
We have replaced the plugs on both sides of our power cable, hopefully we have the power outages under control now. We also removed and re-seated the big front window in the saloon as it had started leaking.
The fishing attempts continue with great gusto. Kevin finally caught a plastic bag on his new rod with his nice new lure. In fairness there was a very tiny, dead, little fish inside the bag. Karl managed to get a real fish off his boat in the harbour.
We also finally took the plunge and went to the Hot Rods, they take place on the last Saturday of every month. We are very impressed that we think we have finally discovered the nest from where most of Richards Bay's finest drivers emanate!! 
Kevin finally got his Coastal Skippers card, its all official.
The club carried out a memorial sail for Nelson Mandela with a tribute being read out on Channel 6 on the radio by Dave Savides, the local Chaplain AND editor of the Zululand Observer, our local news paper. Somehow we ended up being in the foreground for the photos and got ourselves in the paper, we are almost famous :-). |
| An excerpt from one of the news letters from the history of the club which we found amusing. |
Hope everyone had a great time over Christmas too... Bye for now :-)
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| Awesome shot Kevin took of our "Back yard" |
