3 February
Friday once again. Reading the list for the week we have managed to complete most of the tasks with success. The port dolphin nose is in its final stage. Barry with sand the fine fairing compound this morning and we will begin the painting. I have laid all the scuppers to completion, Barry will grind the last four this morning and we will begin painting them today.
The fire extinguishers are back from service and I have paid for the hull inspection. I will give Mike a call today to arrange time and date.
We also had a successful week on the home schooling side with Rauen completing and English assessment as well as a Maths Assessment and Kyle completing his Term 1 final assessment. Rauen is currently busy with Physics while Kyle continues to get through the syllabus at a steam train speed.
This week was also the week of dealing with the authorities and I have begun completing the paper work and gathering all the correct documents and information related to registering the yacht for international travel. This is a slightly long process but with the correct assistance and documentation it can be processed in a couple of weeks so we are well on our way.
It is slightly overcast this morning which means that when Barry heads off in a few moments to go sand he will not be in the burning hot sun…perfect day for our list of tasks.
We have not had a car for almost 2 weeks now and some friends of ours were kind enough to take me to the Spar yesterday afternoon. Not that it was urgent but the thought of running out of cigarettes got me into their car and heading off to Spar in no time. I bought a couple of cartons of smokes, a few loaves of bread and some Coca Cola, all my vices in life, and returned with a few treats for the family.
We are planning a big expedition into town on Tuesday for the last things we need. Tuesday because the boys want to watch a movie and we have “half price movies” every Tuesday. I have begun making a list of the final boat parts and grocery items and we have even been discussing the take away food we are wanting…it is still up in the air haha.
Being Friday, we should get to see our friend Dylan today, he is coming with a hoard of small item parts we ordered in Durban as well as our now serviced liferaft.
Our newly ordered 12 volt 130litre fridge should arrive on Monday and our shopping trip on Tuesday will see us obtaining the motor servicing parts…yip we really seem to closing in on completion…closer to the water and the great adventure we had expected to be having already!
5th February
Yesterday we managed to put the scuppers up, the steering wheel back on at the helm and the decals on the front of the boat. She really is starting to look good.
I am really upset about my camera. I had a load of photos from when the kids were here including Christmas and that period and the camera decided that the memory cards it was all stored on should go corrupt and need reformatting. There goes all my pictures…I am really not impressed. Why when I had a whole 10 weeks photos on it and not when they were downloaded?
It rained last night, and doesn’t look much clearer this morning…so we will see how work goes.
We did get our liferaft back yesterday but the other parts Dylan must bring are yet to arrive, they had better arrive soon as we ever so close to completion.
Speaking of completion, on Friday while relaunching another catamaran that has done some big modifications in the last few months they dropped the yacht from the trailer, flat onto the concrete. I was up on deck, we are right opposite the slip where they yachts are launched, when they dropped her the whole earth to shook. I turned aghast to see the yacht lying flat on the concrete. I had a distinct feeling of Dejevu as I recalled our last experience and the damage and trauma it caused.
We have to trust these same people when they launch our boat into the water in a few days time and quite honestly I’m scared out of my wits. Be that as it may, we have no real alternatives with regards to launching apart from this system and service so we will have to hope, pray and keep our fingers crossed that all goes well and Yrumoar is lifted and placed gently back into the water and I somehow manage not to have a heart attack with all the stress.
9th February
It is Thursday and we are nowhere near ready to launch tomorrow…luckily I have not booked it so we can wait a few more days.
This week has just flown by! On Monday we stripped the seacocks, see Barry’s blog for the ridiculous joke, and drilled the holes for the wind charger followed by a hull inspection. Tuesday saw our fridge arriving, we headed to town via taxi with a list a mile long of engine spares and groceries. Yesterday saw us removing the huge old fridge and building a fibreglass cupboard to fit the new fridge. Let me elaborate…
The hull inspection went well, Mike the inspector stated “You did a fantastic job on these rudders”. I was still feeling proud when he came upstairs to check the fibreglass work in the bilges where he said “You have done a great job here, my boat is coming out in April if you are looking work” Compliments were definitely the order of the day and since he sees almost every boat before launch I was elated at the compliments. Needless to say we passed inspection and were given permission to antifoul, which we will do this weekend.
On Tuesday morning armed with a long list we phoned for a taxi. The taxi took us from the yachtclub to the police station where we had a commissioner of oaths sign our SAMSA documents, we took a walk from there to the FNB to sort out my bank cards and a further walk to the mall, bought an ice-cream to start the day and went to the video game store for the boys, Musica for a couple of new DVD’s and next few stops saw us buying a few clothing items for both Rauen and Kyle, collecting a refund at Game stores and buying Barry a new razor and a few stationary items. We then decided to go all the way back to the other side of the mall for a Fish Aways lunch.
We relaxed and ate lunch, took a smoke break and planned our afternoon. We started by walking to the top end of town to the wholesale Cigarette shop, back down the main road, stopping at the China shop, the bathroom shop, Dickenson Marketing, the signwriter, the Auto spares shop, the Bolt Centre and then proceeding to lug our now full load back to the mall. Once there we hijacked a trolley and took a stroll through the mall to the Pick n Pay and collected all the grocery items on the list headed out of the mall to call a new taxi to get home.
The boys were fantastic, not complaining once about the long distances and the only bad part of the day was as I was loading our purchases into the taxi I slipped and sprained my ankle, it still hurts and I am glad it happened on the way home.
Yesterday saw Rauen writing a Physics assessment, all the while Barry is cutting out wood and grinding in the saloon, right next to him. We cut the boards for the fridge cupboard and epoxied them together, but we will need to add a layer to them this morning. We also started laying up a mould for a new wind charger cover and moved heavy furniture around, meaning Lola emptied the fridge and freezer carefully finding a way to pack it all into our now limited freezer space a couple of cooler boxes, then the 3 of us, Barry, Rauen and myself manoeuvring the fridge out of the galley.
This sounds like it would only take a few minutes but in reality we had to remove the handrails in the port passage to find the space to get the fridge out of it’s predetermined spot, lift the fridge over the galley counter into the saloon, note that there is no extra headroom in a yacht and that it entails turning the fridge onto its side and sliding while twisting to fit in the confined space. From the saloon over the step into the cockpit, simple enough, then over the cockpit seats between the winch, jammers, U-bolts and ropes onto our new dive platform, once again a twisting sliding manoeuvre while climbing knee high steps with a bulky object and finally lowering the fridge down nearly 1 storey to the ground…now reverse with a new one!
12th February
We are into the 3rd day of rain now and the end is not in sight…once again we wait for weather. But it has not been an entire waste of time, we have anti fouled the boat and completed the fridge’s cupboard. No the fridge is still not in as we have to paint and add some wiring but we are almost there now.
We are both silently glad it has been raining as we were both out of energy, lethargic and not really in the mood to complete this project and now we are having a well deserved break and can finish the job as soon as the rain goes away. We only have a couple of things to do and we will be back on the water. It is tempting to just put her in but we will loose our make-shift workshop the second we leave the ground and then any work will have to be done in the cockpit…rather inconvenient so we will be patient and complete the last few tasks so that once on the water we can just do some test sails and head on our way!
Today we were supposed to service the motors but in this type of weather I just don’t see it happening…we will see if clears up a little later.
15th February
We have had 2 days of no rain and once again the sky has opened and we are sitting unable to do much in windy, rainy conditions! It seems the weather is against us getting back in the water.
The fridge is finally operational but not yet completed. We had to run a cable right around the boat and I have painted the sides and new cupboard. Yesterday I covered the extra insulation we are installing in epoxy resin to stop it crumbling and Barry is grinding the high spots off as I type.
The wind charger is almost complete, we have installed the bracket onto the rear of the bimini, completed and painted the new cover and I have to paint the other side the charger before erection but it seems that can’t happen today…
The port side sugar scoops have been painted and I have put the decal on the back…todays planned painting of the starboard side sugar scoops has been put on hold until the weather passes. The progress seems painfully slow even though we have been working until dark which is at about 7:20 in the evening at the moment.
Yesterday we sent in the watermaker to be put together and set up for installation…we will have it installed when we reach Durban as it will cost us substantially less. Yes, we are still hoping to leave shortly even though we are sitting on the hard! But there are only a few smaller jobs left and we can take the plunge and head for Durban where the final work will be carried out.
The kids are doing really well at the schooling and Kyle has improved in leaps and bounds with his concentration. Rauen is submitting assessment tests and completing the work like a raging bull. I have also been helping a few of the other kids in the boat yard with their schooling, if they get stuck they pop in and I lend a hand…when I have the time of course.
The weather is genuinely miserable today and I’m not sure we get much accomplished but hey our life is weather dictated and I guess we should just get used to that…at least it no longer completely depresses us to see a little rain.
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