Mid December 2015 - end January 2016 (RCYC Cape Town)

Apparently drinking rum in the morning makes you a pirate not an alcoholic.  After this Christmas/New Year I don’t know if I could tell the difference.  We’ve had a really festive season, hope you all have to….

How spoiled were we on our way back from Japan to spend our stop over in Dubai in the Emirates lounge, Moet Chandon for breakfast, woo hoo.

Back in good old South Africa saw us straight into use as it was Maserati week, a whole week of racing sailing with main sponsor Maserati (beautiful cars), together with Durbanville Hills (good wine and champagne), Johnny Walker (really good whisky), bottles of which were given out as prizes and others.  The parties were big all week after hard sailing and it sounds like hangovers were a dime a dozen.  The last day of racing and the committee were in need of a bridge boat, so, you guessed it, we were it.  

A really super day, the racing was very intense, these guys really know what they are doing and how to control their boats, thankfully as they whizzed really close to us numerous times, and we once again learned a lot from the race committee.  We were amazed to hear a short while later that 6 Maserati’s were sold during that week, some to club members and some as a result of advertising from the sailing – that’s a huge chunk of money!!

17 December we waved the Boyd family on Eco Promise farewell as they headed up the coast for a break, basically the route we plan to do later this year once our work is done – Dassen Island, Port Owen, Club Mykanos, Langebaan and Kraalbaai which is a river in a nature reserve, apparently a wonderful place to anchor.

We have also signed and sealed the rental deal on a furnished tiny bachelor unit 6kms down the road from the Club in Lagoon Beach from 1 February and the haul out is booked for 3 March.  Our little lockup is already almost half full and Maxscene looks much lighter in the water.

We laid cork tiles on the floor of the starboard front cabin, we plan to do this in all cabins and along the passages and we re-enforced the support under the port rear bed.  In between some socializing with our crazy new neighbor, New Zealander Reece and a lovely, extremely capable, German lady sailor Marike.

Dave and a couple of others were crew on Andrea Helena with Ully from Richards Bay to Simons Town.  Sounds like they had their fair share of fun, dragging anchor in 70kts of wind outside St Francis and being too big to fit into most harbours along the way but she is such a beautiful big ship that the sea just seems to move out of her way.  

Dave did the Cape Town social circuit, caught up with friends and managed to squeeze in a night with us, hopefully next visit will be a little longer. Dave timed his visit just right, in time to be on the mooring with us to catch Andrea Helena’s lines as she arrived here at Royal Cape Yacht Club, here for Christmas and to get ready for her next big adventure across the Atlantic at the end of January.

Christmas day we joined the yachties for lunch at the club with Reece our resident executive chef cooking Impala, lamb, pork, ostrich and chicken wings on the braai, everyone’s side dishes were passed around and shared, we had bought a box of 6 x 1.5litre bottles of commemorative 

wine from Blaauwklippen, these wines are the winners of the Blaauwklippen Blending Competition, South Africa’s most established annual wine blenders competition where interested parties are invited to blend 5 selected and supplied wines by Blaauwklippen.  The winners wines are then bottled in magnum bottles, labeled with a unique label and sold in bulk to people like us for consumption, with gay abandon, on days like Christmas.  Great fun was had by all but Boxing Day was a very quiet affair.

Eco Promise returned on 27 December causing an impromptu welcome home party, seems there is never a shortage of willing party participants in marina’s, and another “never again” day again, ha ha.

Groote Post

Darling Wine Cellar

Darling Olive Farm

Blue Peter

Graeme and Michelle, on a whim, decided to pop down and come give us a hand with some work around the boat.  They provided a most welcome break too, we visited Darling Cellars and Groote Post wine tasting and buying, then Darling Olive Farm for olive tasting, a most interesting experience, learned a lot about olives, olive oil and the many
 other products produced from Olives.  

We also made a stop at the Blue Peter to meet with Pete and Vicky and Renier and have beer and pizza – coz you have to, its tradition.

We arrived back to great excitement as an International yacht had arrived in the high wind and stalled in the channel between the moorings – the problem with mono hulls is that if they loose momentum they loose the ability to steer and in the small channels between moorings at RCYC this is a real issue – causing it to be blown sideways onto a couple of boats, fortunately the neighbours jumped onto ours and fended off so no damage.  They also hopped into our tender boat which Kevin and Graeme had just dropped into the water and pumped up the day before, thankfully, and rowed across to the other side of the channel to pass over lines to help control the yacht with.  This was about to become an unfortunate all too often scene as the “Cape Doctor” has arrived in full force, the South Easter that blows relentlessly, calmer in the mornings but up to 50 – 60 knots in the late afternoons into evenings.  On Old Years there was yet another huge flurry as yet another monohull ended up blown sideways onto moored boats, getting in and out of marina’s is definitely one of the most daunting things about sailing.

30 December Vernon, Vanessa, Jason, Marike, Kayla, Ruan and Uncle Eric joined us for a cruise to Clifton where we dropped anchor and watched the beach fill with tourists and the bay fill with pleasure boats and yachts and to my great joy a Sunfish swam past.  Seems there are many in Table Bay at this time of year, another tick for the bucket list. 
Some of us were brave enough to swim, a decision made easier by the heat of the day but this only made the already chilly water freezing.  We sailed back under spinnaker followed by a trip through the V&A with champagne.  

Clifton beach/bay from road

Ironically our friend Michele, whilst on a tour of the peninsula, took a photo from the road of the bay and beach, didn’t realize we were in the bay til later.

Waiting for wind

31 December was a huge day for Kevin.  Ever since we had discussed getting a boat he has wanted a parasailor.  This desire has finally come to fruition and we were able to go out sailing with our own parasailor for the first time ever, very little wind but awesome experience.  

Hugging his new toy

So privileged to start with a really close visit from a beautiful whale with two more a short distance off, an abundance of dolphins and porpoises, penguins, seals and Sunfish.  A fitting farewell to 2015.

NO wind!!

Finally its up

New Years party at Club, fires provided and tended all night and live music, got better the more wine you consumed but never got great, ended in a music quiz evening on Maxscene, Michelle is definitely the music quiz queen.

New Years day the club provided a barrel of Windhoek draught on tap for anyone brave enough to drink it and some of the members, bless their little cotton socks, arrived to provided breakfast “for members by members”, free of charge, they stood making bacon, eggs, tomato and toast over two braais for anyone who was around, very welcome blotting paper for a couple of die hard partiers.

La Medianoche

Altrove

Time for goodbyes, we bid a brief farewell to La Medianoche and Marike, off to Saldanaha to do some work on her catamaran.  Hopefully we will see her back at RCYC before she begins her Atlantic crossing. Graeme and Michelle also flew home.  Then it was farewell to single handed sailor Michele on Yacht Altrove, on his way to the Caribbean via St Helena, before returning to Italy for a while, we hope to meet up with him again.

The mirror was stuck on with sika

New cabinet

Replacing water pump,
confined space

Back to work, while Kevin still had a couple of days off, removal of the mirror in bathroom, replaced with cabinet.  Port water pump replaced.  Wood for new wash board and long piece from back of seat in cockpit area sanded and varnished..

What a beautiful setting to work in

Out with the old in with the new

We managed to go watch Star Wars in 4D, what an experience.  The seats move, water sprays on you, air puffs on you, funny smells, you come out of the theatre exhausted.  Loved the movie – still a Star Wars fan!!

The extreme heat and wind we are experiencing in Cape Town is an invitation for fires, even Table Mountain was not spared but luckily the very organized fire department and helicopters carrying water have been able to keep things under control without too much damage, such respect for these people.

A tour with Reece to Cape Point, after the mammoth climb up to the lighthouse he decided a little jog down to the old lighthouse was in order, crazy!, at the point we found a male ostrich foraging on the beach, different, didn't deter Reece getting his feet in the sea though.  Next was Simons Town where we had lunch and collected Andrea, then on to  Hout Bay Market, what a vibe, great experience.

Y Not

More farewells, tough part of this life - this time a really lovely couple Gunter and Ute on Y Not, also off to Saldanaha for the majority of the year, hopefully they will be ready to travel with is when we leave at the end of this year, 

then to Andrea Helena, bitter sweet having to say good bye to a good friend and crew – you guys will have a great trip and we will see you soon so its actually 
“til later brother” – wishing you fair winds and following seas Ully…..

Our braais at the club are a multi-national affair, so many sailors from different countries – Russia, Italy, France, Japan, England, Germany, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, America, such diversity and camaraderie, this is what makes this life we have chosen so special and interesting, we consider ourselves lucky indeed…