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| Winter is not for sissies!! |
Winter
is setting in – that Cape Town winter that I have so dreaded, so far so good….
The
water in the Marina is usually crystal clear, all the way to the bottom, this
gave us the perfect view of a really fishy visitor, under the boat as we awoke
– a really cute seal who kept us entertained for at least an hour J
Unfortunately
we are not having a lot of joy with the work we need to have carried out on the
boat. We have bashed our heads over and over with the seat post, a job that has now taken over two months, the guys in the back yard in Inhaca were so much more efficient!! The
fiberglass quote and cost of being on the hard are extremely high and we have
decided to take a step backward and explore other options. This unfortunately means we will not be able
to do any work before the end of winter, probably September, so in the meantime
we will get the boat sailable, do as many of the small jobs as we can and have
a bit of fun sailing when the weather allows.
We
were back from Japan for a week and headed west for the Easter weekend. We booked into a really lovely Guest House in
Port Owen for two nights and did some exploring of the marina’s and Yacht Clubs
on the West Coast, in preparation for moving around there.
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| Port Owen Marina |
We
started at Port Owen Yacht Club, unique in its member status, not long ago it
was in danger of closing as most of the members were in their 90’s, brought
down by one who was in his 70’s. They
have a lovely club house and we were in time for a market on the Saturday,
unfortunately we missed socialising in the bar as it closed early and for the weekend.
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| Kevin enjoying the solitude @ Port Owen |
The Yacht Club does
not run the marina and moorings, this is managed separately by the water
front. The moorings are all the way at
the end of the Berg river, leaving them very well protected and they are busy
upgrading all the walk-on’s to floating pontoons. Kevin felt really at home here – the marina,
not the club ha ha.
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| Saldanha Moorings |
We
travelled to Saldanha Yacht Club, a popular stop for yachties, especially those
leaving South Africa as you can clear out of the country here and this is the
best place to depart toward Port Owen, Luderitz or St Helena from. They have a great club house and seem a
fantastic bunch of people, but no fixed moorings, only mooring buoys, for which
they charge fixed mooring rates. We are
a little concerned about leaving the boat swinging unattended on a buoy while
we travel, on those trips that I join Kevin, so will have to play this one by
beer. I really liked it here.
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| Paternoster Market |
A
quick stop at Paternoster on the way, such an interesting name and such an
interesting little town.
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| Langebaan Lagoon |
Then
to Langebaan Yacht Club. Also a stunning
club yet not the friendliest people, but it was the Easter Weekend and they
were exceptionally busy so maybe it will be better another time. No fixed moorings or mooring buoys here
though, in fact little to no protection whatsoever from the elements. A nice place to sail to, from other clubs,
methinks.
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| Club Mykanos Marina |
Next
was Club Mykanos. This is a Greek
theamed glitzy, loud, popular holiday and timeshare destination so the
restaurants and shops in the complex are humming with activity but the marina
is pretty private with good quality fixed moorings and great protection from
the elements.
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| Our Joy in Club Mykanos Marina |
Amazing to find two boats
from Richards Bay that have made this their new home, Anabella and Our Joy. We would probably seriously consider a period
of time here, preferably out of season, only their waiting list seems really
long, will have to get on it and see.
Kevin
has been really busy with Skype meetings with Poland programmers and putting
proposals together for work that might see him travelling to other parts of the
East, exciting stuff for him. We also
had a great day at Jakkalsfontein visiting Carel and Lizinda, lots to catch up
on and a most beautiful setting to do so.
On our way in we stopped at the Farmstall which sells produce from local
wineries, bought a bottle of Port and Jeripico to help ward off the winter
chills, only got one bottle of each so winter better be over soon coz they
nearly are!!!
Amazingly
the wind dropped for a couple of days so we decided to head out for a putt
around False Bay, to Seal Island. No
wind in False Bay seems to mean FOG however, and we left in what we thought was
clearing fog but which left us sailing for a couple of hours without being able
to see more than a couple of meters around the boat. Gave us a good reason to use all the
navigation
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| Seal Island & Cage Diving boat |
skills we have learned on our courses, plotting and planning our
course on a paper chart in case of instrument failure, interesting. Eventually it cleared and we warmed up a bit
and managed a bit of sailing, just nice to be out on the water again. No sharks or whales, but a couple of penguins
and many seals and some Cage Shark Diving charter boats.
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| New & old engine mounts |
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| New engine mount in place, stopping water |
We
uncovered a disturbing situation – we replaced the engine mounts and when Kevin
removed the mounting bolts from the engine bay on the starboard side he had a
rather strong surge of sea water into the boat, indicating some form of hull
breach causing a leak. Once the new
mounts were installed and the bolts re-secured the leak stopped but this is not
a good situation so the boat will come out of the water on Thursday 30 April
for the weekend, back on Monday afternoon, during which time we will clean and
apply anti-foul and find and fix the source of the leak and get back in the
water (in theory that is).
A
visit to Cape Town by old sailing friends Barry and Lola and Rauen and Kyle of
S/V Yrumour kept us busy and amused, so great to catch up. Looks likely that we
will see more of them in the future when Rauen is accepted to Stellenbosch
University.
Add to this a flying visit
from Bob Arthur and family, visiting from Adelaide, Australia, taking advantage
of Bob’s daughter Kim’s wedding for a holiday in South Africa.
We
then made a quick trip up to Pretoria, via Kimberley on the way up, stopping at
Kambro in the Karoo overnight. This was
a truly South African outback experience, very basic accommodation and food, a
lovely shop selling all sorts
of home made items and pickles and preserves,
great gift ideas.
We
finally got to test drive the guest room at Villa Weston, felt like being home
again, thanks guys (especially Nicole for the amazing waffles).
I had fun at the stables where Gaynor works as Instructor on one
of the Pony Camp days, got to play with Cara (little dawg) and pigs and rabbits
and ducks and chickens and geese and horses, went home smelly and dusty,
awesome :-)
We spent some time with Marge who had what we
hope is a successful re-do of her foot op and squeezed in time with the rest of
the family.
In true us style, two days
before leaving Kevin finds a really worthwhile deal in the Autotrader – a 2010
Terios with only 15 000 km’s on the clock – genuine!! So in between everything we (thanks to all
for help, especially our “Landlady”) managed to trade our little Micra in and
return to Cape Town in a really comfortable chariot. I foresee a couple of road trips in our
future, while work is effected on Maxscene, and a more suitable mode of
transport for Gaynor once we leave South Africa, the Garage owner told her she
would kill a Micra!!
The
trip back was via Bloemfontein, stopping overnight at a great Guest House – Spes
Bona - in Colesburg. We were the only
patrons so there was no one to complain at us watching the rugby, rather
noisily, after a great dinner at The Plattelander Restaurant . Traditional food delux, even pampoen fritters. Although it was a really quick and busy trip
we had lots of fun…
So
now, out she comes. Our dear friend
Eileen jumped once more to the rescue, insisting we stay at her house while Maxscene
is out on the hard. I am particularly
grateful as toilets and sinks etc cannot be used while on the hard and I was a
tad pensive about maneuvering down the steps in the dark on the way to the loo
in the club!!
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Removing the boot to gain access to the
shaft where the hole is |
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| The hole circled in red |
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New boot installed once repair was
complete |
Our
time on the hard was most certainly not wasted.
Firstly we found the offending hole in the shaft of the sail drive leg,
lining right up with a hole that had been drilled in the bottom surround of the
shaft under the protective boot, a mishap that we can only assume must have
happened during construction, fortunately it was not as serious as it could
have been. Kevin repaired that
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| Drain and hole |
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| Sika'ed back in place and sealed |
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| Straw drainage |
then we
did some more investigating as we had a little puzzle, a little fountain of
water that would spurt up through a pin hole the shelf in the passage whenever
we were at sea. We traced it back to the
sink outlet, discovering this had never been sika’ed in or sealed properly and
there was a hole on the side of the drain cavity, into the chine. A straw was employed – clever piece of
engineering – and for an hour water was drained from the chine.
Minor repairs were carried out on the
starboard transom which had minor damage from bashing the walk-on really hard
in a big blow.
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| Sail drive oil changed |
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| Anodes replaced |
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Tertius assisting with sail drive
service |
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| Spraying off growth |
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| Needing a clean |
The
chandlery guys high pressure washed the hulls, after which we scraped off all
barnacles, stubborn growth and flaking old anti-foul paint. We serviced the sail drives, sanded and
spruced up the propellers, removed, serviced and re-installed the through hull
fittings and both hulls were given two good coats of anti-foul. By Sunday night we were done, Monday at high
tide we were unceremoniously tossed back in the water, no leaks and a very much
happier boat and owners – definitely better floating. A huge amount of respect for the guys and
equipment here at False Bay Yacht Club, a slick, controlled and professional
operation from haul out to re-launching.
Unfortunately it doesn’t matter how good the operation though, the
nerves take a serious pounding, really stressful. Thank heavens it all went without a hitch.
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| Looking beautiful again |
Between
the clean bum and the water drained from the engine bed and the chine NOW we
should go like a rocket :-).
Kevin
is off to Japan on the weekend, for three weeks and once he is back we can hopefully get to do
some sailing, its coming into whale season and who knows we might get lucky……
