Our Christmas decorations are up, this year the little
Christmas tree even got little lights, modern technology is amazing!
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| Jeddah |
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| Very brown in Jeddah |
We haven’t managed to be quite as productive as we had
hoped as Kevin was sideswiped with a tough job in Jeddah, Saudi, which sees him
on site for two weeks and home for one and the depth of trouble the contract is
in means much time at the grindstone with minimal downtime and is compounded by
 |
| Festival of Beer |
the fact that it’s a really difficult place to work, the cultural differences
are huge and hard to acclimatise to, but he makes the most of it, after the last
trip we re-introduced him to alcohol in style at the Cape Town Festival of beer.
One of the first jobs undertaken in Saldanha was to start
undoing the damage caused by months of work and good old Cape Town harbour dust
and grime. After hours of scrubbing and
washing MaXScene is finally looking fairly beautiful again (the severe water
shortage in Cape Town does not allow the luxury of being able to wash her with
fresh water).
Andrew and Sandra took advantage of the long weekend in
October and came to visit, which gave us the excuse to check out one or two of
the local West Coast attractions such as the Sandstone Café, it’s claim to
edible culinary fame is fish and chips, it’s wine menu is severely limited and
it’s music is most appreciated by the waiter who fancies himself karaoke king
but “location, location, location”, it’s biggest attraction is the fact that it’s
right on the beach front overlooking the bay.
We had our first sail around the bay, down to Skaap Eiland and Saldanha
Bay Yacht Club, spotting many seals and some penguins along the way. |
| Muisbosskerm |
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| So many beers so little time |
A “quick” 4 hour round trip to Muisbosskerm for lunch (we
didn’t realise it was that far but it was worth the journey) and a trip to
Darling to the Brewery where there is a huge range of craft beers for tasting
and yummy food as well as the Darling Olive farm for Olive tasting, a really
enlightening experience.
The sewing machine saga became a bit of a patience tester,
it turned out the brand new machine we purchased was in fact a second hand one
and ended up taking nearly two months to finally be replaced with a brand new
machine. 
This is definitely the answer
however and the new Heavy Duty Singer has been churning out a whole lot of new
charcoal covers and rope bags.
We experienced a little nostalgia as Anabella, a 44 foot
Lagoon Catamaran arrived for a haul out.
Anabella was our neighbour at Zululand Yacht Club in Richards Bay for 8
months before she was sold and moved to Mykanos Marina, how amazing to see the
two of them together again.
Just before Kevin’s first trip to Saudi, we attended the
opening season sail at RCYC on Sungazer with friends Des and Jenny.
Much fun and laughter as Linda our favourite
waitress literally jumped on board as we were leaving for the bay, sail past in
the V&A which is always impressive and then a function in the Regatta
Centre of the Club afterward.
The tender boat got a much needed clean, together with a
sprucing up of both the outboard motors which were then sold to make way for
the new beefy 9.9 hp motor that we bought on show special at this years Cape
Town Boat Show. 
After dropping the two
motors off in St Helena Bay with their new owner, we stopped at Voorstrandt
restaurant in the picturesque town of Paternoster for lunch. On the way out of town a couple of kids no
older than 9 threw half bricks at our car causing a couple of thousand rands
worth of dents, little shits, lucky for them they ran pretty fast!!
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| Chrissy & Alan our neighbours once again |
Our friends Chrissy and Alan on Sundowner Rose returned to
Cape Town from their sailing trip to Ascension Island, via St Helena
Island. What fun catching up and hearing
stories of their travels and adventures, then they sailed up to Saldanha and
are once again our neighbours. 
A flying visit to Pretoria saw me attending Juanita’s 50th
birthday party, so many people I know turned 50 this year, 1967 was a really
good year – hmm like wine, we just get better with age – oh and yes I like wine
😊
The Clipper and Volvo Ocean Races both had a stop in Cape
Town. The Clipper Race has 12 Yachts
that Race around the world, the wrong way, starting in Liverpool, Cape Town was
their 3rd stop. Around 40% of
the participants of this race have never sailed before, they are people who
have normal jobs and a dream of sailing. They undergo a week of tough training before being considered for
selection, then if selected they take part in either the entire race or the
specific legs they choose to do. 
The
interesting thing is the participants pay (not are paid) to take part, the full
circumnavigation would cost £49 500 (including the fee for the training week)
and a leg would cost between £5500 and £7000 depending on which leg and an
extra £6000 for the compulsory first weeks training, guess you’ve got to be
really passionate about sailing. Sadly
one of the yachts ended up on the rocks at Cape Point shortly after the start from
Table Bay but the yacht Dare to Lead, captained by South African skipper Dale Smyth
is still doing splendidly.
To quote Robin Knox-Johnson, the Founder and Chairman of
the Clipper Race “It is still a truly unique yacht race, open to anyone
nomatter how experienced or inexperienced, no matter how old, no matter what
background. People take on the Clipper Race because they have a desire that
sets them apart. They want to live life
to the full”.
The Volvo Ocean Race is much faster and more intense, 7 well
oiled racing sailing machines, they are one-design Volvo Ocean 65s sailed by
the worlds best professional ocean racers.
It also circumnavigates, only they sail from Alicante finishing in
the Hague. We were able to see the exciting
start of the Cape Town to Melbourne leg in Table Bay. |
| New Rockner Anchor |
Just before they left the wind blew
(literally) solo sailor Barry Kennedy on his yacht Spailpin in for repairs to
his motor. A helicopter pilot from
Colorado, he related many funny stories and provided much entertainment.
Des and Jenny and a couple of their friends popped to
Langebaan for a weekend so we picked them up and got a guided tour to Kraalbaai
(Des is an old hand at finding his way through the channels) which is a
beautiful lagoon-side space in the West Coast National Park. We are hoping to spend quite a bit of time
living on anchor here before we leave. |
| My big surprise |
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| That cake was good |
Early December was my 50th birthday and whilst I
was hoping it would quietly slip by unnoticed my wonderful friends and family
had other ideas. Gaynor and Kevin had
organised the best surprise I could have asked for - Gaynor herself, she was at
the airport when we went to fetch Nicole and Henko who arrived for a
visit.
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| That face says it all, its damn cold! |
There were presents and a
beautiful, huge carrot cake organised by Chrissy and the ladies in the office
at Yachtport and I was made to feel very special and spoiled by all, including
visiting sailing schools and the skipper of one of the ARC boats.
We had a super cruise/sail down to Kraalbaai
again with champagne brunch and swimming followed by dinner at Kokomo’s in
Langebaan, a huuuuugge day. A big thanks to everyone who took time to call or message with wishes, they made me feel very special. |
| Kokomo's for dinner |
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| Wine tasting in Darling |
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| How to track buck |
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| Making fire with 2 sticks |
Des and Jenny and Sungazer have arrived to join us in this
little piece of paradise for a couple of months. The water is still so clear, the seals
provide non stop entertainment with their adept fishing skills and quirky
little expressions, the birds are amazing, so many cormorants, a goliath heron,
unspoiled beauty at its finest.
I saw three ships come sailing in on Christmas day, in the
morning…
So, from us and ours to you and yours, have fun, stay safe
and may the best of 2017 be the worst of 2018.
Cheers all…..
