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…..
