JUNE to Mid JULY (Durban)

Hello all from Durban Harbour.

The view and cleanliness of the water is decidedly different, but "they" are right, a change is definitely as good as a holiday.

Durban's Coast Line

Life in Durban is different, we are in essence in the harbour area which is never pretty anywhere, certainly not here.  There are two yacht clubs here - Royal Natal and Point Yacht Club.  They are and have been at loggerheads with each other for many years, a pity as both have great things to offer.  There are a laundromat and shops within walking distance, not the nicest, but you can get the essentials.  Having a car here is a huge benefit.  There is a restaurant at each club and a couple at Wilsons Wharf, a short trip down the road.  We walk to the beach quite often, the first 15 minutes are through town and it is so sad to see the derelict, dirty and smelly buildings that once used to be grand holiday accommodation.  There is a large amount of homeless people here of all nationalities and ages, so very sad to see.  Once on the beach front however the scenery becomes more beautiful again, so lovely to walk next to the sea.  We still miss the lovely gardens and scenery of Zululand Yacht Club though.

The beginning of June saw Kevin in New Bremmen, a tiny little town in Ohio, for two weeks. He settled pretty well after a really long flight and seems to have had a successful tour of duty there in his new job...  It had its advantages as mail order and delivery in America is fantastic and he came back with a new starter motor for the boat, t-shirts and a new camera for me and winch service kits for Steve.  Luckily he went with almost empty suitcases!!  

I had a pretty busy time back home, thanks to Chrissy and Alan, Elva and a few others I never felt lonely.  It was Kevin's mom's 80th birthday and my sister's birthday on Sunday 8 June so I fetched my mom and her friend Jill and drove them up to Pretoria on the Wednesday before.
  

Managed a visit with Carel, spent some quality time with Gaynor and Kylie and the Westons and the Hooles and even got to catch up with Ella and Andrew - what a fun evening.  We had a great party for Marge on Sunday, about 50 of her friends came even though the weather had turned really nasty and we had a dreadful cold spell, we had a great remedy for that - lots of Sherry :-)  Angie had put in a lot of effort in catering and the spread was impressive, no one went hungry.  Gaynor made a lovely speech on behalf of Kevin and the family in America, a celebration in style :-)

The next day I drove us back to Hibberdene, we were ever so grateful to get back to warmer weather, amazing how quickly you acclimatize to a climate!!  Then it was off to the airport to fetch Kevin who arrived at 8pm, quite a days driving, was great to eventually get home.

We now had work to do as we had a mere two weeks before we were leaving for Durban and a load of tasks that had to be completed before we could go.  One of those was that the anti-fouling around the bottom of our yacht (special paint applied to inhibit growth of coral and barnacles which slow the yacht down quite drastically) had been a little compromised by the amount of scrubbing we had done on our hull and whilst it was only due for reapplication in December we knew we would be spending a bit of time in Durban, where growth is more prolific due to the state of the water, as well as other ports along the Coast, we decided it would be best to apply a quick coat of anti-foul to keep us going until December/January when we are planning to haul out the boat in Cape Town and can do a proper job anyway.

The boat needs to be out of the water in order to apply the paint and the hull has to be cleaned before hand, best done with a high pressure cleaner and a scouring pad and elbow grease.  We put it on the beach to be able to get at the hull, but we only had the time between the tide going out and the tide returning to clean/scrub the hull, apply the anti-foul and float again.  We had been scrubbing and hosing for an hour when we realised we were never going to make it before high tide, then along came our good friend Chris from Catonvac and with his help we managed to clean off and repaint our hull, good and ready to go.  Poor Kevin ended up with a lump on his head from bashing it on the bottom of the boat every time he stood up, ouch.

My favourite people, Taunee and
Phillip

The last week was spent on goodbyes - something we are so bad at.  Monday night was farewell to all the usual faces at the braai, then happy hour on Wednesday to say cheers to anyone there and finally what was supposed to be a nice quiet dinner at Mariners on Thursday night with the Crichtons and the Martins.  
At the end of dinner we were hearded into the bar to a nice little surprise farewell organised by the staff and owners of Mariners and Porky's restaurants, snacks and drinks and music, a great night which left a couple of headaches the next day.  Thanks guys, it made us feel really special :-)

Saturday 21 June we left Tuzi Gazi to a huge send off by the friends we had made there, can't believe how sad we felt, then round to Zululand Yacht Club to fetch our other crew member Steve, who had volunteered to sail with us.  We were escorted out by Sirocco, a wonderful send off.  Elva and Brian had kindly offered to bring our car to Durban when they collected Steve the next day, a huge help to us.  The trip was great, motor sailing as the wind was very light, so many stars in the sky, beautiful.  Unfortunately no whales and only a couple of dolphins off Umhlanga.  No fish either, not for lack of trying!!  Our allocated mooring was at the end of a VERRRRY LOOONNNGG walk-on but this had its advantages as it was good exercise, quite private and the water down there is very much cleaner.  Disadvantage - no electricity, in Durban moorings with power are limited, especially when it is a catamaran you are trying to park.  Anyway, as we were participating in the MSC Regatta Kevin organised that we moved to the International Moorings where there is power and water - and fascinated spectators lol.

We arrived in Durban 1/2 an hour before Nomad, one of two Richards Bay entries in the Vasco da Gama race - Maputo to Durban.  Unfortunately they had been forced to retire and arrived quite a while after the cut off, we gave them a warm welcome anyway :-)  

Thursday we popped back to Richards Bay as one of our most favourite restaurants, the Thai Wok, was closing and as regular clients we had been invited to their farewell to their clients.  They put on a humongous spread of many courses of good food, would really miss them a lot if we were still there.  





Chrissy and Alan were kind enough to let us spend the night on their lovely boat Sirocco and the next morning we were up long before the sparrows, heading for the Hluhluwe/Umfolozi Game Reserve.  We had booked into Mpila Camp in an en suite safari tent for the night. 
 Murphy was in his element and along came a really cold front with rain!!!  We, as usual, had the most amazing time, saw loads of animals, in fact on this trip we were really spoiled on the bird front, saw a Secretary bird, two eagles, two vultures and some horn bills catching ants.  We saw everything except Leopard and Elephant.  We finally saw a Cheetah although it was quite far off and sleeping, Lions, Wild dogs hunting buck, a herd of around 300 Buffalo,a family of Warthogs that posed specifically, finally got a good photo of a Blue Wildebeest, just great.                

En Suite Bathroom

Our Tent & Kitchen

Inside - bedroom

Braai in the Rain

Spotted Hyena Eyeing the braai

Arrived at camp in the afternoon and were warned on checking in to remain vigilant over braai meat as the Hyena's come in and steal the meat off the fire.  At Mpila camp where we were staying, the only electric fencing they have is to keep Elephants out, would probably work for Giraffes as well, but anything slightly shorter could walk around inside the camp at will.  Well they weren't kidding, as we were braaiing in the rain, under an umbrella, there were two spotted Hyena barely a couple of meters away eyeing our chops, at one stage I even had the lid from the meat container in my hand ready to bop one of them on the head!!

We were back Saturday evening and on Sunday it was the Point Yacht Club "Barrel Race" with proceeds going to the NSRI.  We volunteered to take anyone looking for a ride and ended up with two lovely American students Rachel and Laura.  

We did the sail past and decided to head out to sea and do a gentle sail up and down the coast rather than partake in the round the cans race in the harbour, too hectic for us.  It was lovely and we were back in good time to catch Sirocco's lines as she arrived in the afternoon, bearing yummy tuna sashimi, their fishing exploits were far more fruitful than ours.








On Tuesday night we went to Moyo's with the Crichtons, what a fabulous restaurant.  Ethnic, good African food in a restaurant made from recycled products.  All I can say is wow, what an amazing evening.

Wednesday was the start of the MSC Regatta.  Kevin had been bugging Dallen of Ullman sails to organise him a demo spinnaker sail that we could use during the 4 days of racing to decide whether he wanted to buy one.  Dallen is a much better sails (sales) man than that and by the time we set out on Wednesday we were the proud new owners of a lovely new spinnaker sail with Dallen along to show us how it works.  

Us with our new Spinnaker up

Isn't it funny how things always work right when the sales person shows you how?????


Wednesday afternoon Graeme arrived and Thursday we had a very pleasant but long race, as the wind died and we only finished sailing at around 16H00, back in the harbour by around 17H00.  Every night there was a meal and entertainment, included in the entry fee, as well as a t-shirt, such a well organised event.  

The MC getting help to get on the bull

Bright and Tight

Bright and Tight

Bright and Tight

The food was good and fun was had every evening, opening night was gorgeous dancing girls, Wednesday was "A Minute to Win It" competition, Thursday "Bright and Tight" theme and a Mechanical bull - what a laugh followed by a shaving foam party, Friday was Karaoke and Saturday prize giving.  There were rounds of drinks sponsored by different sponsors and everyone that participated was recognised with an MSC towel.  


On Thursday Kevin and Graeme deployed and retrieved the spinnaker most successfully while I steered us on the correct course.  On Friday Graeme was on the helm when we put the spinnaker up, then after rounding the marker in-shore we were steaming up when we realised we were just about on the shark nets.  Chaos ensued, Kevin started the motors and had to do an emergency turn into the wind, not the perfect situation to bring the spinnaker down in, meanwhile Graeme and I started pulling the spinnaker down, it has a cute little hat that drags a sock down over the sail and douses it, but when Graeme pulled the ropes that bring the snuffer/hat down, the halyard rope that was lying on the deck instead of being coiled up (I forgot to do that) got caught in it and up it went twisting and knotting as it went, this resulted in the sail not being completely snuffed and we couldn't drop it to the deck and into its bag as there was now a knot 4 meters in the air.  Eventually Graeme was lying on the trampoline, in the spinnaker bag, hanging onto the flapping sail while I twirled and spun the ropes around to eventually get the knot and twists out.  We were then able to drop the spinnaker, take a deep breath, retire from the race - would have been disqualified anyway for starting the motors and consume a couple of beers to steady the nerves.

Racing in itself is always scary and we are one of the most nervous teams around having been involved in an incident once before.  One yacht, Off Cut, was most fascinating as the Captain actually sailed every day with a Captains hat on, we know because he spent so much time so close to us we could almost count his nose hairs!!  Every day we got back without incident we considered a good racing day, we had four of those.  Saturday Samantha, Marius and Crystal joined us, again a day without wind and the organisers cancelled the event at 2pm when we had around 2 knots of wind and all the boats were almost standing still in the water.  A good call as the reason for the drop in wind was a swing in the wind direction and within an hour it was blowing at 30 - 40 knots from the South West.  Made putting the boat on the mooring pretty tricky but Kevin managed it like a star.  

Nomad & Maxscene @ Prize giving

Prize giving

After prize giving we invited one or two people back to the boat for a drink, ended up with extras and whiskey consumption was on in earnest.  I just couldn't believe that we could get 10 people comfortably in our saloon (lounge) as it was raining and cold outside.  Sunday and Graeme and family left and it rained all day, giving us the perfect excuse to just stay indoors and do as little as possible.

We have a diesel leak that we need to fix and one or two new filters/pumps that we need to replace.  Work is never done on a boat!!  Next will be the boat show and this year it is looking to have a couple of yachts again, will be really nice for a change.

Peter at my 40th Birthday Party @
Triton Divers

Saturday 5 July, was a sadly 
memorable occasion.  A huge tribute was held in Sodwana Bay for a great man, Peter Timm of Triton Divers who sadly passed away in a tragic diving accident a short while ago.  Peter was a friend and a legend in the underwater fraternity and will be missed by everyone whose lives he touched, of whom there are many.  Farewell Peter, Rest In Peace...

How we will remember him....