Shopping for a yacht

I can’t believe it. We are packing to go down to Richards Bay early tomorrow morning to have a look at the 1st of 2 Fairweather catamarans we have booked to look at. We will be making an offer on one of these over the next few weeks…I am so looking forward to that. Finally having the yacht of our dreams and starting the serious work of leaving on our great adventure!

We decided to take the 3 boys with us, this will give us a sense of the actual space on the yacht with all of us on board, considering the amount of time we will spend on the yacht we find this imperative. We can also get everyone’s opinion and everyone’s preferences with regards to the yacht. We will be able to discuss what we each like and don’t like about the yacht. What we would change if we made the offer, what we would keep, who would have which bedroom and how the bathroom usage would work. We feel it is very important to involve all the boys in these decisions as the change in lifestyle affects us all.

Before we leave, Barry and I will sit down and make a few lists, lists of what to look for in a mechanical, technical and cosmetic line with regards to the yacht. We will be noting the sails, rigging, plumbing, wiring, batteries, spares, electrics, mast, tender, motors and layout. We will split each section into finer details and have a list of questions and specific items to take careful view and note of.

Our Section headings are:

• General boat information
• Hull
• Deck
• Cockpit Area
• Rigging (standard and running)
• Sails, Mast, winches and other sailing parts
• Hull interior
• Interior layout and design (includes size)
• Tanks
• Plumbing
• Electricals
• Electronics
• Safety Equipment
• Engine
• Ground tackle
• Inventory
• Other equipment

This list comes in part from the Handbook of Offshore Cruising and in part from information gained from the extensive research we have done over the past months.

We are also spending Monday night at my sister’s place, I am looking forward to that as we don’t get to see each other very often considering she lives 600 odd km’s away. So that will make for a fun and enjoyable evening.

Wish us luck as we head out into the great blue yonder!

The Cost of Sunglasses

The realisation hit me that we literally have 10 months to go until we leave our home and move onto the boat. Oh, all the things to get sorted, sold, organised and completed by then…


I started pricing items and am hoping to start listing them for sale over the next week. Hopefully things will sell and we will slowly empty our house of all possessions so the transition happens easily. Both our boys are busy sorting through their own personal things deciding what to keep, what to sell and what to throw away or donate. We decided all their earning from sales will go directly into their savings, all our earnings will go into our cruising kitty. Here’s to that kitty growing into a giant cat (hehe)

Last night I sat down to do yet another calculation as to the total cost of the trip. The amount of money we expect to earn and the amount we need to pay out over the 36 month period we are planning on being away for. I can’t believe how much it all adds up to. We are working on an annualised budget for 3 years. This will include all our expected costs and expenses including our land based child/children as well as our children on board. (Kids on board cost way less than those that stay behind on land)

We took a trip to Randburg this morning to visit a marine store Texwise. We decided to take the trip as they had sailing shoes on special. We spent a bit of time in the store having a look at the sailing shoes, heavy weather jackets (oilies), sunglasses and some other bits and pieces relating to yachts.

Barry liked 1 pair of shoes so we took that, I really liked the heavy weather jackets but they were pricey, even on special so we thought we should overnight it. We tried on a few pairs of sunglasses as our last pairs “Bondiblue” have had better days and we need new one’s before our trip to Langebaan. We found the perfect pair "blueye loaded" and headed for the tills. Once the items were rung up we got the surprise of our life as it came to way more than anticipated (maybe those heavy weather jackets weren’t so pricey after all). The sunglasses were so expensive we actually had to hold our breath not scream, they better be good, no great. We paid, left the store and the whole way home I just sat in silence considering the cost of the sunglasses. I got caught this time, my own stupidity, I really should have asked how much they were but hey, they are sunglasses and the last pair cost R 350.00 or so.

Well there you have it, I over spent today and wish I had not gone out for the “special” on the shoes as it landed up costing a whole lot more than I wanted to pay!


Everyday I read a blog about another couple leaving at the end of the year with their 2 small daughters on board, they are always discussing money and how to save and take care of it. I am usually very good at this but today I feel like I failed miserably!

Oh well, school fees paid, moving on, I won’t pay those again!

Leaving date moved up

We have made the bold decision to leave early next year!


Did you hear me? Early next year, that is just around the corner and ...calm down Lola, don’t panic this is not a snap decision…

We have been contemplating this for many months choosing whether to leave as planned and “retire” or go for a shorter time and either return or set up a “new life” in another part of the world. We have decided to go for a shortened time and thus the earlier leaving date. Our trip will last between 3 and 5 years and we will either return to South Africa after that time or resettle in a country we fall in love with.

We are currently doing major research on the purchase of our yacht. We have a couple of catamarans we are interested in both a little larger than our original plan at 39 and 40 foot respectively. We will be looking at them over the next 2 months, one on the trip to the Cape in March and one next weekend when we plan to take a trip to Richards Bay to have a look. We should officially purchase the boat that we prefer at the beginning of April just after we return from the coastal.

It will be full steam ahead from then. We have to stay in Johannesburg until the end of December to allow the kids to complete the school year without an upset, but we will spend a large amount of time, being all holidays and long weekends, on the boat changing, completing and adding the items we are looking for on an extended cruising yacht.


I finally found a suitable home-schooling syllabus, which I believe will fit both our lifestyle and the kid’s university entrance requirements. I am still doing the final checks and balances but with any luck we will be enrolling the kids in August, ready to start the new school year as a home-schooling family.

This morning we headed off to our Mega hardware store to buy some goodies, since our “move aboard” date has been moved up, we need to do the finishing touches on our house so we can rent it out as soon as we move aboard in December this year.

We bought a light fitting for the passage and for each of the kid’s rooms. Funny how the energy saving light bulbs cost almost the same amount as the light fitting itself. How they expect people to get the mindset change and save energy when they hit us so hard in the pocket for the privilege of being a good citizen is beyond me.

We also got some copper piping, bends, t-pieces, flexi-hose, tap ends etc to complete the plumbing pipes for our bathroom. We spent some time picking out the exact tap/mixer for our shower.

We even managed to get a R125.00 discount before we paid. That goes straight to the boat kitty. Not often you get a bargain like that in life anymore, especially since the recession started.


Tomorrow morning I have decided to use up my “Post-it” pad and write down a sale price for all the items in our house. I will stick the “post-it” note on each item with the price written in permanent marker and start listing items on for sale on Gumtree, the South African version of E-bay and see if we can start selling off all our furniture and “non boat-going” items that we have accumulated over the last 14 years that we have been together.

We only have 9 months left to sell it all, seems like a lot but if we start by selling the items we do not use very often and slowly progress to the items most used the job will go smoothly and easily.

We have been discussing all the items and some things will take longer to sell than others, we will put our yacht at the Vaal up for sail as soon as we get back from Langebaan as we will have made an offer on the yacht at that stage. All items not used in the last 6 months will go up for sale over the next 3 months. The used items will be put up in an order so that we will be able to manage until we leave. For example we will sell our lounge suite before our dining room suite. Our dining room suite is more useful than our lounge suite, we can use it for working (once my desk has gone) homework (once the kid’s desks are gone), eating (as we always do) watching T.V. (once the lounge suite is gone), reading (once the T.V is gone) as so on and so forth. The last thing we will sell up here in Johannesburg will be our fridge and the absolute last thing we will sell, down in Richard’s bay will be our car.

I can’t believe that I started writing about all of this 1 year ago. I was going through the history and realised my first post was on the 18th February 2009. Things have really moved, changed and turned quite a bit since then. I have a whole selection of blogs and web pages now, all relating to different topics.


I have been working hard on my different websites and blogs and am starting to see more traffic to my sites. This is very exciting as I always fancied writing as a career path and this is really helping me achieve that.

I also believe that the closer we get to leaving the more interest will be generated and once on our way, the travel and tourist aspect with all the different destinations will draw the attention of many. We also have a great video blog idea that will start to develop early next year, so watch this space!

Coastal Skippers Booked...check

Boy, I really am struggling to write regularly this year. But hey, someone’s has to work to get the money together to go on this fantastical trip.

We booked for the practical side of our coastal skippers last week. This is not the entire course but it will make up a large quantity of the hours required to pass the coastal skippers.


We picked Due South Sailing School in Langebaan in the Western Cape. We made this choice based on the fact that we will be doing the offshore hours on a catamaran. Not just any catamaran….a Wildcat 35’.

We will be doing this course at the end of March into the beginning of April. We have also spotted a boat we are really interested in and will be viewing it at Gordon’s Bay at the same time. This particular boat seems to be a better fit for cruising than our original idea.

Firstly it is 40’ as opposed to 35’. Secondly it is a slightly older model which we believe is an advantage as we don’t want to look wealthy in the islands and thirdly it had a larger carrying capacity which is very important considering the gear, equipment and food we want to take along and store.

If this is the right boat for us we will most likely purchase it and possibly consider moving onto it full time around the end of the year. All these developments make for a very exciting time, we will keep you posted as they progress.

Rauen attended a funeral today for a little girl in his class who passed away from cancer at the tender age of 12. This really brought home the message that our time is limited and enjoying and making the most it is really important. Do what you wish today or you may never get to.

So hold thumbs we get the right boat, have a great course and set ourselves up for a great adventure starting sooner rather than later!