Bumfuzzle and the Trade Winds

Oh boy – long time since I last wrote, oh well been a little busy. We just got back from the Vaal where we purchased a 24’ vivacity sailing vessel named Bluefin we are of course changing the name to Yrumoar but she is a beauty. We struck a real bargain and are pleased with the purchase.


A little annoyed that we can’t go sailing this weekend. They are taking her out of the water to antifoul and repaint the non skid. Oh yes also fit a marine toilet. But she should be ready by next weekend so we will officially be sailors from then on.

This is all very exciting. We were at the Vaal on Saturday with the 2 little ones and looked at her and agreed then, today was payup day and we got a test sail to boot!

Now we need to get a few things together to ensure our trips are great. We need a cooler box – Coleman 12 volt plug in? A stainless steel braai to be fitted to the back. A few little things like cups, glasses, plates, spoons knives, forks, mugs and of course tea and coffee etc. So much shopping so little cash what to do what to do! At least it is the end of the month and we paid 60% of the price we thought we would have to pay. So we should make out alright.

Otherwise still researching info coz’ we leave in 4 years 10 months and a few days and counting, time if flying. At least we can start practising to sail now – we should have all the experience we need before we leave. Found out we can trailer the little yacht we bought and she is sea worthy so we could take her down for a small sail to Mozambique or something during our practise phase.


Barry got me a 1:35000 scale map of the world for Valentines day so we can dream with more info. Was reading “Bumfuzzle” visit their site at http://www.bumfuzzle.com/ and “And the wind carried us” written by Gilbert Goor (I have a signed copy) and both mentioned trade winds. Never thought about this before but Bum said “we travel this way because of the trade winds” so I looked them up (I must sound like a complete idiot to some of you but at least I am doing my homework and research before we leave) anyway upon reading and looking we discovered it will be much better to sail the opposite way around the world than what we had intended. This means we start with a massive Atlantic crossing before we start our site seeing. We decided we would tour the local islands before taking the crossing. We drew the general trade wind directions onto my massive map and now have a much better indication of what we are expecting.

We know we have to sail as we can’t afford to have too much fuel usage. We don’t have too much cash, yet we still want to see the world!

Here’s to stress free, cash strapped and loving it!