by Judy Handley | Dec 1, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 6, South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal |
Day 38, Year 6 Catching Up
Date: Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Weather: Partly Sunny, Hot and Humid, Strong NE Winds
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
Happy December! We can’t believe we have been here for a month and that it is already December. But it is, and that means we are one month closer to seeing our kids and grandkids in April in the Caribbean. So that is a good thing. We have lots of things we would like to see in South Africa as we head south around the Cape, but right now our main goal is St. Martin in April to reunite with our kids.
Have you ever seen a dog run in circles trying to catch its tail? That’s how I feel right now. We have been running ever since we returned from Kruger and finally today, I got to spend the day editing photos. But those photos were taken a week ago and thus the feeling that I am chasing my tail. After editing the five days in Kruger down to 600 photos, I was able to pull out 90 photos that are the best of the best. Right now Mark is linking those to the website, so if you are interested in seeing Kruger photos, go back to the log for Day 33 (November 26) entitled Home Again, Home Again. There you will find the best 90 photos from Kruger. Eventually I will get the logs and photos for the individual days posted, but right now I am just celebrating getting the Best of the Best done. I didn’t include any photos from the Blyde River Canyon, so I will work on those next. It is truly a beautiful corner of the world and I want to share that beauty with you.
We returned the rental car today, so from here on out we are either walking or taking a taxi. We did a couple of early morning fuel runs to get diesel to fill our one empty fuel tank before returning the car. Now all we should need are fresh fruits and veggies. It is only 4 kilometers to the shops at Meerensee so we can walk to there. But if the weather cooperates, we won’t need to do that. Once we get all our parts back that are in for repair, we will look for that weather window and head south.
by Judy Handley | Nov 30, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 6, South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal |
Day 37, Year 6 Provisioning, Phase One–Done
Date: Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Weather: Overcast with Strong Winds, SW Then NE
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
Phase One of the provisioning for our Atlantic crossing is DONE. Phase One is all canned and bottled food plus all the needs for baking bread and goodies and the supplies for making granola. We have ordered oats and flaked almonds but they are not in yet. Hopefully those will arrive in the next few days. Phase Two will be meat for the freezer and that will probably be added in Cape Town, along with Phase Three which is all the fresh fruits and veggies. Buying meat and fresh fruits and veggies takes only one day, so the hard part is over. Starting on December 1, we have about 182 days or 26 weeks until the last day of May. We should be in Florida by that time, and can reprovision there. So we have packed away enough canned salmon, green beans, and pasta sauce to have those once a week. We have enough tuna to have tuna salad sandwiches for at least two-thirds of the 182 days. We have kilos of flour, rice, and pasta tucked away. And we have more than three gallons of extra virgin olive oil and many bottles of honey stored. We have cans of artichoke hearts (a staple on Windbird), spinach (leftover from Thailand as it doesn’t exist here), peas, baby corn, kidney beans, chick peas, olives, salsa, and jars of peanut butter. We have bags of dried beans and lentils. We bought spices, vitamins, toilet paper, paper towels, and enough beer, coke, potatoes, carrots, and onions to get us to Cape Town. So once again, Windbird is sitting low in the water. Early in the morning we will go get jerry cans of diesel to fill our one empty tank (the other two are full) and then we will be ready for take-off whenever the weather allows. The rental car must be returned by 11 am tomorrow, so we will be walking or taking taxis from here on out. We found a great butchery shop today and bought enough meat to last us for two or three weeks and we bought a frozen turkey for Christmas. Just in case we leave here and can’t get to Cape Town by Christmas Day, we will at least be able to have a Christmas dinner. I have one can of pumpkin and one of cranberry sauce left over from Thailand, so we can also have cranberry salad and pumpkin pie.
As soon as the car is returned, I get to turn my attention back to photos and to boat projects. I really hope to have photos from Kruger ready to post by tomorrow night, so stay tuned on that one.
by Judy Handley | Nov 29, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 6, South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal |
Day 36, Year 6 More Shopping
Date: Monday, November 29, 2010
Weather: Rain Overnight, Overcast Day, SW Winds
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
There’s not much to report today. We spent our morning putting away what we bought yesterday and then spent the afternoon shopping and putting more food stuffs away. We picked up the piece from our anchor windlass that we had hoped would be fixed, but not. And we picked up our alternator that we had hoped would be repaired, but not. So part of tomorrow morning will be spent on trying to find shops that can do the repairs we need. We are doing fine with the back-up alternator, but if something should happen to it we would not be able to produce power to send emails or keep the refrigerator and freezer going. So having a back-up is very important. So we will continue the search for someone who can get the parts to fix our alternator. The piece from our anchor windlass that we had hoped to get repaired is not quite as critical. The piece is called a gypsy and it provides the cogs that the anchor chain goes through when we raise and lower it. The current cogs on the gypsy are very worn and sometimes the anchor chains slips, but if we are super careful, we can probably make it back to the US with the current worn gypsy. So tomorrow morning, we will finish the last bits of food shopping and continue the search for places that can repair our broken bits. We will also do the last long-term food shopping, and when we return to Windbird and get those items stowed away, we will start looking for that window to head south.
by Judy Handley | Nov 28, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 6, South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal |
Day 35, Year 6 Eating–Definitely Over-rated
Date: Sunday, November 28, 2010
Weather: Partly Sunny, Winds from the SW
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
Windbird is filling up with canned and bottled food for the up-coming Atlantic crossing. This time we are stocking up for only six months, but even that is quite a chore. Shopping is only half of the job, however. The real work begins when we get all of the bags hauled from the parking lot, down the dock, and onto Windbird. Putting everything away is the tough job. So after shopping all morning and packing things away all afternoon, we are still surrounded by dozens of cans and bottles that still need to find a home. I’ve decided that eating is definitely over-rated. There must be a better way to spend all this time and money!
We are now desperate to see all of the photos we took in Kruger, but we have not had one minute to even take a peek. We have, however, taken the time to have wonderful conversations with our children and grandchildren. We’ve talked to Justin, Jo, and Ziggy twice and we talked to Jed yesterday, and then the whole Goldstone crew-Jed, Heather, Sam, and Jonah–today. The internet connection here is fantastic so Skype video calls are once again a staple in our diet. Yesterday we got to watch Ziggy eat breakfast and today Sam and Jonah did a musical performance for us with Sam playing violin and Jonah dancing. We are making plans to all meet in St. Martin in the Caribbean in April. St. Martin was our first port-of-call after leaving the US, so it will be the closure of Windbird’s circumnavigation and a family reunion after more than a year-and-half without seeing each other. But first things first. For now we have to put all our energy into focusing on getting around the Cape of Good Hope safely. We’d love to be in Cape Town for Christmas, but at this point that looks like wishful thinking. We’ll be ready to leave here next week and then just watch that weather for a good window to head south.
by Judy Handley | Nov 27, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 6, South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal |
Day 34, Year 6 Back to Reality
Date: Saturday, November 27, 2010
Weather: Sunny, Windy Day and Humid
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
The problem with South Africa is that it is BIG. We still have over a thousand sea miles in some of the scariest waters in the world to travel before we reach Cape Town. And now that we have completed the touring in this area that we could afford, both time-wise and money-wise, it is time to start thinking about traveling south. Odulphus left while we were away and our neighbors Juan and Jane on Aldo left on the Thursday before we headed to Kruger. Most of the ARC Round the World Boats that arrived two weeks ago have already headed south, so now it is our turn. We have about of week of shopping and boat preparation to do and then we will start looking for that weather window.
The reality part of this is that we only have the rental car for three more days and we need to buy as many of the provisions we will need for the next six months before we return the car. So today Ed and Lynne had the car for the morning hours and we had it for the afternoon. Each day we will flip-flop the times, so we got back at 6 pm with LOADS of food and drink to carry from the car to the boat, and tomorrow morning we head out at 8 am to do the same thing all over again. This nice part is that we are only provisioning for the six months from now until we reach Florida in late May. When we left Thailand we were provisioning for ten months, and that was even harder. But because of the time crunch with the car, photo editing from our Kruger trip has been put on hold. We will be posting a few photos of the best of the best of the week-long trip with yesterday’s log, but the complete folders are a few days away from being posted. I thought I would have the complete logs from our days in Kruger posted by now, but maybe tomorrow. As always, so much to do, and so little time.
by Judy Handley | Nov 26, 2010 | Sailing Logs Year 6, South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal |
Day 33, Year 6 Home Again, Home Again
Date: Friday, November 26, 2010
Weather: Mostly Cloudy Early, PM Overcast, Intermittent Heavy Rain
Location: Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richards Bay, South Africa
Home from Kruger and the Blyde River Canyon . . . For the last six days we have been traveling in the northeastern part of South Africa, and it is a most spectacular little corner of the world. We traveled through parts of KwaZulu Natal province that we had not seen previously, drove through the tiny country of Swaziland, traveled for the better part of four days through the southern half of Kruger National Park (which shares an eastern border with Mozambique and the Limpopo Transfrontier Park and a northern border with the country of Zimbabwe), left Kruger and drove through a tiny corner of the South African province of Limpopo, drove into the clouds of Blyde River Canyon in the province of Mpumalanga, and then worked our way home through Mpumalanga and back into KwaZulu Natal. We saw some incredible scenery and spectacular wildlife. When you go to Kruger, you go to see the BIG 5-buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion, and rhino. But you also see cheetah, zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, warthog, hippo, and any number of majestic antelopes. We saw it all and the logs that I wrote for each day of the trip will be posted tomorrow. But if you don’t want to read all the details, you can just read this summary. However, you may want to look at the photos with each day.
Day 1–Big 5 minus 1
After driving two hours north of Richards Bay, we entered the small country of Swaziland. Four hours later we drove into the southeastern entrance to the Kruger National Park at Crocodile Bridge. We checked into our accommodation in the Crocodile Bridge Camp and were most delighted to find our rondavel (round hut with a conical roof) to be very nice. But we didn’t stick around long as we wanted to get out to see the wildlife. It is springtime here in South Africa and we saw evidence of that. We saw a baby zebra, a baby giraffe in a family grouping, and baby impala (a type of antelope) with their mothers. We saw rhino and elephant, got very close to buffalo, and in the last light of day, we saw lions in the distance. But they were so far away that you had to look through binoculars or super zoom in on photos to really tell what you were seeing. We felt like it hardly counted, but we did see lion on our first day, leaving leopard on our list of Most Wanted.
Day 2-Big 5 minus 1 plus 2
This day was all about seeing a mother cheetah with her three babies early in the morning, stumbling upon a pride of ten sleeping lions right beside the road, and seeing a baby hippo, as well as the big mommas and papas, at the end of the day. The adrenaline was running high, but the leopard still escaped us. We left Crocodile Bridge Camp at first light at 4:30 in the morning and by 8:30 am we had seen a herd of 20-30 elephants, three different kinds of antelope, two different groupings of dwarf mongoose, with the highlight being a beautiful mother cheetah crossing the road right in front of the car and then seeing her three bouncing little cubs coming behind her. They ran and climbed and put on a delightful show for us while the mother quietly disappeared into the bush. They quickly followed, but not before we were able to get great photos of the babies. Our goal for the day was to drive to the main road which bisects the park from north to south and then head south and west before heading back to the east to Skukuza Camp for the night. When we reached the main road and headed south, we literally stumbled upon a pride of lions. We saw a couple of cars stopped on our side of the road, so we pulled over to have a look. We were searching through the brush to see what we could see when we realized that lions were sleeping not even twelve feet away from us. If the other cars had not been stopped, we are not sure we would have seen them. They were just TOO obvious. There was a young male lion and a group of females in one body pile, three more in another body pile, and the dominant male sleeping a few yards away from the others. At first it looked like they were all dead. There was absolutely no movement. But then one would twitch, another would toss her head, and yet another would sit up for a second and then just absolutely and instantly collapse. It was so exciting to see these magnificent creatures up-close, but after a half an hour we saw that they were out for the count and we traveled on. After checking into our guest house for four at Skukuza Camp later in the day, we headed to a close-by hide looking out over Lake Panic. Here we saw hippos at a distance but one mother and baby very close to the hide. We also saw a mother egret trying to protect her baby from a monitor lizard (quite an interesting show) and many birds. At day’s end we returned to Skukuza and enjoyed the very nice accommodations in the guest house with Ed and Lynne.
Day 3-BIG FIVE and Much More
This day started at 5 am and by 5:30 we were watching a stately female leopard cross the road directly in front of us. This completed our search for the BIG FIVE, but there was more in store. As we headed back east toward Lower Sabie Camp we saw a big elephant destroying a tree by using his tusks to strip the bark. Before eating the bark, this guy actually managed to strip off the rough outer bark and eat only the tasty inner bark. This is when we realized that an elephant is actually just a self-contained pulp and paper mill. This was confirmed when we reached Lower Sabie Camp and found that they sell elephant dung writing paper in the shop. But we have to go back to the bark stripping elephant for just a minute. After stripping and eating most of the bark of the tree, the elephant moved to a nearby green-leaved bush to top off the bark main course with a little salad. We were constantly snapping photos, and when the elephant walked away from the bush I exclaimed, “This elephant has five legs.” You take it from there. This elephant was a HE and the fifth leg was not a leg! Now how do you top this? Well, the list of animals we saw for the remainder of the day is very long, but as we were hurrying back to Skukuza Camp at the end of the day, we had a big hippo cross the road right in front of us and then had another male elephant encounter. This big guy was walking down the paved road straight toward us, raising his truck high over his head every few steps. So we kept backing up and backing up, until finally we turned around to head in the opposite direction to try and find another way home. But we moved slowly and after this big guy had herded three different cars, us being one of those, he decided to head down to the river. So we did another u-turn and made it safely back to camp. Whew!
Day 4-Leo the Lion
We drove north on this day, out of bush country and into African savannah. We wanted to experience the open country and hoped to see herds of elephants and more lions. We did see a magnificent herd of elephants and just at the end of the day, we saw Leo the Lion. This male lion was cat-napping, head up, eyes closed, right beside the road. He looked just like the MGM lion. After taking tons of photos of him, sometimes eyes open, sometimes eyes closed, we realized that there was a second male lion back in the tall yellow grass. I got a photo of him yawning just before he collapsed in the grass for his nap. One minute we could see him, and the next he was sleeping in the grass and totally camouflaged. This reminded us to never take a walk in tall grass in Africa! These cats are unbelievable. They are up one minute and then down for the count the next. Leo did the same thing. It looked like he got tired of holding his head up and he just instantly fell over. We drove on down the road for a few kilometers and when we returned, he was still sleeping. While we watched, he started heaving his body and roaring and the other male was answering him, but he never got up. What a great way to end our last full day in Kruger.
Day 5-Out of Kruger, Into the Mountains
On our way out of Kruger we came upon a family of giraffe with the tiniest baby giraffe we had seen. And this just reminded us of how lucky we were to be visiting at this time of year. We saw baby antelope, baby hippo, baby zebra, baby giraffe, baby elephant, baby birds, baby buffalo, and baby cheetah. We left the park feeling very lucky to have seen all of the BIG 5 plus so many more animals with their babies. But we had to quickly switch from wildlife to landscape. We drove into the Drakensberg Mountains with absolutely breath-taking views. We had a bit of a battle with clouds in the afternoon as they settled on top of us obstructing some of the views, but we had already seen the most fantastic views and waterfalls and were content to descend to the little town of Graskop where we spent a lovely evening in the Graskop Hotel.
Today we spent eleven hours driving home. It should have taken only eight hours, but rain and road construction slowed us down. But it couldn’t dampen our spirits because we have seen and experienced so much beauty in the last few days.
