30th December


Looking back, I can’t believe how long it has been since I posted…it has been a crazy month and with the New Year just a day away it is time to reflect on the year past. Sitting here at 4:30am watching the water seems like just the place.

This year has been a biggy…for all of us.

• South Africa hosted the Fifa World Cup
• Kyle has learned to ride a bicycle and to swim.
• Rauen was made Headboy at school
• We bought Yrumoar and the mooring she is currently hooked to

Pretty successful as far as I’m concerned. Looking to the year ahead…this should be the year we cast off the lines and head out into the big blue yonder!

Granny Lela, Vicky and Michael came down for a few days and we had a wonderful time. As it was the first time any of them had been on a boat it was quite an eye opener, the physical size of the boat was the first shock, then Lela was astounded by the fact that there are actually “boat people”, people who live on yachts and travel and don’t come from the land of the big smoke. Little Michael enjoyed himself thoroughly, playing on the boat and discovering new and awesome things…and he behaved like an angel even enjoying the rough water when we went out sailing!

I am really glad they came down because it gave her a sense of comfort knowing her grandchildren will be living on a spacious catamaran and travelling rather than the perceived idea of a small damp dark place in uncomfortable seas and dangerous places.

Tomorrow night we will head up to the yacht club for a New Years eve party to welcome in 2011. Well it seems a toast to the old year and another for the new year…may all your dreams materialise!

We have moved aboard!

20th December


We officially “moved aboard” although we still have to trek up the Johannesburg on a pretty regular occasion for the while. We brought down quite a few things and will bring down more when we return next week.

This past week has absolutely flown past, Wiekus and Nicky we down here on their honeymoon and we and a whale of a time, Nicky was very nervous with all things “boaty”…her favourite was to say “ I is not a fish” but she got her sea legs and enjoyed the day out in the big blue. They headed out yesterday and we now have a few days before our next visitors arrive, so we want to get stuck in and fix a few things before that.

I have also been studying for my TEFL certificate and am about 2 thirds of the way through the coursework. I am hoping to complete it before having to buy more time.

The selling of household items has also been going really well. We have a whole host of people waiting for us to arrive back so they can collect the items they want. We will be up there for a few days next week so we can sort that out and have a whole lot less to sell.

We also plan to get our yellow fever vaccinations early next year, and consult with the doctor as to whether there are other injections he believes are necessary. We want to get all the vaccinations we need for the section of the trip from South Africa to Australia via the Panama Canal. We have heard Indonesia is very strict so we will need others in Australia, and we can get the balance, if there are any, at that stage.

Well off to do some boat work before our next visitors: Granny Lela, Vicky and little Michael of only 9 months!

4 weeks until we “move aboard”

13th November


I can’t believe how quickly the time is passing. We are down to 4 weeks until we “move aboard”. That is there are only 20 days left of school then we will officially be coastal people and the boys will officially be home schooled. The time has just flown past and I feel as though we have done little these last months towards our leaving goals although that is far from a true statement.

Let me take a minute to clarify the “move aboard” thing. We set the date to officially start calling Yrumoar home on the 10th of December. We will of course not be able to sail away in 4 weeks time but we will no longer call our house our home. We will move our personal items aboard and “visit” Johannesburg every month until we get through the transition phase. We estimate this will take anything from 3 months to a year depending on how the various things fall into place. As things fall into place so our sail away date will become more concrete and final.

Speaking of things falling into place the latest grand move toward the dream is that we have put our house on the market! A few people have come to look, still no offers but at least there has been interest. The next couple of weeks will be the key for the house decision. If we have enough interest we will leave it on the market and hopefully get an offer, if the interest dwindles we will take it off the market and build a flat on the left (port) side of the property and place both the house and flat up for rental. Selling would be first prize and that is what we are hoping for, but we do have a back-up plan. This is the type of situation that determines the length of the transition period and we have decided to just let things happen. After all, the right thing will prevail and we will mould our direction accordingly.

I have been spending a lot of hours studying the TEFL course work and even started submitting online tests for marking. There is a very short time limit to complete the course and I am really having to put in hours to keep up. I am however, enjoying the work and feel as though I have gained great insight and expanded my views regarding both teaching and the English language. I truly hope I will get the opportunity to use this new found knowledge out there while we enjoy an awesome sabbatical.

In my last post I mentioned that our weekends were full of seeing people and organised parties and events. This is an ongoing scenario, and we have had little rest time, my mom stayed with us for a few days last week and we had a big tea party for various friends. I had my godmother come stay for a weekend and all the while I have had to have a spick and span house, ready for viewing at any time.

Apart from private parties we are in the final stretch at school, this month alone we have done Entrepreneurs Day, the Mini walk, annual prize givings (yes two of those) with a disco still to come before the final exams commence in just over a week’s time.

Rauen attended the annual prize giving on Thursday evening and his speech went down perfectly. He had the audience laughing heartily and the teachers giggling in the background. He spoke clearly and it was clear the amount of work he put into the preparation. He made me a very proud mother who wishes she had a video camera! Guess what I plan on purchasing in the not too distant future…

Two completely different worlds

24th October


Boy, time really has picked up speed lately. My life seems to be whirlpool of getting things completed, coupled with working, studying and organising.

We have a moving date of the 10th of December…now technically we don’t have to have everything gone by that date as we will need a fridge and a bed to sleep on while we are in Johannesburg, but we do need to thin out our belongings. We are selling everything we do not use everyday and a few things we do use but can live without. Our plan is to be able to move into a single room if necessary so it becomes as cheap as possible to live up here while we visit…perhaps stay with friends on our visits once our house is sold and have no belongings besides our suitcases…

We are all looking forward to December but before we reach that we have a loads of happenings and things to do…I have literally filled every weekend between now and our leaving date in order to fit in seeing people not to mention my mom’s visit from the UK. This is turning out to be an action pack, fun filled couple of months.

I signed up to do a TEFL course. My English is good…or so I thought. I remember most of what my friends have forgotten about grammar and my spelling is better than most people I know, but this course is turning out to be more in depth and thorough than I thought, I have a limited time in which to complete it as well so the pressure sure is on. At the end, and if I pass, I will receive a certificate which should enable me to teach English as a foreign language in any country around the world…we will see how this works out…it is all very exciting.

We have spent a lot of time packing, clearing and deciding what we want to keep and what we would like to get rid of, jumble sale day is fast approaching and I have tentatively booked the 25th of November for this. Everyday we clear one small section in the house, be it a shelf in the garage or a draw in the house or whatever small area we pick and we go through everything. It seems we find little to take with and most things end up in our jumble sale pile looking for a new home. There really is very little from our land life that suits our new envisaged boat life. These are definitely two completely different worlds.

The boat comes with everything we need, it has built in furniture and all electrics are 12volt as opposed to the 220v we are used to. We can’t fill our walls with books and erect paintings and mirrors everywhere, our crockery is melamine rather than glass and with the limited space ornamentals go out the window. We are scaling down our life to become simpler and less cluttered. I once read that it is more like a 100 years ago, where the woman cooks, cleans and takes care of the kids while the man does the manual labour of fixing and repairing with the odd bit of hunting (for fish mostly).

Ah, going back to the good old days!

We could see a storm coming

10th October


Barry and I have started this little game. We imagine ourselves on the boat in a specific incident and try to figure out exactly what we would be doing. Last night after it got dark we could see a storm coming, the sky was pitch black when suddenly it was alight with lightning. We used this opportunity to play our new game.

We discussed what we would be doing as we watched the storm pass over us. Send Rauen to close and lock all the hatches. Too much lightning…unplug as many electronic items as we can manage without, we sail blind. Still see the lightning and hear thunder coming closer, we cannot see how long this storm extends, is it a line squall? Which direction is it coming from? It is too difficult to see in the dark, we discuss the difference between a storm in daylight hours and those after dark. We head up to the deck and put 2 reefs into the main sail. We furl the jib in completely. We wait…the wind starts to turn gusty, lucky we have reefed already. We send Kyle down to get mine and Barry’s wet weather jackets, we will wear those as the whipping wind is cold and the rain will soon be pelting down. We are sitting in the saloon at the table, the sliding door ajar and we are watching, listening and waiting. I can feel the anticipation but our auto pilot can handle this weather. The rains starts to come down, the boat is drench within seconds and with the rain comes powerful wind, we close the cockpit door because the water is coming inside, Rauen fetches a towel to place at the door so we don’t the trudge water right though the boat, we also reduce the slipperiness. We can hear the pounding of the rain on the roof, the heavens have really opened, the waves have increased in height together with the wind and we are being tossed and churned. Kyle is scared, sitting next to me, holding onto the chair and table asking how long ‘til this is over? I have to reply that I don’t know, it makes me feel terrible for taking him to a place this scary. Barry and I will have to go outside and check regularly both because we have no electronics and to check how the auto pilot is handling things. Oh I start to feel ill, I need to remember to take seasickness pills if a storm is coming, the heightened movement coupled with the increased fear bring on a bout and I am spilling cookies. This can’t go on. Stop back to reality…

Wow, I had to drop that one there, maybe if I had remembered the seasickness pills? No, maybe if I was braver! We closed the garage door completely and discussed what had just happened…we are not ready just yet, a little more experience, a little more confidence and perhaps we need a list so we remember to do all those things and more. I can’t afford to forget the seasickness pills at a crucial moment. We need to take the batteries out of our electronics as a lightning strike will fry even unplugged items, having the batteries out may reduce the effect. Will we lead a line from the mast into the water to help divert the lightning on a direct hit? We would after all be the highest point in a 100 miles!

We decided we were only brave enough to last as long as we did and that more practise and more imaginary practise will be necessary. First I need to be able to deal with the imaginary life on board during a storm before we sail it. We will do this exercise many times, we will do it in our garage where the sounds are real, tied to our walk-on where the wind and water are real, hooked to a mooring buoy where we will spin and hop around with the wind and waves, at anchor where we will be at the mercy of the weather and our own ground tackle. We will end up facing many of these crazy storms, line squalls and whatever weather happens to build and pass over us. We need to be prepared and ready for it.

Yes we know sailing is 60% good weather, 30% becalmed and 10% storms, but the 10% storms are the times we will be tested. And pass that test we must.

Drawn to a life at sea

2nd October


This morning we planned to leave for a day sail at 7am after a great cooked breakfast and a quick clean up. It is quarter past six and I am the only one awake…

The unpredictable howling south westerly arrived at 2am together with the mandatory overcast weather, big short waves and crazy confused seas. We are not going anywhere so no one really wants or needs to rise on this our last real day of holiday.

I am not a late sleeper so I am normally up early taking the alone time to write and plot and plan. Not much beats working in the early hours of the morning, sitting at the saloon table overlooking the marina, with the sounds of the ocean in the back round. This is the life.

My thoughts over the last 2 days have been on our return. This is going to be 2 and half months of crazy business. We need to price and sell all our furniture and odds and ends, we need to sell our house, I have a student to teach, a extra part time job organised for most of October/November and the final term of school is to be played out including Honours evenings, entrepreneurial days, fund raising events, exams, school magazine articles and speeches that Rauen needs to have completed and practised with loads of mom’s help of course. Add to this my mom’s visit from the UK, my regular business and work and the fact that I have a new employee who is in training to take over some of my workload and it adds up to hard work, more hard work and a little extra hard work. I guess I’ll be back to working weekends and evenings because December will be here before I can blink my eyes twice and wish it around. And I am wishing it around…it means we move aboard!

We have yet to decide on our exact December plans as our choices are staying home and enjoying a last Christmas in Joburg or coming down here and enjoying a first Christmas on the boat. I guess it depends if our Christmas tree is sold yet!

We have a few last visitors who will be coming down and then things should settle down and we will spend a lot more alone time on board. Translate to: work time on board. It is hard to entertain and work, but this is work I am really looking forward to!

Sitting here at the table watching the water, feeling the bounce and swaying of the yacht as the swell from the huge seas come in and wind shifts her around on her mooring lines is amazing. Even though I can hear the wind howling and know we will end up facing these conditions out at sea it still inspires me. I would never have thought I could be drawn to a life at sea like I am. Amazing.

No time to take seasickness pills

1 October


This week has really flown past. We managed to fit a few exciting things into our schedule like our first official sailboat race, an offshore day sail and a cup of coffee with Greg the previous owner of Yrumoar. We managed to fix a broken water pump, play a host of games with the kids and get to the end of our latest book Bumfuzzle. Kyle managed to gain confidence and with it excitement for sailing, Rauen actually stayed awake during an offshore trip and Barry and I learnt more and more about our boat, our sailing skills and each other.

Barry and I participated as crew on board Tiana with Barry (Baz) and Allison for the fortnightly Sunday race. We were racing on a monohull and we were slightly apprehensive as neither of us particularly enjoyed monohull sailing in the past. But we dropped the lines and headed to the pond to hoist sails, once up we sailed up the channel out into the harbour. We were following race course 5 past buoy 1 to starboard, the shipwreck marker to port and out into the ocean around the wave rider keeping it to our port side. We were going strong keeping up to the lead yacht Silhouette for this first section of the course but as we rounded the waverider things went wrong, some lines got tangled and the steering which Barry (Baz) had been working on came off the quadrant which left Tiana with no steerage. He quickly shifting everything out of a stern lazarette onto the deck to reconnect it while we brought down sails and Allison tried in vain to get us back on course. We sadly had to abort at this point but had we a great time of it.

Barry (Baz) had pushed Tiana hard and asked if I had been nervous or scared and I answered honestly with a No. I think he secretly tried to make us nervous because last time he was on board with us I dropped the steering wheel and walked away saying I can’t do this when things did not go my way. At that time he had mentioned to my sister that it takes a special type of person to do what we are doing and most people don’t cope out there and turn around. But he saw a different side of me this week and I think he was surprised.

Later when I thought about it, it seemed a little strange that I had not been scared as we had tilted far over and had to walk on the walls, water had washed over the decks and we had been soaked by a few waves as they crashed over the bow in the 25 + knots of wind. Seems my confidence is growing!

The following morning dawned with great sailing weather. 15 Knots of wind accompanied by 3 metre waves but with a 9 second interval we decided to take our chances and headed out for a harbour tour hoping to poke out our nose. Barry backed out of the mooring with no incident and we were off. We headed towards to the opening in the harbour but decided to take a short trip past Tuzi Gazi as we had so many visitors this time.

Barry and I sat in the cockpit with Kyle discussing our options, this whole harbour tour thing is getting a little boring and we sent Kyle to the bow to ask the others if they fancied an ocean trip. It was unanimous, we were heading out. I quickly readied the boat, ensuring all the doors were clipped into place and nothing loose was lying around. Kyle took to his usual spot and said he was going to hold down the table. But I convinced him to come out into the cockpit and sit with me.

We were still in the harbour just as the swell starts to pick up when Dean started to feel ill and ducked into the room with Amy for a lie down. We were still under motor at this point as we had a cargo ship following us out of the harbour. Yeni and Keagan were sitting with us in the cockpit enjoying the ride but the motion eventually got to them as well and they too headed downstairs for a little lie down on their bed. Kyle in the mean time had realised he was not really scared and was up and down checking on the Dean and Amy and Rauen (who was trying to stay awake) and fetching things and once we turned downwind was even asking to help with the rope work as we had hoisted the jib. We managed to sail all the way into the final channel before dropping sails and once again setting her down in the mooring. One giant leap for Kyle’s confidence and he keeps asking he when we are taking an overnight to Durban…one step at a time Kyle!

I also had no time to take seasickness pills, as it was a last minute decision once we had done a half a harbour tour to exit the harbour. The pills take between ½ hour and 2 hours, depending on the make, before they start to work so I figured I would take my chances and see. I didn’t get sick for one second, I was perfectly okay, no drowsiness or nausea, the motion was incredibly relaxing and enjoyable and for the first time I felt perfectly comfortable…guess I’ll be keeping the pills and only using them when really needed from now on! Boy does this make the trip a whole lot easier.

We managed to break the cover for the filler on the water pump and the lock mechanism for the geyser cover while out, and we are getting used to the idea that we will be fixing things on the boat all the time as the movement of the ocean definitely makes for breakages onboard. I once heard the comment “Sailing around the world has little to do with your sailing ability but rather more to do with your ability to fix the things that break on board” and we are starting to discover this reality.

19th September

I haven’t written in a while, not only because I haven’t felt inspired but also because I came to new realisation that I needed to put into perspective.



Barry and I received our latest Amazon order, a book called Sailing Promise, written by Alayne Main. She sailed around the world on a 33’ catamaran with her husband. This book was particularly eye opening as it dealt more with the emotional side of undertaking this trip and gave me a new perspective on the trip itself.

Up until now, I, like Alayne, have had off pat answers to the obviously fears and questions thrown in my direction. What about storms? We will check the weather and avoid them mostly, or we will sail through them. What about sinking? Catamarans don’t really sink they can capsize but then you can stay on the upside down ship waiting for rescue. What about dealing with the motion? Seasickness pills and the knowledge that; 3 days in I will recover and so on and so forth. Every question has a textbook answer.

I never really took any time to consider the real emotions I would feel and the effect that may or may not have on my relationships with my husband and children. Kyle, in particular, has been struggling with the idea of going on a boat and is fearful (as I am) even in calm waters. I just assumed we would both “get over it”. That by the time we had completed the shakedown cruise we would be comfortable and able crew on this adventure.

Reading this book made we realise that perhaps it may end up being slightly more difficult, my fear may not subside rapidly and Barry may take major strain trying to be husband, skipper, father, cook, navigator, teacher, emotional supporter and crew all alone in the middle of a stormy evening! Barry too may feel the fear I feel in these moments and our only help and assistance will be each other. We may argue, disagree and even want to give up at times. None of these things had ever really occurred to me as I had never taken the time to really consider the trip from this angle, to really look deep into my heart to discover the emotional strain this could and probably would place on each and every one of us.

So I guess the questions I had to really ask myself after considering all of this were:
Do I still want to go? Hell YES!
Am I more terrified than before? Hell YES!

But I take refuge in the fact that Barry and I have spent every waking hour together for the last 15 years and still we enjoy each other, we deal with our differences and feed of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I believe none of this will change, I believe we will continue to be a powerful team, dealing with life and all it throws at us with the same attitude we have up to now. I trust we will learn more about each other and compensate more for each other than ever before. I trust this journey, like all those we have already completed will bring us closer, make us stronger and give us greater understanding.

Who am I trying to convince? Myself? Probably, but as our departure date inches closer, so the truth of our decision becomes clearer.

5th September

We will be returning to Yrumoar in less than 3 weeks time and I am starting to once again gather items that will be going down with us. Every time we are down there, I make a list of the items I feel we are missing. These are small items I believe we can and should either bring from home, purchase during our regular shopping trips or make.

I also add certain research topics to the list, expecting us to take a look at them and come to a conclusion. This usually entails things like measuring the size of the oven to see which roasting pans and cake tins will fit and which we need to sell or printing and laminating the radio procedure and mayday cards as required by SAMSA.

This week my research turned to the roller door I am looking for that will close off the shelf area behind the stove to make it into a cupboard. This is, at the moment, wasted space and with the addition of the under counter fridge and freezer I will loose my pot cupboard. This seems the ideal space to replace it, the pots will fit and we can line it with heat resistant non-skid. It will look great.

Barry and I paid a visit to a kitchen cupboard shop and had a look around. I finally spotted just what I was looking for. The sales lady had a look at the available sizes and they were slightly out, but we could work around that by building a frame into the counter. She then made a phone call and came back with a price…R 5500.00! For a cupboard door? Even she was shocked at that one! We said thank you and left the store, all the while deciding that Barry could and should rather make this particular item himself. The cupboard door saga will continue….

We did manage to tick off a few items on the list. I collected the curtain from the tailor on Friday morning, all sewn and ready to be fitted on our return. While at the stationery shop for work I purchased a duster and some chalk for the new chalkboard, I also had the radio cards that have been waiting for lamination for 3 weeks laminated. We managed to find some hi-ball plastic glasses while looking at 12v fridge and freezer options at the local camping store and found a few other great outdoor things to purchase in the future.

We spoiled ourselves by purchasing a jaffle iron and a waffle maker, both of which can be used on the stovetop or in an open air fire! Those items we did not buy have been added to our list to be discussed further before we spend the money…we don’t want to buy things we may not use and if we have lived without them until now…maybe we do not need them! The most wanted of these items is a 20 litre outdoor shower. In the tropics, a fresh water shower, with hot water will be luxury I don’t want to forgo and if we can control it to allow 5 litres per person per day…what a daily treat! Yes, that we will use for certain!

Kyle’s swimming lessons have been going extremely well! He has managed to go under water and collect items from the floor. He can doggy paddle and he even managed to do crawl using a board held out in front of him. This kid will be swimming like a fish by the end of the year thanks to Just So! Swimming school. The improvement in Kyle’s confidence and the reduction in his fear of water and thereby sailing are beyond our expectations, this is certainly a big step towards our departure!

We also received some new reading material this week and ordered a little more. Among our new books was the Lonely Plant guide to Southern Africa. I decided to purchase the book because we have travelled extensively in South Africa and I could then make a judgement about how useful they would be. This particular book included Namibia and Mozambique, both of which we plan to stop at in the not too distant future!

I am currently going through the South African section, using it for the planning of our detour in February. We plan to go via Graskop, Pilgrims rest and Sabie for a 3 to 4 day visit of the area. Barry and I have been there numerous times and would like to show this to our boys before we leave. There is so much see: the caves, the dinosaur park (neither of which are mentioned in the guide), panning for gold in Pilgrims rest, God’s window and Bourke’s luck potholes. Not to mention the hike in the Blyde River Canyon!

I will use it again for our detour in April (we want to take Keagan with so it needs to fall within the school holidays) to Augrabie’s falls in the Northern Cape. Following these inland trips we will be taking the boat up along the Mozambique coastline…and who knows what adventures will follow!

28th August

I am not normally the one discussing the actual act of sailing the yacht. From the beginning we decided that Barry will be the captain, skipper or whatever name you wish to call him. Not that I have not, can not or do not actually have to sail and navigate on board Yrumoar but rather that I am the first mate, navigator, chef, teacher, mother and wife.


We have to this point had the same courses, the same instruction and lessons and the same experience when it comes to sailing. The difference being that Barry is far more confident and believes he can sail anything. Just like he can drive, fly or ride anything made by man. He is transportation crazy, he loves all types of transport from boats, planes, trains, bikes, trucks and cars. The trick being that he likes to be in control of these modes of transport. He hates being a passenger in the car, he always drives if we are together in the car, he hates being a passenger on an airplane, he would rather drive 2000km than fly it and he rides his bike like a pro…all this suits me fine but on our yacht he can not be at the helm and in control 24 hours a day on a 35 day ocean crossing so having 2 qualified, confident and competent people is an absolute necessity. Even our resident He-man needs to sleep sometime!

Now for me the 400 odd hours of ocean sailing experience coupled with the 400 odd hours of dam sailing experience have done nothing to improve my confidence. I panic when we get too close to land or when the area is busy. I don’t enjoy docking and departing under motor in a confined space and I feel as if every time I take the helm we either go off course or go into irons (turn directly into the wind to the “NO GO” zone). I end up getting frustrated and returning the helm to Barry who completes the task at hand.

In theory I understand how all the sailing works, but in practise I have struggled with feeling the wind and keeping the yacht on course. Barry on the other hand sails beautifully, parks and manoeuvres under power perfectly and generally has no problem. I am not unable to perform all the tasks but can only perform them if there is a competent sailor nearby (Barry fits this bill for me).

So this week we took Yrumoar out in a force 5 (17 – 22 knots of wind). Barry did all the sail and rope work while I took the helm for the whole day. I had to keep her into the wind for over an hour while Barry jury rigged a new tack (our main is still not fixed) and Barry and Rauen hoisted the main with a reef in it. We hoisted the jib and we sailed up and down inside the harbour practising the technique of tacking (we have had to use the motor to tack without the main sail up as our speed decreases to much once we have managed to backwind the sail. After a few practise tacks up and down we left the harbour mouth and headed offshore. I managed to keep Yrumoar on course and as close to the wind as she has ever been, we did not go into irons nor did we go off course and I felt the confidence growing with every minute.

Probably for the first time I thoroughly enjoyed the open ocean, Barry below dealing with Kyle’s fear (which I usually have to deal with and that is decreasing) and checking the charts and performing the navigation work (which he has never done before).

I felt exhilarated and had some of the most fun onboard that I have ever had. Barry discovered that his problem lies with the navigation an area where I am not at all concerned and once we were back a the marina I showed him a few things he had forgotten.

Many more things happen this past week but for me the confidence boost I got from actually being the helmsman and dealing with the wind, waves and the open ocean is a great step towards my confidence to drop the lines and push off when the time is right. We are after all taking to a life afloat!

21st August

Due to the current teachers strike our two boys have been unable to attend school. Most schools in the “burbs” are open and operating, their school is open but no teaching is being done due to the poor learner turn out. (They have averaged less than 100 students per day). So we kept the kids home on Wednesday and by Thursday we had decided to come down to the boat so I find myself, pleasantly I might add, aboard our yacht for an unexpected long weekend. Axel and Peta decided to come down for the weekend as well so we even have friends aboard.

The view from our cockpit

I have taken the time with the kids at home to do a practise run for home schooling and it seemed to work out well. We completed some prepared reading, some unprepared reading, Rauen wrote a narrative essay of 150 words and Kyle wrote a half a page describing a character. We took 20 unknown words for the book we had completed reading and look them up and wrote out their meaning. We acted out the meanings of the words and even found some more words while doing the dictionary work to look up. All in all a very successful and enjoyable couple of days teaching and learning. I am sticking to English at the moment as this is a subject I have already received the work for. Other subjects will follow once the next order arrives with the complete syllabus for both boys.

When we arrived at the yacht yesterday the first tack was to open the stop cocks and close the bilges (which are still remaining dry). The next one was to search the cupboards and other areas the roaches were hiding before and to our delight there were none to be seen…I still don’t think we have won the war yet though. We then unpacked and cleaned the cockpit area before Axel and Peta arrived. We tried our the thinners on removing permanent marker and found it only worked on certain surfaces. We quickly removed all the Debenair names from these surfaces and realising we needed a few things, I headed off to Pick n Pay to find a permanent marker, some batteries and some food and coldrinks.

Before name removal

As I arrived back Axel and Peta were looking for a parking so we unloaded the cars and headed back to the yacht for some more unpacking and a grand tour before settling down for a few sunset drinks and lots of laughter! What can I say life a yacht is awesome!

17th August

Had a rather exciting week so far…


On Monday morning we paid a visit to the SA Sailing office in Germiston and managed to get Yrumoar officially registered both into Barry and my names as well as complete the name change from Debenair to Yrumoar.

On Monday afternoon, we passed the tailor and dropped of our curtain to be stitched, we will get it back in 2 weeks ready to take with on the 23rd on September…funny to think it is still more than a month until we can go down again…we are becoming more and more desperate to move.

We also went passed the printers offices and collected our new boat stickers, boy are they gorgeous. The colour is bright and the stickers look great! We have 2 for the back of the steps and one for each side on the bow. First we must remove the Debenair stickers but that shouldn’t be too difficult.

We also took Kyle for his first swimming lesson last week Thursday and will be back today. He did so well, even putting his face under the water. He should be swimming in no time. As we are moving in December so he only has until then to get the basics. We can practise swimming at the yacht club on a daily basis once we are down there. As long as he can float, go under the water and doggy paddle we will all feel much better about it and hopefully he will feel better about the whole trip in general.

11th August

We arrived safely at 9pm on Thursday night and found Yrumoar still happily tied up to her mooring. We woke up early on Friday and discovered we had cockroaches on the yacht. Now, when we first moved on board we knew there were roaches, but after much roach killer and numerous traps we thought we had solved our problem…alas we had not!

We decided that breakfast on the yacht was out of the question and packed all food items into the fridge, placed good old Fumitabs around the boat and set them alight. We locked the door and left for the mall. Rauen mentioned that maybe machine guns weren’t good enough to win our war, but our nuke was bound to work! (sadly we found a lone roach when we were leaving – roaches do survive nukes!) We will be back at war when we return in September.

We decided that Breakfast at Maxi’s was a plan, followed by a little shopping for our supplies. We returned to the boat with arms full of goodies at 2pm. We then managed to get our new yacht membership cards from the yacht. We are now officially members of ZYC and can now officially apply for Yrumoar's name change! Barry and I spent the afternoon cleaning all the cupboards, shelves and floors in the yacht…great start to a long weekend.

Saturday morning dawned bright and we decided to take a sail. It was Dean’s first trip to the ocean, first time on a yacht and it was great fun to see things through his eyes.

 He asked a load of questions and enjoyed himself tremendously. We first took a short trip around the harbour, then exited through the washing machine into the deep blue yonder, much to Kyle’s horror…

(this face makes me feel awful about taking Kyle with on this adventure – I am such a terrible mother!)

When we got back to the marina, the boys went down to the yacht club to play soccer while Barry and I emptied the fore deck lockers. The front one was empty (we have now put the shade cover in this one). We are trying to keep the weight closest to the middle of the boat. There was so much stuff in the second locker, we just kept coming up with more and more every time we entered into the depths of this enormous locker. We managed to get everything sorted and took a whole heap of things up to the storeroom. We now have a whole heap of things we want to fit to this locker, but first we want some hooks, brackets and the like to ensure we maintain an important boat philosophy: “A place for everything and everything in its place”.

Goodies from the locker

On Sunday morning, I called my dad to ask if there was NEWS about the looming teachers strike. He said that he had received a letter stating that the kids would be safer at home….great! That literally meant an extra day (and an extra long weekend). We decided that to celebrate we would take a hike to the beach.

It was a little over 3 km’s each way and we took a walk, playing soccer on the way and a dip in the ocean followed by ice-cream before the long hike back made the day complete. We also managed to find a bucket and spade for Kyle to play on the “beach” at the yacht club with…we will spend many hours building sandcastles in the future.

Once we got back from the hike, Barry and I went up to the yacht club to catch the end of the Hobie cat racing taking place there. Neither of us have any idea about the rules and after a while decided that a good, hot shower and an early night would be more fun.

On Monday we woke up to the dreaded South Westerly blowing like crazy, it was overcast, windy and cold…guess we can’t have glorious weather everyday.

We decided to read the book I had brought with, this is one of the books we received for the home- schooling programme and we spent the day reading, analysing and discussing the themes, characters and plot. We also spoke about the use of grammar to create mood and many parts of speech…it all went well and the kids even commented that I managed to make English interesting. The book was also a great read, why not try it yourself? Tribes by Cathrine Macphail.(You can get it through the Kalahari link on the right)

On Tuesday we took the long drive home, after struggling to carry the bags to the car on a marina swamped with waves and moving like a roller coaster. Even the birds could not fly into the pumping, howling wind as a small wild bird eventually landed on my shoulder and allowed me to take him from the marina walk-on up to the more sheltered boatyard.

All in all, a successful weekend which had all the aspects of a fantastic holiday and a great school education, hopefully this glimpses of what we can expect in the future. We even did geography on the way home while playing our near famous countries game.

3rd August

We have been at home for the last week and decided to get a few things done. We have between now and December to get the house completely finished and up for rent so we can start with our plan of 2 weeks here, 2 weeks there, but not sacrifice any income we can derive from the new arrangement.

We took a trip up to Deneysville at the Vaal dam to Star Marine to purchase a few items for Yrumoar, a wind indicator at the top of the mast (our current one is very small) and a few other odds and ends we found to be way more expensive in Richards Bay.

Vaal dam wall

We also started the massive job of installing the 2nd bathroom (main en suite). We worked all day yesterday soldering copper pipes and tap fitting together to get the plumbing pipes that fit inside the walls completed, we are nearly there. Today we will complete this task and start the next one (brandering to erect the ceiling boards or testing the pipes under pressure, maybe building the bath walls or the shower floor height – we will see what follows in natural progression). We should complete this bathroom before the end of September and be able to move on to the next project (cupboard doors for the bedrooms).

We are going down to the yacht on Thursday and will receive our new membership card from the yacht club. This means that we can begin our SAS process for the renaming of Debenair to Yrumoar. The legal side needs to be done first.

Amy has asked to come with us to the SAS offices this time as last time she did not register to get her day skippers and still needs to complete that task. She visited us this weekend and gave me the new semester timetable, from this we have decided that a Monday morning would be the best time to go, so we will be doing this before the end of August. We then expect to wait a few weeks while the documents are sent to head office checked, updated and a new SAS certificate is issued with the vessel renamed and officially registered into our names.

This month Barry and I have been officially married for 10 years! That’s a pretty big number to me (at this point a 1/3 of my life) so we have decided that we will buy ourselves an anniversary present (we normally don’t). There is an EPIRB for sale in Richards Bay for a decent price, (licensing an registration will be extra) that together with a small monetary deposit into our “cruising kitty” seems like a great idea to me…we will see what the trip this weekend brings regarding the EPIRB.

Every time I look around the order and priority of each item required on the boat seems to come under scrutiny. While looking at the documents to register a ship licence we realised that we can with 1 registration fee apply for the licences for all our “radio equipment” on board. This includes an SSB radio, a VHF radio, Radar, Radar transponder, hand held VHF transceiver for our small survival craft, EPIRB and any other radio equipment.

Our current licence is on the previous owner’s name and needs to be reregistered. We have decided to wait until March when the annual haul out needs to be done. We have decided that we should prioritise the radio equipment to allow a new licence to be purchased for all the equipment at the same time thus reducing the initial registration costs. This means that items we would have placed lower on our “TO DO” list have been brought up to sooner to reduce registration costs.

I have also printed off a list of “required” items on the safety authorities CAT A list to ensure we prioritise any items we do not yet have on board to register the vessel as a CAT A (no restriction on off-shore distance) during the March haul-out. These items will also need to be prioritised and added to our “TO DO” list.

This weekend when we are down at the yacht we will be going through the yacht with a fine-tooth comb searching for all and any “Debenair” stickers, markings or writings on the yacht, this includes covers for harnesses, old logbooks, lifejackets, the actual boat stickers and any other items that contain the name. These will need to be either removed permanently or collected for the burning of the old name during the name changing ceremony.

I have also printed off a list of “required” items on the safety authorities CAT A list to ensure we prioritise any items we do not yet have on board to register the vessel as a CAT A (no restriction on off-shore distance) during the March haul-out. These items will also need to be prioritised and added to our “TO DO” list.

This weekend when we are down at the yacht we will be going through the yacht with a fine-tooth comb searching for all and any “Debenair” stickers, markings or writings on the yacht, this includes covers for harnesses, old logbooks, lifejackets, the actual boat stickers and any other items that contain the name. These will need to be either removed permanently or collected for the burning of the old name during the name changing ceremony, invites will go out to all those of you who have joined our Facebook group.

Oh well, off to carry on with the bathroom work, getting the house ready is becoming a pre-December priority!

Facebook Group Begins

28th July 2010

Yesterday afternoon our first batch of Home-Schooling materials arrived! A great big box packed with awesome books. I bought only a few subjects to gauge the level both my kids were at before I ordered the full package for each age group.


We are very pleased with the new purchase and will be ordering the rest of the years books during September month to ensure we receive it all before the end of December, that way we can start the new year with a bang.


I spent the evening, after attending the Annual Maths Quiz at the school, reading the “manual” that is a compulsory purchase with your first order. This manual explained all the “Engine rooms” or teachers packs that I will receive with each subject as well the information relating to government issues and a few anecdotes from her own experiences both with her children and other home schooling mom’s.

The engine rooms give a detailed breakdown of what is expected from the child during the lesson and how to present the lesson to your child. For example, Read aloud page 1 – 3, write down unknown vocabulary in your word lists, Write a paragraph explaining the subject matter of the lesson (10 points must be noted) etc.

I enjoy this set-up, as trying to decide what, when and how to teach all the subject matter from a list of topics is not my idea of fun, we are trying to sail around the world not reinvent schooling for the kids!

I also placed the order for the new stickers for Yrumoar. We will be getting 2 large stickers for the port and starboard bows as well as 2 smaller stickers for the stairs aft on both port and starboard sides. We decided to go for the back of the stairs as we will be erecting some stainless steel work off the back of the dive platform to attach our tender as well as a gas braai and a stainless steel sink for cleaning and gutting fish. This stainless will completely block out any signage we place on the back of the yacht unless it is on the stair area. I can’t wait to perform the name changing ceremony but I am yet to get the name changed with SAS so it will have to wait until that has been done (September looks promising)….that will be a great party!

We have also opened a group on Facebook. This group will allow everyone to follow us and see what we are up to as we can post comments and send out invitations (like the name changing ceremony party invites) so join the group if you want to stay informed, just click here and add your name to our growing list of followers to receive all the invites and updates on the go. You can also post comments yourself or start a discussion for any questions or concerns you have. Go on, join the fun!

New Promotional goodies!

23rd July 2010

From the last post I realise I have literally started to run out of interesting information to share…or at least it feels like everything has been sort of put on ice for a while. We have returned back to the normal life (which now feels extremely boring) and are trapped here doing these ordinary things until December when the school year ends.


During this week I received a call from Love 2 Learn to state that my order is ready for dispatch and I will receive it during next week! Monday will also be my last day at work for this month as we plan on experimenting with the 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off method while still here to ensure that the plan works in action. That way we still have time to make adjustments to dates, times etc before we add the home schooling and actual travel to the equation.

We have also made a list of all the places we would like to go to in South Africa before we take off and will be adding these travels to our journeys for next year. We will be travelling to God’s Window and Augrabie’s falls among others. I have also added a few “places of interest” that I believe will be educational for the kids and will fit into our schedule…The Pioneer museum, Gold Reef City, The War Museum etc. These visits and trips will be planned in to fit with our travelling and working schedule to maximise the benefit and enjoyment while being a welcome break from the monotonous 600km bi-monthly trip to the yacht.

Both my boys are competing in a chess tournament tomorrow – this is for district (in my day Eastern Transvaal or Regional) and they are very excited. I hope they do well and am very proud of them even before they start to compete even though it means a 5am wakeup call for me on a Saturday morning! That reminds me to do some research for an online chess ranking site, the kids are interested in making this a permanent feature and completing worldwide while travelling…should be interesting.

I have been hard at work designing T-shirts and a few other promotional items that should go up for sale on our website during the next 2 weeks. We managed to find a company that will print these item on order, that way we do not have to carry stock (a very difficult task considering we will be living aboard a sailboat) and we are also not responsible for finding out sizes, colours and postage addresses. We will be buying a few of these ourselves so look out for pics all over our website of us wearing the fantastic Yrumoar branded clothing – Why not buy some for yourself to wear this summer?

More Preparations

14th July

Back at work and already in full swing. The kids are back at school and the routine is kicking in with extra reading lesson on Tuesdays, Chess on Monday and Wednesday, Cricket practise on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Prefect meetings on Friday and Body corporate meetings in between, the schedule looks to be filling up for the next few weeks. I must remember to keep it clear for the upcoming long weekend when a visit to Yrumoar, with Rauen’s best friend in tow, seems to be in order.

We have started to seriously consider our routine for next year. We will still be running our company but with the added responsibility of home schooling the kids and we want to spend at least 50% of our time at the boat. We have decided to travel between Johannesburg and Richards bay spending 15 days at each end.

Our time up here in Johannesburg will be spent getting the business into a position where our presence is needed less and less until we have a competent management structure in place and putting the finishing touches on our house to make it rent able. Our time down in Richards Bay will be spent ensuring the boat gets ready for our highly anticipated trip.

Another routine that Rauen, Kyle and myself have been discussing is the actual “school time table” we have all only had the experience of actual schooling and will start out with a semblance of this system, adjusting it to meet our needs as we proceed. Our initial plan (my philosophy in life is “any plan is better than no plan”)is as follows:

I am generally very busy at work early in the morning and we have agreed that the first “period” will be “homework”, making the day turn upside down with homework first and class work starting at 10am in our boardroom while in JHB and at the saloon or cockpit table in RB.

Class work, meaning me teaching subject matter, with occur from 10am to 12pm at which point we will break for lunch. We will return for a little more class work in the early afternoon depending on how we fair with getting through the required amount of work and finally ending with the homework to be done the following morning.

We also decided which subjects we will be officially taking and made a complete order list for both Grade 4 and Grade 8 that we are all happy with. It is all becoming very real and the boys and I are very excited to start on our new programme.

I want to share a small part of my daily rituals…

Every morning, in place of coffee, I read a blog on the net. I affectionately call this family of four the crazy people. Why? Because they too are doing what we are doing and I think they are a little crazy…just like us!

They are yet to leave and are documenting their preparations via a blog on the net. They write a short post everyday, you never know what to expect from financing problems to boat repairs and upgrades to drowning information and sewing techniques this family puts it all out there explaining their journey from the decision to cast off the lines and hopefully they continue to document as they go so I can keep my morning fix. Have a look at The Sailboat Family and get a feel for my morning fix, some great ideas and reality checks have come about from their blog.

Heading Home already

10 July 2010

So here I sit, our last day aboard before the great return home and the long wait until our next visit (about 4 weeks).

Missing this already!

Today I will be doing the packing, this includes loading the car with some of the items I want to add to my jumble sale list as well as our clothing, washing and any food items we will be returning home.


Over the last few days we have tried to empty and locate a leak into the starboard bilge. Barry and Rauen both tasted the water and concluded it was fresh. Barry then slowly inspected both the hot and cold water pipes that run in this bilge and up to our bathroom. He discovered the pipe had a slow leak at the point where it attached to the coldwater tap on our basin. He found the spanners to tighten it up and I held the one side in place while he turned it tighter...viola. How do we know it worked?

Well we put on the water pump. Previously when the water pump was on, every 5 minutes or so we would hear it labour, we thought nothing of it, but we made sure it was always turned off to ensure low power consumption. Now in hindsight we realised that whenever it laboured I was building up the pressure in the system as the existing water had leaked out via our basin tap. So we know the leak has stopped because the pump does not labour while no taps are turned on.

Will this solve our wet starboard bilge problem? We will wait and watch and see. We have dried the bilge 3 times this week, removing about 150 litres of water in the process. Hopefully we will have a dry bilge on our return in 4 weeks time or we will be back to the drawing board, fresh water is not something we want to loose.

We also took a great walk, playing soccer on the way and visited the beach for a quick dip in the salt water. As Rauen put it: “I have to tell my friends I came to the ocean for 5 weeks but I never swam or went to the beach even once?” Who could argue with that?

Today is what we like to call snack day…the day we all eat everything that is perishable on board so that nothing is off when we get back. I cook the last of the eggs, the last viennas in the fridge, any meat I have taken out to defrost but is yet uncooked, we slice up the cheese, butter the last slices of bread, take out the final apples and last few naartjies and generally enjoy a eat your favourite treats day while we pack and get ourselves ready to leave. I’m off to cook up a storm before I start my packing expedition.

5th July

Sometimes it takes a while to post as I don’t always get the opportunity, sorry to those of you who keep asking where the posts are…also the internet connection here at our marina is not high speed so it all takes time but here is the next instalment of the Yrumoar saga.

Over the last two weeks we cut and fitted the insulation for both engine compartments. Climbing in and out of these areas was uncomfortable to say the least and Barry and I worked at angles we never knew you could work at.

We managed to get both compartments fully insulated and the sound from the engines has more than halved, important, especially for Kyle whose bed is directly on top on the starboard engine.

This week our task it to fibreglass the bimini which is currently only marine ply and will end up rotting before our next available return date. We managed to get some awesome advise from Barry on Tiana regarding epoxy, fibreglass and he even did us the courtesy of coming out with us yesterday to check our sail arrangement and give us advise before the sail maker arrives on either Tuesday or Thursday. He has been most helpful and we thank him for that…a Hansa at this evening’s braai will go down well I’m sure!

Kim and Darren came to visit overnight and we had a blast although Kim did not enjoy the short trip out into the ocean yesterday as she is prone to seasickness. They all enjoyed out little harbour tour the day before and I think Darren will be trying to convince Kim that a yacht is the way forward but between you and me…I doubt he will have much success.

During my week up in Johannesburg I received a mail from Love 2 Learn saying 80% of the ordered items had arrived and my order will be ready within 3 weeks. I will remember to order the full syllabus before the end of September in order to have all the books to start early next year!

Walking along the marina during our last visit we discovered a set if wind chargers that are almost noiseless designed by Superwind. We decided to investigate and price the items to see if we could get these awesome chargers…sadly the cost of these amazing wind chargers is not in our budget so our hunt for a well priced, good wind charger continues.

Well off to the Monday night social braai at the yacht club!

Getting comfortable

21st June 2010

Today is the day of the big meeting, the one where a ballot is taken to decide if Barry and I can become members of the ZYC. Until now we have only had temporary membership, at 17H00 our fate will be decided…

A very tired Warren and Lindie arrived on Wednesday afternoon after we had taken a walk to Tuzi Gazi and had a disappointing lunch at a Portuguese restaurant on the waterfront.

Warren and Lindie - after a shower...

Lindie immediately went for a shower and we got them settled in into their bedroom, a quick tour of the boat (it only takes 3 minutes) followed by a braai on the shore overlooking the water.

During their stay Warren became an avid fisherman, calling himself a professional after his second catch. I can see it now…his next salary cheque will be spent on fishing gear followed up by the numerous trips to the dam and all other activities will come to a halt (apart from a regular braai in order to obtain his favourite bait of steak).

Fish operation

Keagan was first to catch a fish and Warren performed the requisite surgery to remove the hook…that failed on the first attempt and once the trick was down it was fish after fish after fish, this exciting fishing did not stop for a full 4 days eventually ending as Warren walked away from the boat towards the car to leave.

We had an amazing day sail, the ocean was a little choppy and a bit confused but we nevertheless took the plunge and headed out. Lindie and I both felt a little seasick and after taking some tablets we decided to return and fit in a harbour tour before sunset. Lindie sadly missed this after needing a nap, definitely a side effect from the seasickness tablets.

The following day we decided to blow up the dinghy, Barry and I needed to see the actual size to take measurements for the davits that need to be fitted aft of the boat and we all spent the day paddling around the marinas, up to the bridge and back and between the boats, taking turns at paddling. Since then we have decided to keep the dinghy blown up while we are here it is great fun, costs nothing and we get some awesome exercise…some of the best entertainment we have enjoyed!

Boys on the dinghy

The most fascinating thing about this holiday has been the slow change in Kyle’s attitude towards water. He was still petrified out in the confused sea, but once we turned the yacht back towards the harbour and the motion became more comfortable he calmed down and he has thoroughly enjoyed any time he gets on the dinghy, even learning to paddle for himself…we may yet win him over and his fear may dissipate into enjoyment…or so we hope!

Sadly our visitors missed the dolphins that came to play in the marina, the evening after they left we spent an hour watching them frolic, had we been in the dinghy we could have touched them…I believe this sight will be awesome no matter how many times we see it!

It has been great to have so many visitors on the boat but we have not managed to get any real work done up to now. Today we have decided to change this sorry state and we are starting with the completion of the insulation of the motor compartments. Barry and Keagan have gone up to fetch the insulation material now.

Work commences in 5...4...3...

Visitors Abound

16th June
Warren and Lindie are expected before nightfall, they couldn’t get here fast enough as they carry our spare set of car keys!

Tammy and Jason arrived at 1pm on Sunday, they came up to the boat with their 5 children. After a whirlwind tour of the yacht, a quick lunch of sandwiches and an explanation of "toilet operation and usage" we headed out.

Last time we went out we had tied up next to another yacht and had not had our own mooring slip, this time we had to avoid both our neighbours yacht and the slip and Barry performed the manoeuvre like a pro. Tammy commented that inside the marina it is like parking a bus (at 6,5m wide this is true)…. the thought of how small we were once out in the open water was not lost on me.

We took a slow motor out, turning to port in the channel and calling port control for permission to leave the harbour just before entering the channel. Once granted we headed for open water, we hoisted the filthy roller furling headsail (we have yet to have the time or opportunity to take this down), passed through the breakwater markers and we officially in the ocean for the first time!

Barry suggested we try hoisting the main sail so we could see how the sail plan worked, we have both been sure it will not work with the new bimini erected and the lack of traveller (it has a pulley system instead) at the end of the boom. Once we had managed to hoist it we could see many problems with the lay out and regular usage and wondered if she had ever sailed correctly. We have decided we will contact a rigger to come and give us some advise on how to correct the numerous problem areas and the restraints these cause.

Even though we were unable to set up the main sail or the head sail correctly, in the light breezes she managed a comfortable 4 knots and we decided to turn off the motors. We all sat up at the fore deck as the smooth ocean passed by and enjoyed the sheer relaxation that is sailing.

We came back in just before sunset and took a walk up to the yacht club to start a braai and feed the 8 children we had between us. Jason had parked his car, with an England flag over the back window, just outside the yacht club. Someone had set fire to the flag, burning it and the rear of his new Pathfinder in the process.

There had been a Regatta that morning and they were preparing a braai for 50 people. We chatted and enjoyed the company, sending the kids up to the boat once fed, we went upstairs to the bar and watched the Germany – America soccer game (which Germany won 4-0) while partying up a storm.

The following morning we decided to head up to Jack’s corner and enjoy a breakfast in the restaurant that enjoys a 180° views of the harbour, making breakfast for 12 was not on the agenda….

We all climbed off the boat, and Barry accidentally dropped our car keys into the water...we are still without a car, luckily we had provisioned for the period and were not desperate to leave, however, the plan had been to get bread and milk later that day….

Jason tried diving, but at 5metres and without vision, finding a single key a the bottom of a marina is near impossible.

We all managed to squeeze into the Pathfinder (which has burnt plastic stuck from the rear windshield to the bumper) and head out for breakfast. Jack’s corner is a pleasant restaurant with a great atmosphere. We always seem to experience slow service in restaurants down here, but I guess it is the Natal vs Johannesburg comparison that makes things seem so slow down here, imagine how slow New Yorkers would feel. I guess I’ll know once we visit, I can’t wait for the statue of Liberty to be viewed through the rigging as we sail up the Hudson.

Tammy and Jason left after the kids had a quick swim and we went back to the yacht. We spent the rest of the day recovering from the night before and did not manage to get any boat work done apart from the normal household chore of washing the dishes. Later in the afternoon, it dawned on me that the salary slips were in the car, tomorrow was salary day and we had no car keys. Barry phoned Warren, cat burglar that he is, and told him to break–in to our house (with our help as there is only one way in and you still need a correctly coded remote, a screw driver and a bit of imagination) and fetch the spare keys. He called at 11am on Tuesday to say he was in, and our keys will be here this evening. Good thing our cat burglar locks up after himself!

Tuesday morning saw me writing out the salary amount of each individual onto the sheet of paper and using that as my reference to pay the salaries via the internet. It also saw Kyle waking up with German measles, picked up from Jessica, Tammy and Jason’s youngest. Luckily he has been coping well and is using an anti-itch cream to stop himself from scratching. It’s a good thing my kids are tough, travelling to strange lands illness is bound to be a problem and the good antibodies and resilient bodies they have will definitely come in handy!

Having run out of bread, and with a limited supply of milk, I had to find inventive ways of making food without it, for breakfast I made a packet of Smash and fried it into Hash browns to have with our eggs, for lunch we had Tortilla wraps and supper was a good old pasta with mince.

The wind picked up today, it was howling through the rigging, travelling at over 30 knots for most of the day, cloud cover moved in and the temperature plummeted. It was an indoor day! During Monday night Barry and I had gone up to the deck to tie down the main halyard that was slamming against the mast, and tie down all the loose ropes as it picked up and roared through the trees and rigging of the yachts. I spent most of the day, when not inventing meals, under our duvet on the bed, reading a novel Maiden Voyage (about Tania Aebi, the first American woman to solo circumnavigate the globe) that we found in the Navigation table out loud to Barry.



The kids spent their day playing computer games, listening to music on their iPods and speaking on Mxit…the age of technology!

We started a list of items we need on yacht today...items range from cheese graters, potato peelers and plastic containers to the kids log books to a chess set and books to read…this list will grow as the days pass and when we return on the 2nd we will definitely have more of the “need/want” items in hand.

Time to make more Hash Browns and continue the clean up – Rauen and our bathrooms are on the list today – before Warren and Lindie arrive this afternoon.

Getting started at Yrumoar

13 June 2010

We are expecting our first visitors today. Here’s what brought us to this point…

13th June 2010
We left home at 12 on Wednesday after a quick KFC lunch and change of clothes for the boys. The car was fully loaded and we were expecting to arrive about 8pm.

As we turned onto the highway Barry said he thinks we should give the old road one more chance (it seems to be like child birth, you forget the pain of it rather quickly). The road between Heidelberg and Standerton is definitely the worst part of the journey. We opted not to fill the car in Volksrust as we still had a ¾ tank of fuel. This turned out to be a bad decision as we very nearly ran out of petrol before we reached the fuel stop in Melmoth. Luckily we made it with 4km of fuel to spare (according to the car’s computer). The sun had just set and we were making good time, we managed to reach the yacht club at 6:30pm.

We found Yrumoar at our newly acquired mooring, C15, just as expected and managed to unload the car before going to bed.

I had made a complete grocery list at home and early Thursday morning we headed for the Richards Bay mall, breakfast at Maxi’s was the first stop, then a whirlwind trip through the mall, stopping at all the home stores to take a look at bedding and towels, the chemist (for seasickness pills and cough syrup as I was still feeling very ill), the bottle store as well as the both Checkers and Pick ‘n Pay. We managed to find some great items, a dust buster vacuum that only draws 400mA on charge, a battery operated hand sealer (to reseal all those open packets), some fantastic new towels and a butterfly mop (2 mops are better than 1 we discovered). We also bought groceries for the next 19 days, we will now only need to buy bread and milk once during next week, as I am not baking bread yet!

The expedition for the day was not so much the buying (which took 5½ hours) but the packing away (that I am yet to absolutely complete), finding a place for everything and managing to clean the fridge and both freezers before the frozen goods defrosted, clean out cupboards for groceries and generally pack everything in a specific place. This took all afternoon and is still a work in progress as we have a couple of items we have not found permanent homes for yet.

Once we were done it was sundowners in the cockpit, while watching in amazement as 2 adult dolphins we feeding less than 2 metres away, we could have leaned over and touched them! Somehow seeing animals in the wild rather than in captivity is far more awesome.

On Friday morning Barry first had to deal with a work call, we made arrangements for the office to call us on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so that we would still be in touch with what was happening but at the same time our holiday was not taken up with work all the time. I made breakfast, using the stove for the first time, not completely successfully but at least the food was edible. Eggs on toast with viennas all made in a single frying pan.

Today was world cup opening day and I had planned on doing all the laundry, we headed to the Laundromat (which is conveniently located a the yacht club) to see what we would need, there are 2 washing machines, 2 tumble driers, 3 outdoor sinks for hand washing, a standard double sink and a washing line. Tokens were needed so we went to the yacht club office to buy some. We lugged the laundry including all the bedding to the washing room and I spent the next 3 hours doing laundry. Barry went down to make lunch for the boys and brought some up for us to have while waiting for the last load to dry.

Once we were back on the boat we had an hour before we wanted to go up to the yacht club and watch the opening match so we opened the headsail, just to have a look. The headsail is filthy, we will need to take it down and scrub it with scouring powder and good old elbow grease, I decided the next day was good for that!

We then headed up to the yacht club bought a cold drink for each of us and settled down to watch the big game. Rauen was invited to play soccer with a few of the kids on the lawn and both Rauen and Kyle joined in the fun, making some new friends in the process.

The game was all we expected it to be. It opened with some tense moments in the first 4 minutes as Mexico came just too close to scoring for our comfort levels. The game calmed down and Bafana Bafana managed to keep it together, very scary moments when Mexico scored a goal but it was disallowed for off sides, half time came with no score on the board. Less than 20 minutes into the second half and Bafana scored! We had managed to score the opening goal and we were all ecstatic, perhaps we had a chance after all! Now we were in the lead, we were less nervous and watching, hoping they kept up the aggressive game rather than turning to defence. 10 minutes later the ref did not see the Mexican grab our player by the shirt and pull him to the ground inside their penalty area while he was in position to score again, this should have given us a penalty and turned the game but sadly it missed the refs eye and he was let off the hook. 3 Minutes later Mexico scored and the game was even, first came the disappointment of their scoring, then the realisation that this score is not a loss but a draw and we are still in it. The game finally ended with a draw and Bafana Bafana managing to make the country proud. Well done Boys!

We came back to the yacht, had a celebratory drink and I ducked off to bed, hoping a little extra sleep would get me over this flu that has been nagging for the last 2 weeks.

Yesterday we woke up hoping to drop the headsail and get to work scrubbing and cleaning. Barry and I first hauled the sail out and in again to check the furler. I lay on the trampoline removing tie wraps and ropes pieces that were obstructing the furler. We opened the lazy jack on the main sail to find the halyard for the Genoa, we checked each rope and what it was being used for, but were unable to find a Genoa halyard. Barry fetched the binoculars and had a look up at the top of the mast to find a rope, but still there was nothing. Barry climbed the mast to the first spreaders and removed more unused rope but still there was no halyard for the Genoa. I went down below searching for a bosun chair as it was listed on the inventory list. Unable to find it we decided to have a look for it in the storage room that came with the yacht.

We headed up to the room and unlocked the door. Inside we found a treasure chest of goodies, some instant jumble sale items, replacement parts for much of the yacht, plenty fibreglass, insulation, LED lights, taps, the liferaft, a surf board, a folding bicycle, paints, resins, a battery charger, a compressor, the solar panels for the boat, the watermaker and so much more. We unfolded some spare sails to see where they fitted and also found the dinghy complete with pump and oars etc. We spent most of the day unpacking this 3m x 1,5m room packed to the roof with treasures. By the end of the day we had still not managed to find the bosun chair or take down the roller furler but we had managed to repack the storage room and take out some items for immediate use. Tammy phoned while we were busy and said they would be coming to visit today, bring all 5 kids and sleeping over tonight.

This leads us to where we are, finding a place for the last few items lying around, getting breakfast ready so Rauen can go out with his new found friends dinghy sailing, (they apparently sail Lasers and Rauen should enjoy that) and getting the boat ready to go out this afternoon for at least a Harbour tour, perhaps pointing Yrumoar's nose out into the ocean and finally returning for a braai with Tammy and Jason.

Gonna have a great sailing day!

Long holiday aboard

26th May

Today I made the first purchase of few subjects from the Love2Learn home schooling programme. I decided I would order a few of the course syllabus’ immediately so that I can get a feel for how the system works, what exactly is supplied, how much extra research I (as the teacher) will have to do and how the kids will take to the new schooling system.


Once I have a feeling and am sure about the system I will order the balance of the material. I have ordered subject matter at a few different levels (called Cores) to help me make the decision as to what level each of the kids should enter at. According to this system you can teach more than 1 age group using the same course material and I am interested to see if the level will work for both of my kids, considering they are 3½ years apart. Should the age difference or learning level be too great I will have to order 2 different sets of course material.

The order can take up to 7 weeks to process as many of the books are imported, in the mean time, I will receive an “email syllabus” different from the bought one but designed to get the kids started on the road towards the change from the normal schooling programme to home schooling. This will be interesting to see as well.

We also decided to renew our subscription to SA Sailing magazine. We were in two minds about this as we plan to move aboard between December and June next year, not to mention that magazines have a cost attached, but after much discussion we decided that if we did not subscribe we would end up in C.N.A. every month looking for the latest issue and the information gained from keeping up with the sailing industry is invaluable. We get a large discount of 25% off by subscribing and as the price is set to increase on the 1st of June we saved a further R30 (more than the cost of months magazine) by signing up today. Great saving! When we move we will reroute the magazine to the ZYC and receive it there.

I am also very busy at work at the moment. We plan on taking 4 weeks off over the next 6 weeks to spend it on Yrumoar. This essentially means that I have to complete all my work over the next 2 weeks before we leave, we are away for 3 weeks, return for 1 week and then go away for 1 week again. I still need to ensure that all the bills are paid, all the salaries are paid, all the invoices are made, sent out and paid so everything can run smoothly while we are away.

Why are we going away for such a prolonged period of time? We have been given a very long school holiday by the government to facilitate the FIFA World Cup that is being played in South Africa in June/July 2010. In order to do this we have also had to shorten our other school holidays so it seemed the perfect opportunity to get away and enjoy the holiday in the relative warmth of KwaZulu-Natal rather than the freezing highveld where we stay (It is winter here in “sunny SA”). The kids will have more to do and we will get to spend some quality time together getting to know Yrumoar better.

Hopefully I will also get the time to get the “Buy Barry a local food” video set up on our website as well a few other plans and ideas we have in mind. Big changes to our website design, layout and functionality are coming soon!

Debenair to Yrumoar

24th May

Last week Thursday Greg, the previous owner of Yrumoar, called Barry to confirm all the final transaction details. We have paid for the yacht in full and we were waiting for Greg’s call to let us know who had the keys and papers because he is currently in Mozambique. He told Barry that the keys were in the outside hatch in the cockpit and the papers were in the chart table….this essentially meant that anyone could get on board and leave with our yacht, no questions asked. This after all is Africa!

So we decided to go down to Richards Bay the next day and collect them, that way we would have them in our hand and no-one could take our precious yacht from the marina.
We would have loved to have left early Friday morning or even straight from school on Friday afternoon, but Rauen had a function at school until 5pm so we were trapped waiting for him.

Barry decided we would borrow a GPS from Wiekus in a bid to get there as soon as possible (leaving at 5pm meant an arrival time of after midnight). Wiekus programmed the destination in and saved for ease of use. Now I am not a GPS fan…okay so I use one on the water but I generally only get a fix from it (I trust my paper charts with the parallel rules, Portland plotters and dividers), directions on a road are another thing….map books and a generally good sense of direction have never failed me before. This crazy GPS lady gave us a trip to remember.

We headed towards Standerton on the N17 as the sun was setting. We turned from the N17 onto the R33 and that is where the troubles began. In fading light we manoeuvred the vehicle along a pothole covered road surface, reduced to speeds of between 10 and 50 kmph for a total distance of 70km. If any of you have driven the road between Leandra and Sanderton you will sympathise, the potholes are deeper than 1 metre and wider than the average office desk. They cover the road in such a manner that it is generally safer to be driving next to the road on the sand verge (half in the veld) than on the tar surface. Accidentally hitting one of these offending potholes would mean the total write off of a standard vehicle and a four wheel drive would need a tow truck to budge. My Mazda 3, with her low road clearance, was completely outclassed. Many vehicles were stranded along the side of the road after accidentally breaking an axel when hitting a “pothole”. It totally makes you understand why we are classified as a 3rd world country.

Once in Standerton we turned towards Volksrust only to be held up in a 3km long traffic jam due a toppled truck on a single lane (okay that one had nothing to do with the GPS) but it meant a long delay as the vehicles were diverted off the road and into the bushveld to pass the double trailer truck lying on it’s side. Following the GPS’s instructions we turned off the Vryheid road towards Ultrecht….

Only to find ourselves on a sand road…. going over a mountain pass….with no way of turning around….for 40km….in the pitch dark!

As you can well imagine our speeds were once again reduced to almost nothing and our travel time increasing proportionally to our decreasing speed and rising alarm.

Once through the mountain pass we decided we had had enough of her (the GPS that is) and switched her off, planning on “following our noses” towards our yacht. The trip was not too bad from there on despite have to avoid falling logs on the final mountain pass between Melmoth and Empangeni. We reached our destination at 12:35am planning to get onto the boat and sleep.

I told the boys to wait in the car and Barry and I headed down the walk-on towards where our yacht should have been moored….

…..but she was not there. A wave of panic hit as we got closer, followed by a second wave when we reached there and realised she really was not there. We looked at each other realising our greatest fear had just come true….

We rushed back to shore to check the other walk-ons.
Walk-on E…not there.
Walk-on D…not there.
Walk-on C…not there.

Eventually I spotted her, she was tied to the wall close to the NSRI station.

Now tied to the wall does not mean tied directly to the wall, rather tied to another yacht that was tied to the wall. We went back to the car and moved it closer. We got both kids up and had to complete the dangerous manoeuvre of boarding across a 1metre wide gap, onto a soaking wet (the dew had fallen) Voyage 500 catamaran and from that across to our own boat.

Barry found the keys in the outside hatch and unlocked. We finally put our heads down at 3am.

This little climb aboard procedure had to be performed in reverse to get off the yacht and still worse when the tide went out we were trapped on board as the tidal range is close to 2m and we were left standing looking up at the shore but unable to get there.

My picture log of climbing off Yrumoar this weekend...

Step 1: Climb off our yacht                                           

Step 2: Climb onto the next yacht

Step 3: Walk across the neighbouring yacht                      

Step 4: Take the leap to the shore

Luckily that was the end of our bad luck run and we did get to take a harbour tour on Saturday in our own yacht, after a discussion on moorings with Charles at the yacht club. Seems the owner of the walk-on we were on is returning so we had to move. The purchase of a mooring became top priority for me as moving every time an owner gets back from their voyage will drive me crazy, if there is an open mooring to move to and we don’t end up against the wall again. Not to mention the great investment value a mooring will have when we leave for our own voyage.

This being the very first time we were alone on a catamaran Barry did well to dock her (luckily there was little wind or we could have been in trouble). We all had a turn at the helm and got a feeling for the yacht. The boys played happily while we sailed and I lay on the trampolines enjoying the sheer freedom and warm sunshine we have been missing in Joburg for a while. We even managed to stick our nose out of the harbour before returning to the marina at sundown. Barry docked her like a champ, I scrambled over our guardrails and onto the Voyage 500 as he pulled up alongside and we managed to tie her up, all the while appearing like we were professionals and not the first timers we actually are. Not bad for a first sail on Yrumoar.

The boys started to get the feeling for their bedrooms and I spent most of Sunday cleaning the kitchen cupboards, there is still plenty of that to be done before I can comfortably stow all our goodies on board. The packing space amazes me, it will be difficult to remember to keep the weight down when packing what we want for our trip. When we left on Friday we had a boot full of crockery and cutlery, ropes and sleeping bags etc. We returned with the same amount to add to our growing pile of jumble sale items. We discussed some changes we wanted to make, some upgrades and disposals. Items that weigh too much must go, or be swopped for lighter weight items, repairs are needed for many things and the bimini Greg installed was poorly finished and needs a lot of work during our June holiday. Our list has only just started to be made.

The transformation from Debenair to Yrumoar begins…..