And so, the time has come, we face the final countdown….
Boy have things been crazier than crazy around here. So many
lists of things to be done, for the wedding and for getting ready to leave,
each with its own sub-list, etc.
We did an inventory of all the dive gear, serviced all and
purchased one more cylinder.
We purchased a brand new, purple main halyard, now our main
sail goes up and down smooth and fast and looks funky.
We were asked by a lovely couple Braam and Dawn to take his
dad on a sail/cruise around Langebaan for his 90th birthday. Well
the weather turned pretty crappy, the wind howled, but Granny and Grandad were
game for anything and absolutely loved it.
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| Langebaan Lagoon |
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| Little tortoise |
The time of the fynbos was coming to an end – every year the
West Coast National Park grants the public access to its flower rich section
for two weeks. We skidded in on the last day and got to see Langebaan Lagoon
from a different perspective, it was beautiful, not too many flowers but loads
of tortoises and birds.
We said happy birthday and farewell to fellow New Zealand cruisers
Karen and Graham (birthday boy) on the yacht Red Herring as they sailed for the
Caribbean, via Namibia. We will probably meet up with them at St Helena or
Trinidad. 
We seem to have amassed a great collection of paddles/oars
and fishing rods. The nice thing about having a hard top roof in the cockpit is
that we have the ability to create storage for things such as this.
Not that we ever really need an excuse to celebrate, but
celebrations were in order when Kevin passed his Yachmaster Offshore sailing
qualification, he is a real boffin.
Out of the blue the wind speed stopped registering on our instruments.
Kevin tried all sorts of fault finding with no joy and being that knowledge of
the speed of the wind is a pretty necessary part of sailing, he called the
agents who recommended removing the anemometer from the top of the mast and
bringing it in for testing. 
This meant someone had to go up the mast in the
bosun’s chair and fetch it, so I volunteered – a huge feat considering not long
ago I couldn’t get above the third rung of a ladder and, muttering “don’t look
down” to myself all the way up, I shakily retrieved the anemometer and we
dropped it off with the agents at the 2018 Cape Town Boat Show.
It proved to be suspect and a new one was issued, this time
Kevin went up the mast, he is way braver than me and showed off with selfies
from the top. This anemometer proved to be faulty as well so Francois, the
agent, came up to check it himself, funny because he is even more terrified of
heights than I am. It was replaced once more and this time seems to be working
just great, third time lucky we hope.
A vacuum sealer is apparently a very necessary accessory for
a yacht, most especially for provisioning and we can certainly attest to this. 
We managed to reduce a huge pile of meat, chicken and other to a size that fits
comfortably into our 90 litre freezer and allowed us to get rid of heaps of
unnecessary packaging, helping to reduce our trash collection as we go.
We have
decided on a policy of reducing our destructive footprint, nothing overboard
other than biodegradable food stuffs. Cans will be crushed and stashed, paper
and plastic cut up and bagged and glass stored until we hit land – be the
change that you want to see happen is still our motto.
We had brackets made to hold the kayaks in place on the
sides of the boat when we are sailing then they were spruced up with great
covers made by Michelle.  |
| A rather pleasant way to exit the water |
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| Different view from our perch on the hard |
We hauled the boat out to clean the hulls and repaint
the anti-foul and to move one through hull fitting and close four up. We got
the boat polished and all the stainless cleaned at the same time, all ready and
spiffy for our trip.
There was an oyster and champagne festival in Paternoster,
who could resist? Apparently the fishing quotas have been drastically reduced
and the fishermen are really battling so festivals are being organised every
couple of months to help them out, the previous one was a beer and mussel
festival. The oysters were lovely and the champagne cold, the beautiful view of
the bay completed an awesome experience. |
| Thank you gifts |
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| Making the table #'s |
Then the run up to the wedding got into full swing.
So many
people had a hand in making the wedding a success, from making the signs, to
cleaning and painting horse shoes (a really odd commodity to have on a yacht
and drew some funny comments like how much luck do you need on a boat?)
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| Removing rust from horse shoes before painting |
to
making table numbers and guest gifts, many hands really do make light work.
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| Painted horse shoes |
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| A few of the signs |
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| We so wanted to include this little guy we even thought Gaynor could carry him instead of a bouquet |
Some of the family and the happy couple arrived and straight
off Gaynor had to go test drive the horse on which she was going to arrive at
the ceremony. It was quite a task to find a horse for rent in Langebaan and
when we did it was on condition of a successful test drive, but all the effort
was so worth it in the end, Storm, a majestic Friesian with the gentlest of
personalities, was a perfect fit. |
| Getting Ready |
The wedding turned out to be a truly joyous affair, family
and friends travesled from all over, notably some from overseas. The wind blew
like anything causing mini sandstorms, sandblasting of legs and goosebumps, which
gave the photographers a hard time, but other than that it was a huge success
and Gaynor, Kevin and I have gained a wonderful extended family.
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We spiffed up the car, put it’s new number plates on and
sent the newly weds on their merry way, they travelled to Knysna for their
honeymoon, then on to home. |
| We call him Copperfield |
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| On the beach at Yachtport |
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| Borrowed propellors |
When we hauled out we discovered what we
considered more than fair wear and tear on our propellors so while we were
waiting for the manufacturer to come back to us we had borrowed Des’ spare
ones.
This however meant that we needed to replace them again and after
considering the options Kevin decided the beach next to Yachtport was a good
place to do this.
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| It was hard work with all that water caused a real headache |
Whilst changing all the lines and halyards we discovered
that the new topping lift and outhaul are almost identical in colour and
pattern so Kevin and Graeme tried to splice an old but still good line to use
instead, after much head scratching, googling and you tube watching, consensus
was reached that its way too difficult, the two lines won’t get confused and we
used the new one.
We headed off to Kraal bay to do some testing of both the
systems and us, did some sailing, tested the new sea anchor which will help in
really bad conditions, tried out the kayaks and one or two provisioning
recipes, all with success.  |
| Oiling Eggs |
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| Eggsperiment |
2 years ago
at RCYC we met Lee and Neil on Crystal Blues and she told me the best way to
preserve eggs for a long trip is to paint them with oil and turn them every
day. I eggsperimented with this, had 2 eggs one oiled, one not and turned them fairly
often. After 3 months the oiled one was edible whilst the unoiled one had gone
bad. Seeing that eggs are a scarce commodity on St Helena we have purchased 244
eggs for our trip and they are all oiled and being religiously turned every
day.
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| Test egg made into an omlette |
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| Also tested the kayaks, resounding round of approval |
It’s been a time for goodbyes too, I bid a fond farewell to
the lovely ladies with whom I have done Pilates classes, they have an endless supply of advice for everything. Nicole and her colleague Jacinta joined us for a couple of
hours while they were in Cape Town for work and Piet and Vicki and Jason popped
up from Cape Town to say bon voyage.
Next onboard was 115 litres petrol for the outboard motor
and the generator and 465 litres diesel for the boat, the pump attendant at the
garage was really amused. 
A curve ball came in the shape of the Immigration process
for clearing out of South Africa. A yacht leaving South Africa is required to
show proof of having paid all dues, submit a flight plan to Port Control and
clear Customs and Immigration. 
In Cape Town they want the boat to be present at
RCYC and the authorities have become quite strict on this rule. We were hoping
to be able to present a letter from the Yacht Club to say that they are full
and unable to accommodate us, this used to be acceptable and they would then
allow us to depart from Saldanha, but on hearing of another Saldanha yachts’
trouble and strife with the authorities and on their recommendations we grabbed
the weather window available by the horns and after very briefly bidding
farewell to great friends and fellow yachties we threw off the lines and made
for the Mountain once again.
Thank goodness for Uber, we hopped all over getting the last
provisions and goodies. On Friday Kevin got to visit the British Consulate to swear
allegiance to the Queen and officially gain his British Citizenship, which is
fantastic as he is now eligible for a British Passport, just makes travelling a
little easier.
Little Gogga, the cat at RCYC has had a nose issue for a few
weeks but they have been unable to catch her to take her to the vet. Saturday
morning early Kevin found her in reception and before she could object he
bundled her into a cat basket and Jenny was awesome enough to get her to the
vet where they ran tests and she got a clean and good bill of health bar cancer
on her little nose which is treatable over a few sessions, hopefully she will
be a bit more pain free now.
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| All the fresh stuff from the market |
We leave you with this link, it is the tracking link for our
trip. You will need to register on
Farkwar before you can start, sign up using e-mail is the easiest, then search
for Maxscene, click on the map and it will show a yellow circle with a number indicating
the number of waypoints we have marked. Zoom in on this yellow circle and you
will see all our waypoints we drop as we travel, if you click on them they will
come up with a date, and a message about that day.
So that’s pretty much it for now, cheers all and we’ll chat
again once we are in St Helena
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| Cheers..... |
