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….