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!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
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
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…..
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.
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…..
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Fifa World Cup
1st May
Back from Richards Bay for the long weekend and realising more and more that we really need to step up a notch to meet our “move aboard” deadline of December 2010.
We have a set sum of money set aside for the original “makeover” of the yacht and then a monthly “maintenance and upgrade” budget. This means we need to be frugal about what we spend and where we spend it. We don’t want to have changed everything and realise we did not need to or worse that it was better how it was before the changes.
We are adding all our thoughts and ideas to our current upgrade list but will be making changes and reprioritising the work as time passes. The 5week school holiday (extended due to the FIFA World Cup) will be a great chance to decide on our priorities with regards to this, not to mention a great escape for the freezing temperatures of the highveld and finding the warm coastal weather fronts.
Stepping up a notch at home includes getting things sold. This seems to be harder than originally thought… We started off at full tilt and managed to sell a few items quickly, we have a few interested parties in some other items and are waiting for the payments before we hand over the goods. I will have to start applying some pressure to the buyers to ensure that if the deals fall through we will still have enough time to find another buyer before December. But the number of large furniture items we own is noticeably decreasing in line with our plans.
We also have a large pile of “jumble sale” items that is increasing everyday. I plan on setting up a table at the office and selling these items. Our office is in a large business park with well over 1000 people working on the premises everyday so it seems like a good idea (I will let you know once I have set it up in a few weeks time). In the mean time I am slowly working through all the items in our house deciding what must stay and what must go. This morning I reached into our bathroom cupboard to get a new bottle on conditioner and a tube of toothpaste and found a selection of hair appliances that I had forgotten I even owned. These include hairdryers, a hot brush and a curling tong among others. These are definite “hotsale” items at a jumble stall…add them to the pile. We have gone through our PC games and PSP games and added the ones we don’t play as well so our selection and variety is also improving.
On the food planning side…
We have tried a few tinned foods and quickly realised that we are way too spoilt and would never live on tinned food alone. It is far more likely to be a “snail starter” or “mussels or oysters with cheese crackers” as a treat. Tinned food lunches would include “Spaghetti on toast”, “pilchards on toast” or “tinned Viennas” as part of cold meats and salad. “Bullybeef (corned meat) on mashed potato” or “tuna” cooked with pasta makes a good supper and tinned fruit is always good as a desert. Tinned tomatoes and Tomato/Onion mixes will be used for most stews, casseroles and mince mixes. “Tinned peas (petit pous) and tinned Sweetcorn make great non-frozen vegetables on the side with mixed tinned vegetables working great for Curries. But it seems we will need to find a way to supplement our diet with other things…
Catching fish could help increase our menu variety, but this will happen on an ad hoc basis and as we are not big fish eaters this would probably be restricted to once a week at most.
Coming from Africa, non-meat meals are not part of our household or lifestyle. Barry has a saying “Meat is Meat and a man must eat”. If I place a meal in front of him with no meat he asks why I am serving him a bed of rice…. I told you we are spoilt. This seems to leave us with no alternative but to have a large working freezer on board to store frozen food in bulk, meat is relatively cheap here in Africa.
I will still be looking at other non-perishable foods (packet foods and box meals etc) before our final departure date, we will see how that pans out.
We are all looking forward to the holiday (boat working/day sailing holiday) in June where we will be alone on the boat and start actual work on her. I am off to set up the dates and schedule for the holiday, we need to come back for a week somewhere so that I can ensure my work stays up to date, we need to be down there for the scheduled yacht club ballot meeting to become official members and we need to arrange that both Amy and Keagan can spend some time with us down there, all the while keeping in mind that the country will be hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup during that time and foreign and local tourists will be everywhere, making the journey times and dates more important than normal. Go Bafana Bafana!
Back from Richards Bay for the long weekend and realising more and more that we really need to step up a notch to meet our “move aboard” deadline of December 2010.
The trip was a little strange as the purchase of the yacht is still in process, but we got to see what “rough seas” – rough enough to close the harbour to small craft – look like. We took a walk out on the pier while the waves were crashing over it and Kyle got a little more confidence after his initial panic, realising it is only water after all. We took a walk around the marina and acquainted ourselves with the yacht club, the boat yard and the other yachts, not to mention ours. We met some people, specifically our new neighbours and oriented ourselves about town.
Moving aboard is not casting off the mooring lines and leaving for our adventure, but rather a date to leave our home and change our lifestyle to full time live aboard yachties. We have a load of work to complete on the boat before we can leave, our list seems to get longer by the day, or at least everytime we are aboard. Our final departure date is still up in the air…
We have a set sum of money set aside for the original “makeover” of the yacht and then a monthly “maintenance and upgrade” budget. This means we need to be frugal about what we spend and where we spend it. We don’t want to have changed everything and realise we did not need to or worse that it was better how it was before the changes.
We are adding all our thoughts and ideas to our current upgrade list but will be making changes and reprioritising the work as time passes. The 5week school holiday (extended due to the FIFA World Cup) will be a great chance to decide on our priorities with regards to this, not to mention a great escape for the freezing temperatures of the highveld and finding the warm coastal weather fronts.
Stepping up a notch at home includes getting things sold. This seems to be harder than originally thought… We started off at full tilt and managed to sell a few items quickly, we have a few interested parties in some other items and are waiting for the payments before we hand over the goods. I will have to start applying some pressure to the buyers to ensure that if the deals fall through we will still have enough time to find another buyer before December. But the number of large furniture items we own is noticeably decreasing in line with our plans.
We also have a large pile of “jumble sale” items that is increasing everyday. I plan on setting up a table at the office and selling these items. Our office is in a large business park with well over 1000 people working on the premises everyday so it seems like a good idea (I will let you know once I have set it up in a few weeks time). In the mean time I am slowly working through all the items in our house deciding what must stay and what must go. This morning I reached into our bathroom cupboard to get a new bottle on conditioner and a tube of toothpaste and found a selection of hair appliances that I had forgotten I even owned. These include hairdryers, a hot brush and a curling tong among others. These are definite “hotsale” items at a jumble stall…add them to the pile. We have gone through our PC games and PSP games and added the ones we don’t play as well so our selection and variety is also improving.
On the food planning side…
We have tried a few tinned foods and quickly realised that we are way too spoilt and would never live on tinned food alone. It is far more likely to be a “snail starter” or “mussels or oysters with cheese crackers” as a treat. Tinned food lunches would include “Spaghetti on toast”, “pilchards on toast” or “tinned Viennas” as part of cold meats and salad. “Bullybeef (corned meat) on mashed potato” or “tuna” cooked with pasta makes a good supper and tinned fruit is always good as a desert. Tinned tomatoes and Tomato/Onion mixes will be used for most stews, casseroles and mince mixes. “Tinned peas (petit pous) and tinned Sweetcorn make great non-frozen vegetables on the side with mixed tinned vegetables working great for Curries. But it seems we will need to find a way to supplement our diet with other things…
Catching fish could help increase our menu variety, but this will happen on an ad hoc basis and as we are not big fish eaters this would probably be restricted to once a week at most.
Coming from Africa, non-meat meals are not part of our household or lifestyle. Barry has a saying “Meat is Meat and a man must eat”. If I place a meal in front of him with no meat he asks why I am serving him a bed of rice…. I told you we are spoilt. This seems to leave us with no alternative but to have a large working freezer on board to store frozen food in bulk, meat is relatively cheap here in Africa.
I will still be looking at other non-perishable foods (packet foods and box meals etc) before our final departure date, we will see how that pans out.
We are all looking forward to the holiday (boat working/day sailing holiday) in June where we will be alone on the boat and start actual work on her. I am off to set up the dates and schedule for the holiday, we need to come back for a week somewhere so that I can ensure my work stays up to date, we need to be down there for the scheduled yacht club ballot meeting to become official members and we need to arrange that both Amy and Keagan can spend some time with us down there, all the while keeping in mind that the country will be hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup during that time and foreign and local tourists will be everywhere, making the journey times and dates more important than normal. Go Bafana Bafana!
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