Website building

Monday morning, always chaos in our industry, I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be less problematic if we worked all weekend, but then again when would we have any fun?

Last week I was ill for most of the week, even “bunked” a day of work when Barry insisted I not come to work and locked me in the house all day Tuesday. Barry picked up the flu from me on Thursday and spent the whole weekend in bed. He said he has “MAN FLU” which it seems is far worse than woman flu and us women would never know how bad it feels coz’ we can’t contract “MAN FLU”. So it was the sickly week, doesn’t do much for the fun part of life and certainly puts any sailing time on the back burner. But hopefully it is the only sick week this winter.

I spent Tuesday morning in bed, working on my finance blog, I seem to put in hours and hours and it doesn’t seem to get anywhere. Ever have that feeling, like you’ve been doing something for ages and yet, when you look, it seems as if you haven’t done anything? I must be making progress though, so keeping my chin up.

Barry is going away this weekend, he is heading up to Graskop for the Paradise Bike Rally with Axel. I shall head down to the boat for an awesome weekend with the kids. Hope it is not too cold coz’ it can be very, very cold on the water at night. Last time I could not sleep, even with the heater on all night. Will be watching the weather closely!

I worked on the website quite a lot this week, got the FAQ started. Loaded a map with a route idea, this will probably change from time to time as we research and decide which places we want to visit. But at least the outline idea is there. Rauen has not yet added his diary, but it will come even if we must wait until the school holidays.

Glad it is the beginning of a new month, I was starting to get irritated that we could not put more money into savings or pay off more debt, but the new month has arrived and in a few days we will be adding to our savings account. This includes another month of “smoking money” as well as other saving money.



I was very excited to see there have been more than 100 hits on our site. Triple digits, awesome! We are slowly climbing on the Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines. I want to add some links to our site this week, this will not only improve our standings but if you use them, also give some insight into what the cruising life is all about. They were definitely both informative and inspirational in our decision.


So what are you waiting for start surfing!

Logo and website upgrading

Alors (that means “so” in French) we went to the boat for the weekend! It was absolutely great even though we did not get up too much, such a pleasure just being on the water.

On Friday evening we had a drink, we walked up the marina and had a good look at a 34’ Ocean Spirit (our 3rd choice of catamaran) it is really beautiful. I think we bumped it up to 2nd choice after our hour long inspection of the outside only. We discussed where to put solar panels and wind chargers. Where to add chairs, how high the guard rails should be, where to add grab rails, the size of the hatches, which hatches should open and which should be for light only etc. It was an excellent in depth discussion and it has deepened our desire. Pity we could not get inside to discuss that in detail too. At the moment it is the best for outside design, very spacious! (Hopefully this does not mean the inside is more cramped).

On Saturday morning it was warm, unlike here at home, so we brushed our teeth, had breakfast and started the motors. I had asked to practise manoeuvring the boat from the slip and returning it again as I needed more confidence before I would be able to sail solo. Out, in, out, in and so on and so forth for a couple of hours, mixed with a little verbal abuse launched at Barry every time things go wrong and practise was done. Barry found this verbal abuse both amusing and endearing, I mentioned if he keeps laughing at me it may escalate to physical abuse. I’m sure you can imagine the ensuing comments of “hit me baby” etc.

Then an afternoon nap for Barry, (Sudoku and crossword time for me) and a couple of leisurely walks to the local shop and back. All made for a relaxing day. On Sunday the weather was a little less pleasant although not terrible so we were back at the docking practise. I am definitely feeling a lot more confident now.



All in all, a successful weekend of docking lessons and further discussions regarding our future catamaran. I also managed to take a couple on snaps so I am loading Kyle’s pictures today, how cute is that swing picture?


I was surfing the web and found a few more families who are either sailing or have sailed with their families, load them up to the inspiration bank. We are going back to the logo designer this week for a new take on the "Yrumoar" design (see the current one below). We discussed a few changes and want to try a few new designs. We need to get the design of the logo made so we can have a few promotional items made for sale. It seems a good way to raise funds especially since I found out it is illegal to ask for donations without getting an NPO number in SA.

Also watch out for the new pages on the site, Rauen had to make a diary for school this week so he will be spending the week loading that onto his page and I’m hoping to add, FAQ this week!

Insurance Policy Payout

I contemplated writing today’s entry or not. My mother always told me “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all”. Why so glum? Too many problems to mention at the moment, lets just say things have not been working in my favour this week.

Our little dog was poisoned at around 4am on Sunday and passed away, just 1 reason why this week has been so bad. Kyle has taken the death really hard and is still crying about it, especially at night just before bed. I guess dealing with death is a part of growing up, but it is still not easy to see your little boy so distraught. Barry was also really upset only he has the philosophy “Cowboys don’t cry!” and puts up a brave face. You know how upset he is by the things he says. Every time he goes outside to feed the cats he comes back saying “ I should have spoilt Shaggy more” or “I could have played with her more” etc. A household of sorrow it has been.

We did however get a small pay out from an insurance policy we took about 10 years ago. It was not much because when we took it we could not afford the premiums, so it became “paid-up”. I did not know we even had the policy until I received a letter from the insurance company stating the policy value. So I called them up and after completing a few forms and getting a letter from the bank we got the money paid out.

We decided to split the money in 2 and use 50% of the money for saving and 50% for debt repayment. That way we can see both the savings growing and the debt decreasing, good for fuelling the dream!

I am still practising my French, it is getting more difficult the further into the book I progress, however I am keeping at it, soon I will be able to make conversation. I was thinking about ways to practise and improve and decided a simple way would be to watch our many DVD’s in French. I need to be a little more proficient and I will start with that, looking forward to it actually.

On Friday afternoon we were at McGinty’s, Barry and Axel decided to go to the Paradise Rally on Axel’s bikes in June so I am wondering what to do with myself (I obviously don’t want to spend money as we are saving for the trip). I was thinking of going down to the yacht with the 2 boys, I might even have the courage to sail solo? Any help in bravery department would be welcome!

Speaking of sailing…

We are planning on going sailing this weekend, and since it has been 2 weekends since we were able to go, I have instructed all children that they are not to make any plans, we are going end of story! Barry mentioned we should see what the weather holds, but No! We have bought a little fan heater and can watch movies on the computer if the weather is that bad so off to the dam it is. See you on the water!

Free Stuff

So last time I wrote it was a little haphazard, many topics, few developments etc. Today is a little better but not much.

We could not go sailing this weekend, it is so frustrating when you arrange your life and have it rearranged by your kids. I guess I had them…such is life. So we stayed home, watched movies, which was not really that bad, I have become way too spoilt with the going away so often.

I took some time and started my French lessons. Feeling a little inspired by the fact that I started to recall some of the French I should have remembered, and am now able to say hello, goodbye and the likes to start or end a conversation. Not to mention count to ten, say the days of the week etc. Soon I’ll be an expert! (ex being a “has been”, spurt a drip of water under pressure)

Last night was my graduation ceremony. I felt all academic walking across the stage to get “capped” and “draped” as it were. It brings an end to formal study for me, at least for now. Barry, Rauen and Kyle were there to watch. Kyle drove Barry insane as the whole ceremony took 2 hours, a long time for a little boy wanting to watch TV. Not too mention the speech which no one in the audience had any chance of understanding, the speaker may as well have spoken Greek, we would have probably understood more then. You know a speech is bad when the Vice Chancellor stands up after the speech and apologises for the speech without actually saying sorry, but simply saying the professor who gave the speech is a serious intellect and if we “laymen” could take anything from it, it would be amazing.

Went shopping again today – it is always great to shop when you don’t actually spend any money. We bought a jersey for Barry using gift vouchers from Edgars (say thanks to an Edgars cash card) and PJ’s for both the boys as well as 3 new DVD’s (say thanks to cellphone contract gift vouchers). Seems I am getting plenty “free” stuff this month, I got all those books and the cd last week for “free” from Ebucks.

Wish I could get a catamaran free next!

I also started taking photo’s for the website of Kyle, Rauen and myself doing the things we like so I can make up the collage for each of our blogs. Still working on the website seems to be coming along slowly but I haven’t put it on the back burner, just have to do research and information gathering to continue.

A bientoe! (See you soon!)

Adding Google Ads

So this week I feel successful. I managed to get our website yrumoar up and running. It is not complete and it certainly needs a lot of work but it is coming along and I am adding to it everyday. Hopefully I get this journal loaded today. Sorry if the pictures take a few extra days but I am still learning – not an expert yet.


Also loaded some “Google ads” which could generate some income for us and will be adding a button to donate cash to our cause. Yes, these are ways to help fund this trip, every penny counts and the website is a definite added benefit. Hardly slept I was so excited about actually putting on the web.

Haven’t kept you updated but Barry is still not smoking about 2 months now so very impressed with him, it also means we can keep saving that money towards the goal.



Another exciting thing happening at the moment is that I am about to go collect 2 new books from the post office today.

Book 1 is: 15 - minute French (2 CD’s included).

I decided I needed to be able to speak a few languages to travel around the world without having too many problems. Looking at other cruisers experiences I believe (let me know if I am wrong) that English, French and Spanish are the 3 most widely spoken languages and it would be beneficial to learn these. So from today I am learning French. I did study it for 2 years in high school but who can remember that long ago? So back to the books it is.

Book 2 is called Deceptively Delicious written by Jessica Seinfeld, it is a cookbook with recipes using pureed foods (vegetables) to cook all types of meals with. This has a double use in that I can con my kids into eating more veggies (not to mention cut the calories on my favourite dishes) as well as the fact that pureed foods are easier to store on board a boat so I want to try them out, practise and use these recipes on our journey.

I also went to Pretoria yesterday to hire my graduation outfit. The ceremony is on Monday where I will be given the degree, so pretty excited about that too.


All in all life is really great at the moment. Between working hard and enjoying myself I am finding a good balance.

Just want to add a note of thanks to my mom, she is acting as editor of my work from half way across the world. Thanks!