Day 347, Year 1: Getting Ready to Leave Apia
Date: Friday, September 29, 2006
Weather: Moderating Weather
Location: Apia Harbor, Upolu Island, Samoa
We have made the decision to leave here tomorrow mid-day for Tonga. Or at least that is our most current thinking. I worked on pictures all day today and Mark made multiple trips to shore for water, fuel, checking out, and to help other boats. After staying onboard all day organizing pictures, I finally went in to shore for cruiser evening at the dock. Actually we went in a little early with Long Tall Sally to the local Seafood Gourmet Grill and had sashimi before returning to the dock. This little restaurant had sashimi for the first couple of days that we were here and have not had it since—until today. For the equivalent of $5US, they sell a huge plate of fresh tuna, probably 30 pieces. Other places in town give you 4-5 pieces of sashimi for the same price. We think the Seafood Grill sashimi might be the best price in all of the South Pacific.
Tomorrow morning we will do our final food shopping before leaving here sometime in the early afternoon. Splashes will be leaving around noon, so we will have company on our way to Tonga. We had hoped that Windcastle would be leaving with us, but they need a day of rest and will follow on Sunday. We have had a fabulous time in the Samoas, but it is time to move on.
Day 1, Year 6 Getting Acquainted with Richards Bay
Date: Monday, October 25, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day; Winds SW 15-25
Location: International Wall, Richards Bay, South Africa
Year 5 of the Voyage of Windbird (VOW) ended yesterday with our arrival in Richards Bay. Year 5 commenced when we flew out of LAX on October 27, 2009 headed back to Windbird in Malaysia. From there we revisited Thailand and then traveled on to Southern India, the Maldives, Chagos, and Madagascar. Every stop along the way was fantastic. Southern India was exotic, Chagos was paradise, and Madagascar will rank up there with the Top 5 in terms of places we have visited in our circumnavigation-gracious people, beautiful islands, bizarre and wondrous plants and animals. Normally we would be getting Windbird ready to leave and would be flying home to visit with family and friends before launching into another year of the voyage, but time and money constraints aren’t allowing that this time. We have to have Windbird hauled out of the water for a survey required for our insurance and while out of the water we will paint the bottom and replace old thru-hull fittings and then we have to make our way south from here around the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town which will be the jumping off point for our South Atlantic crossing to Brazil in January. And in between all of that, we do hope to see some of South Africa. We will only be here once and there is much to see. We started today by getting acquainted with Richards Bay. Taking a taxi from here to the mall in Richards Bay and back costs about $15US. We shared that cost with Ed and Lynne. We went in to buy SIM cards for our cell phone and for our cell modem that allows us to access the internet and to buy FRESH fruits and veggies. I had hoped to find a pair of Tevas as mine bit the dust a few weeks back. Finding Tevas is not going to be easy-none at the big mall we visited today. Buying the SIM cards was easy and our experience at the first supermarket we visited, a Pick ‘n Pay, was not all that great. But then we were told that we should visit another market in the mall called Fruit & Veg and we were a little more successful. We are used to buying fresh produce in open markets with no refrigeration and the produce is much fresher. But there is more variety here-broccoli and cauliflower and greens that we are familiar with like Swiss Chard. It is going to take a while to figure out just what the good values are here-nothing seems particularly cheap. But we did have a really wonderful lunch at a restaurant in the mall called Elephant & I. The food was fabulous and plentiful, each meal for about $6US. And I couldn’t believe that going to the restroom could be such a pleasant experience. The restroom was decorated with beautiful artwork, had individual cloth towelettes for drying hands, and an intricate mosaic fountain for washing hands. None of these are things you find in Southeast Asia, India, or Madagascar. And I don’t think you will find a restroom like this in the US at a mall restaurant where meals are under $10. We have lots more exploring to do here to just figure out Richards Bay. So tomorrow while the SW winds are still blowing strong (sure glad we made it in before they started blowing this morning), we will stay put here and walk over to the Zululand Yacht Club where we hope to have a slip for our time here. So that will be tomorrow’s explore.
A special thanks to all of you who emailed us today saying how relieved you were that we made it here safely. We’ve never gotten so many emails in one day and it made us feel really good to know that we have such wonderful and supportive family and friends.
Day 2, Year 6 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Date: Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Weather: Overcast and WINDY-SW Gusting to 30
Location: International Wall, Richards Bay, South Africa
The BAD is that we don’t have a space at the Zululand Yacht Club as we had been led to believe we would have. The GOOD is that the Tuzi Gazi Club, just next to us here at the International Wall, does have space. The UGLY is that the coal dust that falls on the boats here is horrible, especially when there are SW winds with no rain like yesterday and today. On Sunday afternoon when a neighbor loaned us his hose, we used the water to wash off all the salt and Windbird was squeaky clean. Today she is dusted in a fine black powder that runs like mud when water is applied. Yuck! But we just have to deal with it by getting to a dock where we can easily attach our own hose and constantly wash down the boat, especially the canvas. We thought Cochin’s air was dirty, but it doesn’t even compare to this. And the other UGLY is that it is not easy to get boat parts here and if you can get them, they are expensive. We visited what we think is the only chandlery in Richards Bay today and we didn’t find the things we need. They are checking into ordering for us, but it seems strange that there is so little here in terms of boat parts compared to anyplace else we have been (except for India) on our trip around the world.
But that said, we have to keep reminding ourselves how lucky we are that we are here and we are safe. As we are learning the stories of the boats around us that came here in the past couple of weeks from Mauritius and Reunion, and we are really, really thankful that we went to Madagascar and came across from there. One boat we met in Chagos and went south to Mauritius and then made the crossing from Reunion to South Africa lost their steering and had to use their emergency tiller for days, have a shredded headsail, got salt water in their engine due to the high waves, and finally had to be towed in here. A smaller boat right behind us no longer has a dodger because it was flattened by the high waves. The horror stories just keep on coming and we are feeling more and more thankful that we were not scared away from Madagascar by stories of rampant theft and government instability. There is government instability but it is moderately under control and theft just wasn’t a problem. We had to make sure we kept things locked, but at no time did we ever feel unsafe. Unfortunately, that is not true here. Richards Bay is better than most of South Africa, but the crime rate is sky-high and we don’t dare wear a backpack or carry a camera. All of the housing here is surrounded by tall brick walls topped with electric wire and that is topped with razor wire. I’m getting the idea that you are much safer in the game parks with lions and leopards than you are on the streets of the cities in this country. At least in the game parks, you stay in your car and view the wildlife through the windows. In the cities, you lock yourself in your car, but at any stop a window might be broken and anything on a seat might be taken. Everything has to be stored in the car’s trunk-out of sight. I know we will enjoy seeing the beauty of the country, but already I feel like I can never let down my guard. Here in the harbor area, the presence of port security is strong and we have heard of no security problems here. So at least we are in a safe area far away from trouble and we will be super careful when venturing out. I’m really hoping that we will be venturing out early next week to visit our first game park and I’m really looking forward to that.
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| 101026 Day 2a South Africa–Tuzi Gazi Marina |
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| 101026 Day 2b South Africa–Zululand Yacht Club |
Day 3, Year 6 Happy Anniversary to Us!
Date: Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Weather: Partly Sunny Day, Winds Settling Down
Location: International Wall, Richards Bay, South Africa
Today is our 36th wedding anniversary and we are celebrating tonight by going out to the little Thai restaurant here in the Tuzi Gazi complex. Our present to each other was going to a book store this afternoon to look for books on South Africa plants and animals. We had looked at the Boardwalk Mall yesterday and didn’t find much, so we searched online and found a Zululand Book Store at the Meerensee Mall. We went there, but unfortunately the only book store there is a tiny little used book store. There is no Zululand Book Store. In the second hand book store, however, I did find one book on southern Africa mammals. But we will continue the search tomorrow. We are going back to the Boardwalk Mall in Richards Bay and look one more time. I also have a 9am appointment with an optometrist there in hopes of getting a new pair of glasses. So we will be up and out of here early in the morning.
The boat accomplishment today was taking down the headsail and sewing the Sunbrella sacrificial sun cover that was looking so ragged. Mark worked all morning making the repairs and then we stowed the sail on the v-berth. We are working on getting as much canvas as possible stowed below so we won’t be washing out Richards Bay coal dust all the way to the Caribbean.
Day 4, Year 6 All About Weather
Date: Thursday, October 28, 2010
Weather: Overcast and Rainy; Winds NE 5 am, NW 25/gusts to 40 pm
Location: International Wall, Richards Bay, South Africa
There’s no way to get a rest from the weather in this country. Even in port you have to worry about the strong SW blows that come through. This afternoon we got our first taste of 40 knot winds in the harbor. It sounded worse than it was but it makes you feel like you are on constant watch. Friends from Armelle T, a boat we met in Chagos and again in Madagascar, arrived this morning coming from the Barren Islands in Madagascar, following the same route as we did. They had a good trip across, stopping at Europa while we were having the southerly winds on Monday here in Richards Bay, and getting in here before the strong southerlies started blowing this afternoon. If our wind indicator is correct we were getting a constant 25-30 knots with gusts to 40 during the peak of the blow this afternoon. I’m coming to the conclusion that South Africa is going to be disconcerting in many ways, the weather being only one of the ways, but with highlights that will make it all worth it. We went back to Richards Bay to Boardwalk Mall today. We had a 9 am appointment with an optometrist at the mall. They were able to take the lenses from Mark’s frames that broke last year to give him a good back-up pair just for the cost of the frames. But since my only good pair of glasses went overboard in Chagos, and the frames on my back-up pair broke in Madagascar, I was starting from scratch. To got the Varilux lenses that I am used to along with new frames plus the cost of the exam, the total was about $750 for a new pair of glasses. So in about an hour and half we blew almost $1,000 between the two of us just so we can see. But that is important! It is probably the same amount we would spend in the US, but there we have vision insurance that helps a bit.
After getting over the cost of seeing, we visited the two supermarkets in the mall that we did not visit on Tuesday. We were basically just checking prices and seeing what is available. What we are finding is that food here costs about the same as in the US at high-end supermarkets. There is no Sam’s Club or Costco here. We have friends in Cape Town and we are hoping they are going to tell us that things are cheaper there and that here is more variety. We’ll have to wait to hear from them on that one. And then there are things like sandals. My soles on my Tevas separated while in Madagascar but there are no Tevas to be found in Richards Bay. We found a pair online but with VAT tax and delivery charges they were going to cost $130. I decided to wait until we visit Durban and see if I can find them there without paying the tax and delivery charges, and in the meantime I am going to see if I can find a shoe repair place that might be able to glue the soles back on. So no shoes and no good book stores And we are finding the same problem with boat parts. They just aren’t here. We desperately need two new marine toilets but there are none to be had in Richards Bay. We did find them in Durban online, so again, it looks like a trip to Durban is a necessity.
On a more positive note . . . our anniversary dinner at the Thai restaurant here in the Tuzi Gazi complex was delightful. The couple who owns the restaurant are a Thai-South African mix. They have had the restaurant here for eleven years and it was packed last night despite the ugly weather. The food was very good and the highlight was that we were able to get a Singha beer, straight from Thailand. The food and the beer brought back great memories from our time in Thailand. But we must put that behind us now and get on with life in South Africa. Tomorrow morning we move Windbird from the wall to a slip at Tuzi Gazi, winds permitting. Once we are settled in a slip we can start thinking about inland travel. I’m really hoping to visit our first game park next week. Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Park is only about a one-hour drive from here and you can see all of the Big 5 there-buffalo, elephants, leopards, lions, and rhino. So even if we only go for two or three days, we should get our first taste of South African wildlife.
Day 5, Year 6 Move to Tuzi Gazi Marina
Date: Friday, October 29, 2010
Weather: Sunny; Winds W 8-12 am, SE 5-10
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
We made the ‘big’ move from the International Wall to a slip in the Tuza Gazi Marina early this morning. We asked the boats on the wall to hold on to our lines and walk us back until we could turn. Five minutes later we were in slip #49 in Tuza Gazi. Chris and Geoff of Shambala, Ed and Lynne of Constance, Xolani (pronounced Kolani) and Hebron from the marina, Uli from a big powerboat, and our new neighbors, Juan from Spain and Jane from New Zealand, were all on the dock to help us in. I guess it takes a village to make sure Windbird is safely docked! As soon as we were in safely, we walked back out of the marina and back to the International Wall to help Constance do the same. And then later Armelle T moved over, so the wall is once again just one-boat deep leaving room for new boats that will be coming in. We now have electricity and water and don’t have to walk across someone else’s boat when we want to go somewhere. Getting electricity was not as easy as we had hoped as we did not have the right adaptors. The shop here that sells them wasn’t open today so Xolani loaned us an adaptor until late afternoon when the guy who owns the shop selling what we needed showed up. Unfortunately, while Mark was running up and down the pier getting the adaptor, trying it out, and coming back to return it as it wasn’t the right one, he ran smack into the long bowsprit of a big boat next to Constance and gashed his head open. Thankfully Jean-Alaine on Armelle T is a physician and he came to take a look. The gash is on his scalp and is about an inch-long but it is not deep and Jean-Alaine said he didn’t need stitches. It gash bled profusely and then Mark rinsed his hair and we put Tridine (like Betadine) on it and kept blotting it with gauze pads. Mark is fine but his hair is going to look a little wild for a week or so since he won’t be able to shampoo it for a while. We’ll just have to find him a new hat that covers the whole mess!
We were actually on Constance when Mark got the call to come get the adaptor. I was delivering a belated birthday present to Ed and Lynne. I have been going through the Lonely Planet for South Africa and writing up a ‘short’ guide to the places we want to visit. They don’t have a Lonely Planet, so now they have a shortened version and we can start making decisions on where we want to visit. If we want to go to the same places we can rent a car jointly and save a lot of money. Car rentals with unlimited mileage and full insurance coverage look like they are going to cost about $90 a day for a rental of four days or more. If we can share that cost it will be much more affordable.
But for now we are settling in for the weekend. Mark is starting upload photos to the website. I have hundreds of folders for him so he will be busy for a couple of days. But so far he is finding uploading to go incredibly fast. A lot of things here are much more third world than we expected, but not the internet access. It is 3G and FAST.
Day 6, Year 6 Happy Oma and Granddad
Date: Saturday, October 30, 2010
Weather: Sunny; Light Winds E
Latitude: 28 47.670 S
Longitude: 032 04.764 E
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
Video Skype calls are once again a staple in our diet. We can see our children and grandchildren and watch the grandchildren play as we talk. It has been a long time since we were in India with a not-so-great connection, so it is great to once again be connected. We talked with Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah late in our afternoon which was early morning on Cape Cod. And then a couple of hours later we talked to Justin, Jo, and Ziggy during their morning in New Mexico. We learned all about who is dressing as what for Halloween-Jonah is a pumpkin, Ziggy is a lion, and Sam is a ‘monster truck’ driver. Jonah and Ziggy are both into the climbing stage and driving their parents crazy watching that they don’t fall. All three are blondies and are beautiful (this comes from a non-biased source). Jonah has curly blonde hair, Ziggy has white hair with no curl, and Sam is still a blonde with a little curl. Sam knows us but Jonah and Ziggy just stare at the computer screen trying to figure out who these two people are talking to them. Hopefully we will get to talk to them often and they will eventually start to recognize us. Seeing them play via Skype is so wonderful–it was a great day for grandparents.
The other big event in our lives today was that we found a car rental company that was affordable. We are going to rent a car with Ed and Lynne of Constance for the next month. It will cost each of us about $500US with the full load of insurance coverage and unlimited mileage. We will still have to pay for fuel, but having a car will allow us to fully take in the beauty of this part of South Africa. We will begin with a trip to our first game park on Tuesday and we can’t wait.
This morning we walked to Zululand Yacht Club to the chandlery, stopping on the way at a once-a-month flea market run by the local SPCA. I bought a few birding magazines with great information about birds in the parks we will be visiting and at the chandlery we bought a much needed light for our engine room. I spent the afternoon doing laundry, baking bread, and just generally getting ready for our first trip in the wild. The gash on Mark’s head is starting to heal, so that is good. Late today while we were on Skype with our kids, we were listening to screams of joy from the local bars as the Kwazulu-Natal rugby team, the Sharks, defeated the Western Province team by a score of 30-10 in the final game of the season. It is obvious that people here really get into their rugby.
Day 7, Year 6 We Have Wheels
Date: Sunday, October 31, 2010
Weather: Overcast; Winds SE 10-15
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
Our morning started with a trip to the airport to pick up our little car. So we now have wheels. The car is a Kia and really is tiny, but the seats are comfortable. The problem is that it is hatchback and there is not much room in the back for ‘stuff.’ So we are going to have to travel light. We will only be doing self-catering accommodations when we travel, so we will have to take food and leave the extra clothes behind! Today we bought a small cooler that can sit on the back seat between Lynne and I and we’ll just stuff everything else in the back. It’s not perfect, but we’ll make it work.
After picking up the car, we headed to the Boardwalk Mall to buy the cooler and other food supplies we will need. This first foray will be four days, three nights out, starting on Tuesday morning. We are basically copying what friends Danika and Sten of Mata’irea did last year. Their trip sounded very successful, so we are going to try the same. We will leave here on Tuesday morning and head south to a small nature reserve, then head west and north through Zululand where we will see some historic sights and visit a couple of museums, and then we will spend the night in a Zulu bush camp just outside Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve. You pronounce Hluhluwe as ‘shloo-shloo-we’ which is a mouthful. But there we hope to see the Big 5-buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion, and rhinos (both black and white). The leopards and lions are hardest to spot but since we will have two or three whole days in the park, we are hopeful. I say two or three days because we could leave the park early on Friday if we have seen enough and visit the St. Lucia estuary on the way back to Richards Bay. St. Lucia is now called iSimangiliso and is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Lake St. Lucia is Africa’s largest estuary. iSimangiliso means ‘miracle’ and according to the Lonely Planet the extraordinary beauty of the area lives up to its name. Both the game park and iSimangaliso are only an hour from here, so what we don’t see on this trip we can do at another time. We are just so excited to get out there seeing the beauty of South Africa.
Tonight we had a Mexican dinner aboard Constance and finalized our plans. Dinner and Margaritas were delicious, so thank you Ed and Lynne. Tomorrow we will be focused on refrigeration-once again. If you have followed our logs, you know that our freezer bit the dust months ago and even after buying a new compressor while in India and suffering through many days of work, the refrigeration people were not able to get it going. There is a man here named Oakie who came to our boat yesterday and took both our old and new compressor to check them out. He called today and said he was coming in the morning to get our freezer going, so we are hopeful (but with reservation) that he is going to be able to do this. We’ve heard this before, so we are leery. Let’s hope this time it works.
Day 8, Year 6 Odulphus Arrives!
Date: Monday, November 1, 2010
Weather: Sunny; Winds NE 25
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
The big news of today was that when we got up and looked around outside, we saw Odulphus on the end of the pier behind us. Odulphus arrived last night after dark, along with Single Malt, a Swiss boat that we know. Both boats had good trips. It took them eleven days to get here but they avoided the southerly winds and got here in one piece. We had dinner with Pieter and Carla tonight and are so glad they arrived safe and sound.
Our freezer story has come full circle. Oakie arrived this morning with both our old and our new compressor and declared that both work just fine but both needed new electronic cards. We have no idea what this is but another $850 later we appear to have a freezer using our old compressor. It has a larger cooling unit than the new compressor and Oakie thought it best to reinstall it. I say that we ‘appear’ to have a freezer as it is not down to freezing temperature yet. Oakie explained that it will take about 24 hours to stabilize. Right now the temp is going up and down and he says that is normal. Again, we have no clue, so we are just hopeful. Our trip to the game park has been delayed until next week (I’ll explain that in a minute), so Oakie will return tomorrow to make sure everything is working fine. I’m not going to get too excited yet. I’ll wait until tomorrow.
Now I’ll explain about the delay in visiting Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve. Since we were planning to visit in mid-week and it is not school vacation time, we thought we would have no problem reserving a place to stay in the park. But unfortunately, that was not true. There was no room this week, but we were able to reserve safari tents for next week. So we have flip-flopped our plans. Constance and Windbird will make day trips to Durban this week to pick up needed boat parts and get our life rafts re-serviced. On Wednesday, Ed and Lynne will go down and deliver the life rafts and a sail that they need repaired. Then on Thursday, Mark and I will go down and pick up a couple of toilets that we desperately need. We have to do it on successive days as there is not enough room in the car for four people plus boat stuff. Then next Tuesday we will take off for our first game park experience.
It was a WINDY day here today. Our refrigeration repair man, Oakie, explained to us that the strong winds they used to get here in August have been arriving in November for the past couple of years. And the warm summer weather we should be experiencing has been delayed and will probably arrive in late December. So it is cooler than normal, which is fine with us. We are wearing long pants and long sleeve shirts in the evenings and we are using a sheet, and sometimes a polar fleece blanket, at night. The temperature never seems to fall below 68 degrees F, but seems mighty cool after being in the tropics for months.
Day 9, Year 6 Working, Shopping
Date: Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Weather: Sunny; Winds NE 15-20
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
This is one of those days that slipped away without us being sure of what we accomplished. We did a little boat maintenance. I worked on finishing up naming Madagascar photos, Mark did a little research on the internet, and all of a sudden it was afternoon and time to go shopping. We’re trying to make sure we use our days wisely while we have a car. So when we are not out touring, we plan to spend half a day shopping for all those items we are going to need for the next eight months. We went into Richards Bay to the Boardwalk Mall with Ed and Lynne and managed to spend the entire afternoon food shopping. Since our little car doesn’t hold much, we bought only what we could get home, and then Mark and I went back out to buy cases of beer at a different mall. I don’t know what is worse-living in a house and having to go to the grocery store at least once a week, or living out here and shopping solid for a month and then living off that for the next six months. It seems to us that eating is highly over-rated! Maybe things really haven’t changed so much since the days of hunters and gatherers-just the methods are different.
Tomorrow Ed and Lynne will take the little car and go to Durban. They are taking both our life raft and theirs to be serviced and they are taking their headsail to be repaired. The car will be packed to the brim when they leave here in the morning. Then the next day Mark and I will go to Durban to shop for boat parts. We’ll have an empty car on the way down, but we will probably end up buying two toilets that will fill the back seat for the return trip. We will spend our day tomorrow studying the road atlas and making sure we know our way to and around Durban and going over the lists of needed boat parts to make sure we don’t forget something. We’re hoping to have to make only the one trip to Durban, but that’s probably a fantasy.