December 2017 - February 2018 (Yachtport Saldanha)

So another year has passed – it’s true, the older you get the faster that happens, damn scary!!!

Towing the wind surfer - passenger
in space blanket

Brushing up on knot tying

Graeme and Michelle joined us for short stints over December as they both did their Day Skipper course with Atlantic Yachting, 6 days of theory and 6 days of practical during which they had to live on the yacht.  They both passed both their RYA and SAS Dayskippers, no mean feat, even becoming heroes when they rescued a stranded and fairly hypothermic wind surfer on day two of their practical course.

Two new captains

Brine water being
pumped out

The water maker (desalinator) arrived mid-December but much patience was still required as it was silly season, blah, blah blah and it was eventually installed mid-February. 

It tastes really good

Kevin and Graeme were quite convinced that a thing of such beauty should be put on display for all to see in the cockpit but the aesthetics committee won and it was installed in the engine compartment where it merrily churns out 60 litres of water per hour when in use, water which, when tested, is purer than bottled water – now we’re in business!!! 

Making roti is a bit more complicated

One of my birthday presents was a unique cooking experience in Bo-Kaap, Cape Town.  Chrissy, Jenny and I (Michelle was sadly unable to join us, she was otherwise engaged learning to navigate herself around tides and currents and charts) arrived at a Blue House in Bo-Kaap, 

Making samoosa's, delish!

where Gamida gave us a lesson in cooking a traditional curry, sambal, chilli bites from scratch, roti’s and samoosa’s, then we got to eat it all, delicious, we spent a fortune at the spice shop across the road afterward – clever marketing ploy, then champagne and a pedicure, still a memorable birthday.

Small spaces!

Thankfully it didn't stay here

We also finally installed that electric toilet (might have nagged a LOT about this) and it is fabulous, just hold down a switch and everything disappears, no more bicep building with the manual pump, well on that loo anyway, the port one will remain manual, it’s a contingency plan.

Carving the gammon

Christmas day was spent in the harbour at Yachtport, a fun wine pairing to start, piles of good food and wine and a really great day was had by all. 

Warm enough to swim

Graeme makes it look easy

New Year was spent on anchor at Kraal Baai, all three of our boats squeezed in with very many others from Saldanha, Cape Town and further afield.  We even had a chance to dust off the hammocks, nowhere near as easy as they look to get into, I might have provided a bit of entertainment for the neighbouring boat when I was unceremoniously spun and dumped onto the trampoline!  

 

Heading for the neighbours in the tender
with snacks

Snoek and braai broodjies

The view from this restaurant is unbeatable

Lots of fun followed by a dash to the airport to drop Graeme and Michelle and fetch Juanita who had decided to come and see how the other half lives for a couple of days.

This guy was hilarious

We had some fun on the West Coast, not least of which was a lunch at the open air Strandloper Restaurant in Langebaan, a true seafood feast – 9 courses eaten over 4 hours with the most amazing sea views and hilarious one man band to aid digestion.

Cooking crayfish

Kylie recons this is
the best way to use a SUP

Juanita left and Kylie arrived, the weather was good so off we went to Kraal Baai again for a couple of days, we dusted off the SUP (Stand Up Paddle) board and had some good laughs and spills, and also got some of the cobwebs out of the tender boat.

Helping Henko harvest mussels

How you eat them

Alan is a bottomless source of information regarding edible marine life.  

He has patiently shown us how to harvest, clean, filter, cook and most importantly eat fresh mussles.  He started while Henko and Nicole were here 

Filleting Angel Fish

More harvesting, the hard job

and while Kylie was here the two of them cooked up a culinary delight fit for royalty.  Ulva seaweed (sea lettuce) served fried into crisps, blended with a number of interesting ingredients to make pesto and inside savoury scones with various toppings including Angelfish sushi, followed by Moules Mariniere (fresh mussels cooked in wine and onion) with freshly baked bageuttes.  The whole thing completed by fresh fruit panacotta and truffles – huuuuuge.

On the beach at Jacobs Baai

Evita se Peron

Time to introduce Kylie to the West Coast too, the San people, Olives, Wine tasting, plate smashing at a Greek evening at Mykanos, beer at Darling Brewery and a really fun show at Evita se Peron – Peter Dirk Uys’ Theatre in Darling, at nearly 80 he is still a brilliant entertainer.

Last shot of Alan up the mast

The retrieval was not easy

Kevin splashed out and bought himself a drone, the DJI Spark, we call it Sparky 😊 Sparky has taken some amazing footage and photos of MaXScene (and other yachts) at anchor in Kraal Baai and had just had its cupboard of accessories upgraded when disaster struck.  On filming Alan up his mast Sparky ended up between 2 masts causing interference to and subsequent dropping of the GPS signal, the result of which saw poor little Sparky fly at full speed (around 56km’s per hour) in reverse, straight into the wall of the Yachtport building, landing on the roof rather badly injured.

Frighteningly, on investigation, this seems to be a software problem inherent in these drones, when they loose GPS signal, instead of hovering, they shoot backward at full speed and while it was astounding that Sparky managed to do this without touching any of the rigging that it barrelled through, if it had then hit a window or person at that speed it would have been a really serious matter.  We are waiting for an answer on this from DJI where poor Sparky is currently in hospital getting its broken bits reattached.

Down the road from the Drone hospital is a bar called Barristers and on the first Friday of every month at around 13:30 beer is delivered in barrels on a beer cart pulled by a cart horse (well in this case a Percheron called Stompie – coz her growth was stunted and she is really small for a Percheron) so no need to ask twice, we were there and it was gorgeous, I loved the horse and Kevin loved the free glass of beer handed out to all onlookers.

 

The cockpit cushions have finally been made and all is starting to look really neat and together, this ship is just about completely in-shape, been waiting so long to say that, now we can start doing what we dreamed of from the start – cruising…

My hero 

While sewing the covers together one of the pieces of material went with the wind, landed in the water and floated out of reach, cue the hero of the day, Kevin hopped on the SUP board and went and rescued it for me.

Diving off the boat

Shore entry

Kevin has fortunately been able to find a bit of downtime in Saudi to have some fun, he and a couple of his work colleagues have been doing some scuba diving, they are on the Red Sea after all, firstly an atoll a long 30km boat ride out but apparently worth it 

and secondly from Dream Beach - shore entry dives.  Its so warm no wetsuit is required, water temp 27deg.  Might be a tad jealous 😊

I recently attended a “Celebration of Life” of an old friend and it made me think - we should actually be celebrating life everyday, we only have one life, we need to live it!!!!!!!!  So cheers to life and a really great 2018 to all...