October & November 2016 (RCYC Cape Town)

Muisbosskerm

Its so difficult to stay positive when frustration levels build, let down after let down by contractors drive us batty.  

Sundowners Muisbosskerm

With yet another weekend looming and no sign of the stainless Kevin treated us to dinner at Muisbosskerm, an amazing restaurant on the West Coast, basic to say the least.  

Muisbos Walls

Muisbos (a local bush) forms the walls, latte for a roof, wooden benches and tables in the sand and big fires in the middle to cook the most delicious seafood dishes, ranging from fresh fish, to mussles, bokkoms (dried fish – not pretty) 

"Kitchen" at Muisbosskerm

rollmops (pickled herrings) to crayfish tails, a once in a lifetime experience that I have been looking forward to for ever. 

Challenging cooking

Kookfontein Estate

Sundowners @ Kookfontein

It was pretty far so we stayed over night at Kookfontein, a wine estate in Lamberts Bay, magnificent, a single cultivar vineyard only producing Sauvignon Blanc wine, and it was delicious. 

Lamberts Bay

Gannet & Seal Colony

On our arrival at Lamberts Bay we stopped at the Cape Gannet Colony and Isabellas restaurant for oysters and wine, yummy.  

Wit Mossel Pot in Elands Bay

Surrounded by Dream Catchers

Lunch (as instructed by the owner of Kookfontein Estate) on the return trip was at the Wit Mossel Pot in Elands Bay, 

Mussels

Soverby Lapa

delicious fresh mussels in a real hippie, beach bum joint.  Then drinks at Soverby Lapa Beach Restaurant before the last stretch home.

The Coctail Boat

The Opening Season sail arrived and still MaXScene was not seaworthy, there were various pertinent parts of stainless steel missing.  We were fortunate to be able to join the festivities on Sundowner Rose and what festivities!  

Noodle knots

In formation to salute the Commodore

The theme for this year’s event was “The Art of Sailing” which brought out the finer side of Capetonians, sails were painted, an artist and his easel were precariously balanced on the front of a monohull and one boat inventively used pool noodles as knots to decorate their boat.  Sundowner Rose was “The Cocktail Boat”, Chrissy and Alan printed and laminated the recipes for 4 cocktails – Pimms #2, Sundowner Rose White Lady (my personal favourite), 

Face painted

Bloody Mary and Strawberry Daiquiri, laid out all the ingredients and, with snacks supplied by Gerry and Judy, the party was in full swing.  We might not have been the most decorated boat but we sure had the most spirit(s). 

After a tour through the V&A with champagne it was back to the club for the party, something RCYC does with enthusiasm.  Castle Lite draft and wraps, live band, face painting by make-up artists - absolutely amazing art done in seconds and a caricaturist.  Hangovers aplenty the next day, of course.

Chilly day for racing

Wrek at the back of Robben Island

The following weekend was the Harken Round Robben Island Race which we participated in, 

Seals at the start

this time on Sungazer, great experience as Sungazer is the same 

Island Spirit Catamaran as ours only a little lighter and she goes like the wind. 

Sailing season is in full swing and the next major Saling event was the Risk Regatta.  

We joined Sundowner Rose to watch the start of the race and most importantly the display by the Silver Falcons and wow were they good.

This is the time of year to meet many different people in the sailing world.  Yachts sail in from all over, mainly from the Indian Ocean – Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, etc and stop in Cape Town, usually after some exploring at other marinas down the coast, before heading for either the Caribbean or the Mediteranean.  New friends were Bertie and Theresa Chapman, they sailed their Island Spirit 401, Entheos, across to the Caribbean in 2014.  They have finally reached St Thomas where they plan to do charter work, using their own yacht, for a couple of seasons.  They safely stashed their yacht in a “hurricane hole” and flew back to South Africa for a month to attend their daughters wedding and were staying on Eco Promise.  What a lovely couple and we were privileged enough to be guinea pigs for the recipes 

Chocolate Mousse

Meringues

Theresa is planning to serve to clients and boy was the food amazing, Frangelico chocolate mousse and meringues with berries and ice cream being the most favorite.  We tried the “house cocktail” they have invented and were treated to “pain killers” which they learned to make from the “Soggy Dollar Bar”, containing coconut cream, orange and pineapple juice and rum, delicious, moorish and the jury is out on whether it is a pain killer or causer. 

@ Woodcutters Arms

Bertie raved about pork belly that the used to eat at Woodcutters Arms during their 2 year stay in Houtbay before they left South Africa.  Convinced, we all headed out one Sunday to explore the Houtbay Marina and Club followed by lunch.  Unfortunately by the time we were putting our order in the roast lunch and the pork belly was sold out, seems to be popular dishes.  Sadly we picked other items from the menu, but, we never give up so the next Sunday we did a re-run only this time they were ready for us and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and pork belly’s were devoured, worth the return trip.

Jessica alive again

Short abridged group on Jessica

We noticed a beautiful Steam Train engine and carriages parked on the railway tracks outside RCYC, googled the logo and lo and behold Ceres Railway Company own 3 heritage engines, one of which, Jessica, is used for trips to and from Ceres with lunch at the Ceres Golf Club, sounded like an amazing day out so we booked, then mentioned it to a couple of people and so the word spread, next thing we were a group of 18, ready for some serious fun.  

Fireman or as we called him, arsonist

The decor was amazing

Heat in the heart

Then disaster struck, midnight on the Friday before departure messages were received bearing sad news that Jessica had blown one of her boiler elements and due to the fire hazard en route (been a very dry winter once again) they were not able to fire up the coal burner so sadly the trip was cancelled. 

Lunch @ Waverly Hills

 

They managed to get her up and running again 

by the next weekend and although a much smaller group, we went and had fun.  

The lunch venue changed to an Organic Wine Farm just outside Ceres, Waverly Hills, the venue and food were impressive but it seems you might need to develop a taste for organic wine.  

Nope, not gonna fit under here

Kids just loved the Steam Train

The countryside we travelled through was truly amazing, vineyards all covered in new green leaves, olive trees, fruit trees, endless corn fields, beautiful mountains, rundown remnants of guard houses on the side of rivers – momentos of a bygone era and everyone loves the steam train, especially kids, so many smiles and waves from by standers.

The stainless steel guys came to the boat with their equipment to cut the mounts off the back frame and re-weld and polish them on site so that they would be correct.  A slight of hand saw 2kg of stainless welding rods disappear into the depths of the ocean causing a temporary halt in work while Kevin raced around trying to find more!!  

The back frame was now ready for permanent fixture and Graeme and his dad arrived for a week to help do just that (well one did hard labor the other supervised).  It took some tricky work to get plates in to mount the frame onto but now that it is mounted in place it looks brilliant.  

We fetched the cross bars and installed those too, much head scratching for this simple (no such thing in boating) job as the holes drilled by the manufacturers were at the wrong angle Michelle (who came down for the weekend) and I left Graeme and Kevin to this and headed for the Market at Groote Post wine estate with Chrissy, much less frustrating drinking wine.

We were woken to the dulcet cock-a-doodle do of a Rooster one morning, now bearing in mind we are in a yacht club, nestled in a very large commercial harbor and that the only bird life we see is gulls, this was most noteworthy.  Eventually we realised that the sounds were emanating from the back of a newly arrived Brazilian catamaran directly opposite us in “Cat Corner”.  Urban legend has it that they are a group of sailors attempting to be purely “Green” and self sufficient.  Kevin and Graeme paid a bit of interest and were less than impressed at the manner in which the chickens were kept on the back of the catamaran and a lot of questions were being asked about the legalities of bringing livestock, most especially chickens, into South Africa.  The final straw might have been when the owner of Madimoo, direct neighbor to this floating farm, had a severe sense of humor failure as he is trying to sell his boat and being moored next to a floating farmyard is not a very good selling point, the next morning the Cat and its chickens had quite literally flown the coop.

A quiet farewell dinner at Wang Tai for Bertie and Teresa, as their time in South Africa was up, ended in a joyous send off at Panama Jacks for Oyster shots and more Oyster shots, then whiskey and Oysters.  A brilliant evening of raucous laughter and fun, good luck guys, we can’t wait to catch up with you at the Soggy Dollar Bar…..

With the opening of the season 

begins Wednesday night racing once again.  We have been fortunate to be able to take part on Sungazer.  Des is a well experienced, calm skipper from whom we are learning much.  Some racing situations really get close but he and crew and boat take it in their stride.  The first night we started in blistering 28 – 32 knots of wind, speeding around the course to finish a respectable 3^rd place.  

In true Cape Town weather extremes there was not even enough wind to get from the first marker to the second in the 2^nd  and 3^rd races

and the last two races have been cancelled due to incredibly high winds of 45 – 55 knots in the harbor, the same winds that have been making it bitterly uncomfortable to sleep and even live onboard as the boats bounce and jerk around and the wind howls through the rigging continuously, a constant buzzing in your head!

On exiting the harbor for race 3 we passed a ship that had been on fire since the morning, apparently there was polystyrene on board which is difficult to put out, it eventually took 3 days to extinguish, the tugs looked really impressive with their plumes of water putting out the blaze.

Cape Town once again had a very dry winter and the dams are in distress.  We are under Level 3 water restrictions meaning no hosepipes may be used and being in this dirty harbor that is not a pleasant situation.  Craig of Eco Promise has developed what seems to be a winning solution - Waterless Boat Cleaner.  We put it to the test and have been impressed with the results, very little water needed and it contains a wax which leaves a shiny finish on the gel coat that also repels a certain amount of this black dust.  Kevin also polished the windows with the polisher/buffer, something he has been wanting to try since it was recommended to him in Richards Bay and the difference is striking.  Our windows are back to almost normal again, we can see clearly now the film is gone...

Leaking here

First fix of leak and offending hatch

Then, in a heart sinking moment, I opened the lid of the front port cabin storage where we had just installed the new hatch and fixed the leak to find everything stewing away in about 2 inches of fresh (yup, I tasted it) water.  We eventually ascertained that the new hatch, although pressure rated to 4m, is not holding pressure and leaks as soon as the tank is full.  Add to this another leak pushing up from the side of the tank and we were stunned.  Reseated and even replaced the lid of the new hatch, no joy, so decision made to remove and replace with clear Perspex.  Alfred duly got stuck in, filled the offending hole at the top of the tank and re-fibreglassed but unfortunately this also proved to be a failure.  

Wet wood showing bigger problem
NO fibreglass on inside wall

Tank cut open and fibreglassed again

Eventually we discovered, to our horror, that the back wall of the water tank is nothing more than a coat of paint over ply wood, so, back to grinding we went.  

Alfred covered in plumes of dust AGAIN

Finishing off lid before reinstalling

Cut the lid off the tank AGAIN, in went Alfred with all his tools and out came huge plumes of fiberglass dust.  Eventually he has ground the whole tank back and fibreglassed the whole thing, he now says its guaranteed not to leak again.  

Lid on ready for testing

Now to paint, seal and test – 

some days we don’t know whether to cry or just drink.

 

We installed 2 new mounts for the tender motors on either side of the new stainless frame, they fit perfectly.  

Kevin also finally installed two of his blue lights, makes such an effective difference to the boat, creates real ambiance, now to decide where to mount the other two.

We had a flying visit from our friend Janet, she popped down to take a look at two new Lagoon Yachts that have just arrived in South Africa on their way to Seychelles and Mauritius, seeing its always fun to view other yachts and get ideas Chrissy, Alan and us were only too happy to go take a look too and in true style the day was finished off with sushi and a sundowner trip with champagne in the VIP carriage of the V&A Wheel.

Should hold the Tender Boat...

Our pushpits are finally back and installed and all our stainless is finally together again, now begins the next round of frustrations – manufacturing the roof.  On the bright side - we can sail again….