Mid November - December 2015 (Royal Cape Yacht Club - Cape Town)

From one mountain to another J  Momentarily deserting the long awaited longer, warmer, days of Cape Town, we are back in Japan for two weeks.

Hard to believe it was only 4 weeks ago that I was enjoying a Thursday night market at the Cape Point Winery with Eileen, Jerry and Judy (Kevin was still in Japan).  A picturesque, warm evening, paired with an awesome sun set and glasses of Splattered Toad Syrah - great company and food and a good deed for conservation, all boxes checked…..

These poor guys had goosebumps
it was chilly!!

Hawaiin traditional dances

Saturday 14 November was the official Hokula’e (Polynesian sailing vessel) welcoming to Cape Town at V&A, (she actually arrived in Cape Town on Thursday 12 Nov) 

Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu
greeting public

Hokula'e and support yacht Gershon II

with Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu and Rev Mpho Tutu representing the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation (www.tutu.org.za), the American Ambassador, a representative of Patricia de Lille, Mayor of Cape Town and traditional South African dancers, supported by a delegation of Hawaiian students who performed traditional Hawaiian dances and songs. Desmond Tutu gave this project his blessing in Hawaii at its inception in 2013, even having a short sail on Holula’e before she left on her voyage.

Navigators hammock - he's spoiled

Held together with rope

Sunday we finally got the long anticipated tour of Hokula’e.  The crew all train in Hawaii, skipper and navigator are experienced and have been sailing her for many years, the rest of the crew are all ages and come from all walks of life.  The crew do not do the whole 

circumnavigation which is anticipated to take around 5-6 years, they do legs in order that many people can have the experience (apparently there is quite a lot of enthusiasm), most of the current crew were scheduled to be replaced before she departs South Africa. 

Kitchen Utensil Store

Chef and Kitchen Stove

The boat is Polynesian but was sailed to and used in Hawaii, thus crewed and the awareness campaign funded and staffed etc by Hawaiians.  Menus and provisioning are planned by Head Office in Hawaii, shopping lists are then sent to local embassies and filled,

 then packed in boxes in order - breakfast, lunch, dinner for day 1, 2, etc.  Dinners are usually the only meal that gets cooked and these are done by a Japanese chef in the “Kitchen” box. 

Little yellow bed

Sleeping takes place on 10 tiny hard mattresses, 5 on each side, under two tent like shelters on either side of the deck.  As there are usually 12 and up crew this means hot bunking, no private space whatsoever.  When the weather gets really bad they “man up”, don their foul weather gear and battle through what nature throws at them.  

Heavy rudder oar

Steering is done by means of a huge rudder off the back of the boat, very heavy and requires more than one person to control when underway.  This rudder is assisted by two smaller ones that fulfill a daggerboard type of role.  

Curtain providing privacy for ablutions

Ablutions, that was the best, two little areas rear port and starboard with a little curtain for privacy.  Washing or “showering” is done by means of a bucket of sea water, there is no space for fresh water tanks or a watermaker on this vessel so the only extra water they carry is for drinking.  

Ablution area from outside

Tie on, hang off - loo
See bucket in corner for washing

The toilet - clip on a harness and attach it, securely, onto the side of the boat, then hang over the side.  The reason there are two areas are so that you can hang over on the lee side, you don’t want to be doing your business into the wind!!!!

Hokula’e is as close to original as possible.  It would be irresponsible to take on a trip of this magnitude and not make use of some modern conveniences such as navigation equipment, solar panels and a spinnaker, but for all intents and purposes everything else is authentic, thus no creature comforts – minimalist living at the extreme.  Yet the crew say this makes their bonds firmer and easier, no space for issues or attitudes, sounds like a fabulous experience.

Esmeralda

Titanic?

Birds in Table Bay

Scene of the destruction of more
brain cells

Sunday as the weather was just right we went for a sail in Table Bay, in good company with Esmeralda, seals and dolphins and loads of birds followed by dinner at the neighbors on “Eco Promise”, what an evening that turned out to be, ha ha.

We also discovered a real hidden treasure right on our doorstep – the “Oranjezicht Market” is quite literally round the corner from RCYC and is a true farmers market, everything home made and grown, from the farmer and by the farmer, the freshest veg, fruit and meat and its open every Saturday, rain or shine.

All taped up and newly painted

Once back from Japan in December we need to pull out all the stops to get as much work as we (that’s Kevin and I) can get done.  From mid December we will have a lock up and need to off load everything movable from the boat, we want her to be completely empty by the end of January.  In the meantime, I contributed by painting the starboard bathroom and passage, all that’s left to complete the renovation of the starboard side now is new mattresses and flooring.

We also went to view a small bachelor unit in Long Island as we will need to rent furnished accommodation for the time that Maxscene is under construction/repair.  This is proving to be difficult and decidedly expensive, especially in the areas close to the harbor where we need to be.  Hopefully we find something suitable and affordable.

We had a brief meeting with Andrew, the guy who will be doing the majority of the work on Maxscene, prioritizing what can be started over the next couple of months before we haul out of the water, hopefully keeping our time on the hard to a minimum as it gets pretty expensive to sit on the hard.  The RCYC crane seems to finally be back together and will hopefully be in operation for a while before we need plucking from the water, scary stuff.

Camps Bay, beach full

Then a happy occasion, Jason and Marike finally arrived in Cape Town for part 2 of their honeymoon, following a cruise on the MSC Opera to Portugese Islands from Durban.  They brought the fabulous weather with them, we had a wonderful trip down to Camps Bay and back via the V&A, Cheers J

Meat aging in fridge

The signage for this jeweler had us in
stitches

Then we were off again, flying to Japan for two weeks, this time I came with.  Back to the land of heated toilet seats, rooms and buildings heated to 25 – 26°C and temps outside of 11 – 12°C without the wind chill factor, it is late Autumn after all.  Makes me laugh to once again hear the rapid pitter patter of little running feet and the excited voices. 

Great to explore Atsugi to see whats new and whats gone, two great new additions are a restaurant called “da Butcher”, a genuine steak house on the same lines as our “Butcher Shop and Grill”.  Rather pricey, equivalent of R158.00 for 150g rump or sirloin steak or a pork chop R300.00 for 300g, served with cabbage salad and a crispy slice of sweet potato and a bottle of good red wine (Grenache Syrah) from Chile will set you back R400.00, the various grilled options take up to 40 minutes to cook – medium rare!!. Interestingly it is a non-smoking restaurant, very rare.  

Fast food?

Also, another very popular steak restaurant

Bull something....

 (we think the name has something to do with a bull), with good food, delicious steak and veg which arrives at your table within minutes of being ordered, a bit plainer, downscale version of “da Butcher” but decidedly cheaper and really friendly staff.  We think this one will become our favorite eating place in Atsugi.

Lobby @ Rembrandt
Hotel

Japan is so geared up for Christmas, lights, trees, decorations, plants, toys, you name it, right down to Christmas Carols, in Engrish, playing in shopping centres.  

Well the oddity is, they don’t actually celebrate Christmas – they may recognize the day and are allowed to take off work but it is not a public holiday nor a Japanese tradition – go figure.

Outside train station - Atsugi

The only English channel on TV in Japan is CNN and this reminds me every time of how nice it is not to have TV on our boat as this is seriously a bombardment of misery, war, crime, death, hate and sensationalism with a light sprinkling of interest and pleasantries.  This last two weeks has covered (to boredom) the climate talks in France and have highlighted the serious carbon issues we face.  Unbelievable to watch an artist in China using a conventional vacuum cleaner to literally vacuum the air every day.  He has built a building brick out of what he collected from the filters – people are breathing this stuff into their lungs for goodness sake!!  China has just issued its first ever pollution “red alert”, forcing schools and construction to shut down and traffic to be drastically reduced, FOR DAYS.  The footage of China shows areas where it is impossible to see more than a few meters – through pollution for Pete’s sake!!!!!  India is apparently not far behind – what ever are we doing to this planet?  Seriously, it’s surely high time we all started making some sort of difference to make this world a better place to live, any effort, no matter how small, is a positive….

View of Tokyo from the Ferris Wheel

We only had one weekend in Japan, the other two being spent travelling so we made best use of the time.  Saturday morning, having no specific plans we got the map out and selected “Diver City” in Palette Town, Odaiba, Tokyo – sounded like fun.  3 trains later and we were there.  First thing we spotted was the Daikanransha Ferris Wheel – 115m tall, in 1999 when it opened it was the tallest ferris wheel in the world, but now it is the 13^th tallest.  

Watching beach volley ball

We put on a brave face (well I did) and hopped into one of the 4 completely see through cars and took a 16 minute ride with some spectacular views of Tokyo Bay and the harbor. 

The sun set behind Mt Fuji

Penguins and lights

A brief walk through Toyota Mega Web, a car theme (Toyota) park, then down to the waterfront under the rainbow bridge, where a beach volleyball game was in full swing and

on to sushi in Leisureland, whilst watching the sun set behind Mt Fuji and waiting for the lights to come on.  What we thought was a hologram show turned out to be a short but quaint light show of ice and penguins. 

Lady of Liberty & Rainbow Bridge

Lady of Liberty & Rainbow Bridge

The Lady of Liberty replica statue overlooking the Rainbow Bridge came alive with color and all around was the feeling 

of building excitement as all the different displays lit up.  We unfortunately ran out of time so will have to come back, so many other interesting things to see here.

Santa in China Town

China Town

Sunday and we headed for the much discussed “Christmas Market in China Town, Yokohama”, hmmm interesting.  China Town covers around 6 blocks and seems to consist of many, many Chinese restaurants and mini supermarkets and whilst the spirit of Christmas is visible in one or two decorations and a Santa Clause, there was not much to indicate this was in fact a “Christmas Market”.  

Chinese Temple

We walked away with the memory of a multitude of palm readers and dim sims of every shape and size and with any filling

 

From here we headed to the Red Brick Warehouse complex to find a very popular temporary ice-rink and yet another 

Christmas Market – this one had stalls selling German consumables, German beers on tap, German sausages and sauerkraut and pretzels – why – who knows!  But at least this one had all the trappings of a conventional Christmas.  Another week down, Kevin working so hard while I have been goofing off, having some fun in the park with my camera, lucky me.  Just in time too as winter is really getting a solid grip on Japan, icy, rainy, cold and very short days, we are really looking forward to going home.

Hopefully you are all making the most of the Festive Season, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and look forward to catching up in January again, oh and don’t forget the new Star Wars movie comes out on 16 December in South Africa – MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU J….

October - mid November 2015 (Royal Cape Yacht Club - Cape Town)

To quote my mother, this blog might be a bumper issue – ha ha, hope it doesn’t disappoint!!

Cameras are not allowed so had to take
this in stealth mode

The Royal Cape Yacht Club is situated almost in the centre of the Cape Town Harbour and as such the three access gates are controlled for security purposes.  Once we became accepted members of RCYC we were able to get an access permit for these entrances into the Harbour but until then we had to conform to the relevant security rules, which wouldn’t be so bad if they were consistent but it seemed that the process depended on the time of day, day of the week, security officer on duty and differed from gate to gate.  Sometimes we had to fill in a register, sometimes a tear off slip, sometimes the boot was searched (we still have no idea what for) sometimes they just open the boom.  Most times we would be in the wrong lane, even though it is marked for permit and non-permit holders, too much effort to walk.  Nothing for it but to laugh – made for great guessing games, but thankfully we have a permit at last, plain sailing now…

Making the mold

Good use of tinned food

Kevin dug deep and mustered up the enthusiasm to upgrade the plumbing on the port side.  This meant taking out the old shower trough and replacing the previous fiberglass mold that he made in Cape St Francis, but has since refined the design of on the Starboard side. 

Little spaces

Making a cupboard to install
the washing machine

This involved a lot of digging out of sika and cleaning up of surfaces (lots of patience – confined space and a messy job).  At the same time we plumbed the washing machine in, its inlet connected to the boats fresh water tanks and its outlet going into the same shower trough to be pumped out.  A new bilge pump was also installed.  The mold was a work of art, a bit of tricky engineering using tins of vegetables and to great excitement the whole thing was complete.  

Beautiful result

Then disaster struck L whilst the sika used to reset the new trough was setting I stumbled into the bathroom at night and stood in the new trough, forgetting that the cover was not on it 

What a mess!

and broke the beautiful new base out, it is temporarily held together with loads of sika but poor Kevin is going to need to once again remove and re-build the shower trough then re-plumb it.  

I guess the fact that he is still talking to me says a lot for his patience.  I did at least take the opportunity, whilst everything was open, to get into the bilges and paint them out, tough job.

We have taken to walks along the promenade in the mornings.  There are so many arty props dotted around, testament to the artistic flair that is Cape Town.  One that really interests Kevin is a Rhino that is various shapes and sizes pieces of metal, specifically cut and placed and when lined up from the correct spot form a Rhino, much like the Nelson Mandela bust in the Midlands.

Whilst in Richards Bay we befriended a barber and Kevin enjoyed cheap, neat haircuts – bit of pampering and like I say, neat. 

All the way down the coast, in one place or another we seem to have found a barber and notably the cost of that clipping (Kevin doesn’t have a lot of hair!!) has increased.  A couple of weeks ago we spotted a “Mr Hobbs the Barber” at the V&A Waterfront and did a bit of investigating.  R220.00 for a cut and R200.00 for a hot towel shave, eeeek, needless to say we are back to a number two all round whilst standing on the walk-on.

Awesome racing helm

Bucket & chuck it option on
a racing boat

Next on the agenda was the annual Cape Town Boat Show.  Really interesting this year as there were a large number of Catamarans on show, second hand and new.  We really enjoyed, as always, exploring other boats, trying to get ideas to make our lives easier, only this year we were inexplicably drawn to the Maverick 440, a 44 foot Catamaran that just felt so much like home.  After chatting to the builders, it turns out Phil Southwell, same designer of our yacht, designed that one too.  

Love this pull pit idea

As luck would have it, the same Phil Southwell then arrived on the Maverick and we had a glass of wine with him and chatted about his designs and yachts, he is around our age so must have been incredibly young when he designed the Island Spirit Catamarans, my respect grows.  

The static display in the hall was pretty cool, found some interesting stuff, most especially my SUP (Stand Up Paddle) Board and Paddle that I have wanted for years, Kevin finally got the inflatable one that he insisted on and all round we are pretty happy with the new toy.

Big Tug in road

A week later and we had a dinner date with Dave Bennett who was briefly in Cape Town, a meal punctuated with great excitement as it coincided with the first Wednesday night race for the season and there was a massive turn-out, 42 boats on the water, which meant the road outside the club was parked full of cars at the same time as they were trying to transport a huge new tug boat to the docks, it ended up in the road for some hours before enough sailors were back to move their vehicles.  This was followed by a flash visit from Graeme and Michelle for the weekend (way too short).  Perfect timing though as there was a Round Robben Island Pursuit Race on the Saturday that we had entered.  At the same time our friend Marc was in South Africa from Spain, staying with Eileen in Glencairn, so they also joined us for the day.  

Our track around Robben Island

The wind, not quite true to form, just died, it took us almost 2 hours to cross the start line.  After floundering around we took a decision that we all wanted to actually experience a trip around Robben Island, not all of us had been around it, so we retired from the race, started our motors and motored around, what a really lovely day it turned out to be – even the whales put in an appearance.  After the race there was rugby and much drinking (mainly due to South Africa beating Wales) and heaps of fun.

The next week saw a brief visit by Steve and Elva from Richards Bay, we got to meet Elva’s twin sister Neva, what an interesting lady with a serious love of speed and car/motor bike racing, she drives the pace car at local racing events, how awesome.  Whilst Elva and Neva were 

Elva, Jade and Neva

braving the Ferrets Wheel they got to meet and take a photo with Jade Hubner of Top Billing – hob knobbing with the rich and aimless!  

Clipper Yacht Unicef

We went out to putt around in the harbor on the Saturday and were privileged to welcome and escort Unicef, one of the last 3 Clipper Yachts arriving in Cape Town. Very exciting.  The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is quite fascinating, the boats are identical 59ft monohulls with paying amateur crew and qualified skippers.  

Clipper boats in V&A

Crew can sign up for the whole race or for one or more legs at a cost of between £5 500.00 and £6 500.00 per leg, depending on which leg or a total of £46 600.00 for the whole race.  It also goes the “wrong way” around the world, against the Trade Winds so is a really tough trip – still not sure why people pay vast sums of money to take part in this, but they do. (https://www.clipperroundtheworld.com )

Ian and Misha on Esmeralda in Durban

Somewhere in all this our friend Ian Slathem arrived back from Durban, having just parked a 40foot Leopard Catamaran that he had delivered from Seychelles, final destination Cape Town but they needed to effect a couple of repairs before the journey could be continued.  Ian was looking for crew and as Kevin was heading for Japan I agreed to join Ian on the Durban to Cape Town leg of the delivery, together with Misha, a young, bright, pretty experienced sailor from Cape Town.  This saw us all at the airport on Sunday, Kevin flying to Japan an hour after Steve, Elva and myself had departed for Durban.  I was fortunate to spend a night on the beautiful Sundowner Rose with Alan and Chrissy, absolute top class treatment, then it was down to being crew as a short weather window had presented itself that would see us at least to East London but we were hoping it might take us all the way to Port Elizabeth.

All the pointers look like
a "worm"

After the tedious task of clearing out (Customs, Immigration and Police clearance) was complete and provisions had been bought and stashed, Tuesday afternoon we upped lines and were off.  The boat has no AIS so Kevin and I rented a Spot Gen3 tracking device for a month which transmitted our position via GPS to a SPOT account every 5 minutes, allowing all who had the link to see where we were at any given time, really interesting and it provided peace of mind as to the whereabouts of boat and crew, especially seeing that hunting so far off shore for current meant being out of range of cell phone or internet signal for most of the journey (http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0nXAf8561UNOnKHGCpLd9HafLcYf3JSEs) modern technology is so awesome. 

Sailing past the Wild Coast was pretty exhilarating, we had wind from behind and made great headway, until, as it so likes to do, the wind shifted and we were getting soaked as waves stood up tall and proud in front of us (estimated around 3.5 – 4m swells) before crashing down on top of the cockpit roof, thank goodness for foul weather gear – I had just purchased my Musto BR2 jacket (tested on the Volvo Ocean race) before we left.  We had just skimmed past East London when the wind swung and things were roughing up so we headed back to 

Opposite Buffalo River Yacht Club
East London

East London and hid out there for two nights, the first one on the Water Police’ floating jetty and the second rafted up against a “work-in-progress” catamaran at the yacht club, nice as we could at least use the bathrooms but as there was a race weekend down the road the club was closed as most were competing in/attending the racing.  Not sure how long this club can sustain itself.  We were welcomed into the marina by two pairs of adult and juvenile dolphins catching fish for brunch, never get tired of dolphins.

We made it to Port Elizabeth at the same time as the “Black South Easter” which blasted the whole South African coast leaving much destruction in its wake, we have had reports from family and friends of trees uprooted and the water supply being contaminated with salt water in South Coast KZN and the 66 knots of wind that ripped through Tuzi Gazi marina in Richards Bay did severe damage to the moorings which were pretty full with the influx of International boats, fortunately there wasn’t much damage to boats. 

Trussed up like a Turkey in PE

Even though we were tied to a mooring we bounced and bobbed like a cork in boiling water, there is loads of surge in the Port Elizabeth marina.  With the wind came sheets of rain, which in turn found its way through various weak points, causing some interesting water features inside and soaking mattresses and bedding, not very nice.  This little show of force by Mother Nature saw us spending two nights in Port Elizabeth, before an early morning departure had us heading for Cape Town.

Hokule'a in Durban

Leaving Port Elizabeth at the same time as us was Hokule’a and her support boat Gershon II – she has no motors so needs assistance in and out of harbours.  Hokule’a is a 62 foot long, 20 foot wide replica of an ancient Polynesian voyaging canoe that is currently on a four year journey to circumnavigate the globe and generate awareness about climate change.  We first saw her moored behind us in Durban Marina and were fascinated by the concept – the hulls are used for storage and the crew sleep on the deck under canvas shelters, basically no protection from severe elements – to think I was complaining about a little water inside the boat, these guys must be soaking and freezing.  What a motley crew too, 18 of them ranging from two very young, probably early 20’s, to a couple who look to be in their late 60’s.  They were aiming for Cape Town but planning to stop at Mossel Bay if necessary, guess it must have been as they have not yet arrived here in Cape Town (udate on 10 November she was towed into Simons Town by NSRI Rescue 10).

We managed to get the parasail up and flying twice, it really lifts the front of the boat and pulls it along nicely.  Just off Cape St Francis as I was reporting for my 24:00 – 03:00 shift, we were treated to a spectacular 2 hour display by around 15 dolphins and schools of fish swimming in the phosphorescence around the boat.  Basically glow in the dark dolphins and fish, a magnificent show.  At the same time there was a very bright flash off the port side close enough to cause panic as to how a vessel had snuck up on us but it turned out to be an exploding meteor, fascinating this sailing at night stuff.

Coming across False Bay the wind picked up and eventually we were taking a side on hammering of 30 knots of cold wind and waves, we turned into the bay for some protection from land which worked for a while, but as soon as we rounded Cape Point we felt the full force of the predicted 30 – 35 knots of Northerly wind.  Once into Table Bay the conditions eased a little only now there was the issue of ships to dodge.  We had a pretty close encounter with one, nav lights on these big ships are not always easy to see at night, then another game of chicken with “Deepwater Thalassa” a 781ft long Deepwater drillship which our crew were convinced that by some miracle had “seen” us, I think it more likely that we were very lucky that they changed their course to head into the harbor thereby missing the rear of our boat. 

Esmeralda arriving at RCYC

Just Reward

By 7:30 we had found our way, tired and weather beaten, to the mooring at RCYC, to be greeted by Steve and Fran, the new owners of Esmeralda, who made everything right again with great champagne and strawberries. 

Crew and Owners

I owe a huge thanks to everyone who followed us on the SPOT, for weather reports (so needed and important) even from Japan J and for all the support and encouragement I got from friends and family along the way – THANKS EVERYONE x

One thing this trip has taught me is that yacht deliveries are not what I enjoy.  I like to spend time enjoying the sights and scenery along the way and picking nice gentle weather windows to travel on that will not tax crew or vessel.  Delivering yachts means getting the vessel to the end point as fast as weather will allow, any wind is useable as long as it is not gale force but that generally means not a lot of comfort, no time for smelling the roses.  We arrived in Cape Town 12 days after leaving Durban, including two stops of two days each, that constitutes low flying in my book.  I also, once again, marveled at the magnificent coast line we have in South Africa, just beautiful and combined with the many whales, dolphins, seals and birds we were privileged to see makes this such a very special journey.

Kim and Bernhard enjoying a
 sundowner

Flying, or I should probably say bouncing at breakneck speed into Royal Cape Yacht Club behind us on Saturday afternoon was Ethereal with our good friend Bernhard and 

Farewell Ethereal

Kim his skipper/crew for his Atlantic crossing.  I found them on Sunday and was able to help out as shopping guide cum taxi.  Monday morning they cleared out of Cape Town and by lunch time I was throwing them their lines and waving them farewell – next stop St Helena, Bon Voyage….

Home Sweet Home

Kevin enjoying Japan

So now I am back on our beautiful Maxscene and 

Kevin will be back from Japan in a couple of days.  What an interesting month this has been….