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December 2004 and January 2005
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December just flew past us. Mossel Bay gets very busy and seems to be extremely popular amongst Gauteng and Free State holiday makers. We have taken to walking everywhere as the traffic has become impossible. I also decided that the two hanging cupboards on board are a waste of good space as we don't have many clothes that need to be hung. So I bought a sheet of marine ply-wood and built shelves in these two cupboards leaving just a small space for hanging in the stern cupboard. At the same time I put a small shelf in the cupboard under the sink for the cleaning materials. I also found a small plastic bracket in a shop here that has a lid and hooks for hanging plastic bags. This I attached onto the inside of the door under the sink to be used as a rubbish bin.
We also booked our plane tickets to go to the USA. Caroline is getting married on the 23rd April 2005 and we will also visit Barbara's daughter (Ayla) and son-in-law (Steve) in Seattle as well as her brother (Andrew) in Denver while we are there. In Seattle I plan to see what radio, wind and navigation instrument prices are like. They have a huge boating industry there so I am hoping for better prices than what is available locally.
For Christmas we decided to keep things simple so we spent the day with our new friends Jan and Shana Nezar. Jan is the Rear Commodore of Sailing at the yacht club and Shana is an English teacher at a local high school. They are busy building a house for themselves in nearby Dana Bay. Jan is also a collector of antique hand tools and has quite a collection. He has many really old wood planes as well as braces, rules, chisels, screw drivers etc. etc. Needless to say we talk a lot about tools. Makes a nice change from the usual cars and sex guys often chat about! We also spent New Year's eve with them aboard Zephyr and they ended up spending the night.
I received a phone call out of the blue from a neighbor of my friend Patrick Paterson advising me that Patrick had passed away. I have been friends with Pat for 35 years. We met at boarding school in Witbank in January 1969 and remained friends since then. Pat passed away as a result of sugar diabetes complications. We have been through such a lot together and shared so many experiences together, both up's and downs. Fare well my friend, I will miss you.
Had an interesting New Year's day. The Mossel Bay yacht club hosts an annual "New Years Day Race" and two of the three "Bridge Officers" were away on holiday. So the rear commodore (Jan) asked Barbara and me to help out. So there we were with Shana....... raising and lowering flags, blowing hooters, recording lap and total times, manning the radio, giving time and signalling the race end. This in two separate races - there were 6 fourteen foot Hobie Cats, 4 sixteen foot Hobie Cats, a Mosquito and a Laser in the one race and 7 keel boats in the second race. The hard part was the fact that these two races started 5 minutes apart but as they crossed the start/finish line between laps they were all mixed up and it was quite a job to record everything accurately. But we got the job done without any hitches and ended having fun at the same time. We were rewarded with caps, t-shirts and a free pass to the local Diaz museum each, plus we made more friends. I also met a Mr van der Merwe who also raced. He is the father of a colleague of mine (Neil van der Merwe from Durban) - it is a small world indeed.
On the 5th January 2005 Barbara's Aunt (Lynette) from Cape Town and her son from Australia (Christopher) with his son (Liam), paid us a visit on their way to their holiday home in Nature's Valley. Although they only stopped over for a quick chat and a cup of tea, Christopher also brought us a couple of boxes of Avil which Guy (Barbara's other cousin from Australia) had sent us. Avil is a hard to get Australian sea sickness tablet which is supposed to work very well and does not lead to drowsiness. I hope we never need these tablets but it is reassuring to know we have them aboard.
On the 6th january 2005 we had another, if un-planned, exciting day. In the morning, Jan and Shana asked us if we want to go with them to Boggums Bay. Shana sold her car to a lady who lives there and needed to have some documents signed. So we picked them up in Danna Bay at 9am, drove through (about 10km), had the documents signed, drove through Boggoms Bay, then went a little further up the coast to Vlees Bay where we had ice-cream's and then onto Gourits Mouth where we stopped for lunch. At about 3pm we decided to head back home via the main road. On the way there is a deep river gorge called the Gourits. This is where the fun started. There is a bungy jumping and bridge swinging company operating there and on the spur of the moment, we decided to have a "look". Well, bungy jumping does not interest me because I think it can be bad for possible neck/back/ankle injuries. BUT, bridge swinging looked much better to us. Here you are in an upright position for a start and two people can jump at a time, harnessed together. So Barbara and I decided to give it a try. We invited Jan and Shana to join us but Jan took one look and went green. Shana said that if Jan does not want to jump she would not go.
One is strapped into a double harness and then attached to the tripple swing ropes with triple cringles, all very safe and carefully checked by 4 people. Then you stand on the launch pad which is 96 meters (315 feet) above the Gourits river. Let me tell you now, when you stand on the edge of the launch pad and look down it takes a fair amount of courage to jump, but jump we did!
The initial drop is 47 meters (154 feet) before the ropes take up the slack and the swing starts. At this point the body is doing 120 kmh (75 mph) and the stomach feels like it was left on the launch pad. Then you start to swing on an 80 meter (263 foot) arc - and what a feeling and adrenaline rush!! When the ride is over, a couple of young guys help you into a rubber duck, undo all the harnessing and push you to the river bank. You then have to climb out of the gorge which is not too bad as the adrenaline is still rushing around the body.
The twist to this story is the fact that Shana told us the next day, that she secretly also wanted to jump but because Jan was set against her (or himself) jumping, she kept quiet. We then made her an offer she found hard to refuse. Either Barbara or I will gladly do a jump with her. She decided that she will jump with Barbara, so on the 8th January 2005 we picked Jan and Shana up in Dana Bay and drove to Gourits where Shana and Barbara jumped. Although Shana was afraid, she went through with it and I think she is a very brave lady as she has never done any adrenaline stuff like this before. Well done Shana!
Now I hear that there is another bridge swinging outfit in Blouwkrantz which is 216 meters (709 feet) high...................
The mind boggles but we might just have to check this one out as well. To put these two jumps into perspective, the Gourits jump gives one a free fall of 3 seconds while the Blouwkrantz jump lasts for TEN seconds - wow.
On the 10th January my son Craig started his training course in Bloemfontein. He plans to follow in my foot steps and become the third generation in our family to practice Orthotics and Prosthetics. The course lasts for 4 years plus a one year internship and then another two years to do his Doctorate. I was very proud when I heard that Craig scored the highest points at the aptitude tests, this out of over 300 applicants. Well done Craig and I hope you do well in our profession.
On Friday 14th January 2005, I decided to connect the boats gas stove up because Barbara wanted to do some baking. So far we have been cooking on a two plate electric unit and using the microwave oven. So we got the gas bottle and regulator set up at the back of the boat on the sugar scoop, connected the stove up and turned the gas on. Then I tried to light one of the burners and realised the gas pressure was too high, I turned the pressure down on the regulator and tried again - this is where things went badly wrong. The whole stove erupted in a ball of flames! I scrambled out and turned the gas off but the stove continued to burn, flames coming out all over the place. Not having a fire extinguisher on board (yet) I resorted to blowing the flames out. Thank goodness this "sophisticated" method worked. I then turned the pressure right down and slowly increased it until we had the right size flame. The only thing we (including Helmut from next door, who I had by this time, borrowed a fire extinguisher from) can think of is that the gas bottle was over full and a spurt of liquid propane came through the pipe - this would also explain why the fire continued to burn even after the gas bottle was turned off. The stove is now working well and the first thing Barbara baked (a coffee caramel cream cake) came out 100%. I also did a curry chicken in the wok and that also cooked nicely.
A couple from the USA arrived in Mossel Bay aboard their 35 foot yacht Altair on the 24th January. When we met them (Paul and Suzette) we discovered that they were from Seattle! As we will be in Seattle in April to visit Barbara's daughter Ayla and son-in-law Steve, we naturally quizzed them about sailing information and what is available there by way of equipment we still need for Zephyr. Paul has a few contacts there that he gave us including details of a big annual yachting "swap meet" that will take place on the 2nd April (also Ayla's birthday). We became good friends in the short time they were here and we hope to meet up again in the future. They left Mossel Bay on the morning of the 1st February 2005 heading for Cape Town and then across the Atlantic towards Panama where they set sail from nearly four years ago on their circumnavigation cruise of the World. Paul is a tool and die maker who used to work for the Boeing Aerospace Company in Seattle and Suzette came from the hospitality industry working in hotels and for a wine merchant. We wish them fair weather and a successful completion of their 'round the world' trip.
Mossel Bay has settled back into it's usual slow pace since the holiday makers left and went back home. However on the 26th January 2005 things started getting exciting again as there was a yacht race from Cape Town to Mossel Bay. This race used to be an annual event known as the Diaz Race but has not taken place for the last 12 years. This year the race did take place and is now known as the Vodacom Mossel Bay Race. There were 19 yachts entered but 3 withdrew, so 16 yachts left Cape Town at 6pm on Wednesday the 26th January. The first two yachts to arrive in Mossel Bay got here at 11:05:18am and 11:05:37am on Friday 28th. This is quite unusual to have two yachts arrive only 19 seconds apart after 260 nautical miles or 41 hours of hard sailing and this made for an interesting dash to the line. Barbara and I were asked to help on the race bridge again and we did 3 shifts of four hours each as the bridge was manned for 60 straight hours. We were also asked to stand in as one of the rubber duck pilot crews to ferry the yachtsmen from their boats to shore and back. On Saturday evening 29th January Vodacom held an informal dinner party and prize giving for the race and we met a few well known skippers such as John Martin and JJ Provoyeur as well as the yacht designer Ernst van der Laan. There were also a few well known yachts such as Voortrekker II, Fascination of Power (a Navy boat), Thunderchild (sponsored by BMW), Morning Glory, Promoto Impex, Gilly-B, After You, Black Cat, Gumption and Madam Pazzaz. Most of these yachts have competed in races such as the Cape to Rio, BOC Around the World etc. At the Vodacom party, I asked and got permission for Paul and Suzette to join Jan and Shana and us at our table. This they did and a jolly time was had by all.
It is interesting to note that the CEO of Vodacom, Mr Allan Knott-Craig has his beautiful yacht Eilean Taigh moored directly opposite Zephyr here in Mossel Bay and I am sure this has a lot to do with the fact that Vodacom sponsor all sorts of things here such as this race, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) and others.
And that ended an interesting January 2005.
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