Day 67, Year 6 Exhausting Winds
Date: Thursday, December 30, 2010
Weather: Clear; Winds SE 35-40 Staying Closer to 40
Location: Simon’s Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Today is notable only because of the wind. We are now a week with winds over 30 knots and today the winds hovered closer to 40 than 35 without stop! On our second day here, December 19, I wrote, “On a beautiful sunny day, the winds roar relentlessly through here at 35 knots. It shakes and rattles everything on deck and has the ability to loosen snap shackles and shake Dorade vents loose.” Today we put on an extra line to keep the fenders on our port side from being totally squished, but we did this too late to save the new fender covers. They really are a tattered mess and Mark will have to make new ones. This incessant wind is starting to wear lines and nerves.
I spent my day doing a little inside boat cleaning, making granola AGAIN, and doing laundry AGAIN. I must tell you that sitting on the back deck doing laundry in these winds is totally exhausting. I could have waited until the winds die down a bit, but then the pile of laundry would be even bigger. It is much easier to do a little bit at a time, so I decided to fight the winds and dry the clothes in the cockpit. It is just too windy to put clothes on the lines outside. While I worked on laundry, Mark went into town and bought beer and coke to replenish the diminishing supply.
The excitement of the day came with a message from Kea, a French boat we met in Chagos. When we met Dominique and Dominique (yes, they both have the same name) we immediately liked them. They arrived here two days ago while we were away and anchored outside on arrival. Yesterday they contacted the marina to try and get a slip but there are none, but they could move to a mooring ball. When they tried to raise their anchor, they found it was under one of the very heavy mooring ball chains and they had to dive down to free the anchor. We hear stories of Great White Sharks in these waters, so we are grateful that there were no sharks yesterday. They now feel secure on the mooring ball, but with these winds it is very difficult to dinghy into the yacht club. They sent an SMS message this morning telling us they would be coming into the Yacht Club by dinghy in the afternoon. Mark met them at the Yacht Club and helped them get registered for the New Year’s Eve party tomorrow night and then later we both went in to meet them for Happy Hour. Once again the Happy Hour group was a truly international gathering: one American couple (us), one German couple with kids (Kire), one Dutch couple (Odulphus), and one French couple (Kea). Luckily for us everyone spoke at least passable English as we embarrassingly speak no Dutch, no German, and no French.
Before heading in for Happy Hour, we had Skype video calls with both of our kids. First we talked to Justin, Jo, and Ziggy in England. Ziggy spiked a very high temperature a couple of days ago as the result of an ear infection. They had to take him to the emergency room and then to a doctor yesterday to get the antibiotic, but he is doing much better today. He has become very attached to his Grandma and Grandpa Hunt and to Jo’s brother and her sister and her partner and much prefers them to mom and dad right now. So Justin and Jo are feeling a bit left out, but are enjoying the extra time. Ziggy stares at us on the computer screen and then when one of us says something he thinks is funny, he gets this great big smile on his face. Then he gets this mischievous look. The look leads us to believe that Justin and Jo will have their hands full in another few months! Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah are home from Maine. Jonah, like Ziggy, has a smile that lights up the world. And Sam has all the exuberance that one can expect from an almost four year-old. Sam and Jonah served us tea and toast with butter from the wooden tea set we gave Sam for Christmas and from the wooden toaster set that they got from Grammy and Papa Goldstone. We are still searching for a place where we can afford to meet in the Caribbean in April. We have only been looking at St. Martin’s which is expensive, so we are going to broaden our search to see what we might find.
