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.
Showing posts with label family sailing adventure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family sailing adventure. Show all posts
Monday, September 20, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
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!
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!
Sunday, February 21, 2010
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!
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!
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