The children had their first surf lesson – and have now added surf gear to their Christmas lists, and surf speak to their vocabulary, talking about ‘curlers’ ‘breakers’ and ‘dumpers’. It sounds to us like they are re-wiring a hairdressers shop, but I’m assured this is normal. They bobbed like pros in the training surf and were standing up within half an hour. I got loads of video footage – unfortunately the sun was shining on the camera viewing screen (there is no view finder) and I got lots of footage of surfing heads but none of feet on surf boards on waves! I did, however, get a half-decent photo of the aged beach bums belly boarding.

David and Mike belly boarding.

Bethany had her hair cut. You’ve seen the advert for ‘Talking Pages’ where the bloke out of ‘Cold Feet’ (Irish actor, sorry, can’t remember his name) cuts his niece’s hair…well it started off as a bit of a trim to tidy up the dead ends, but the damn stuff curls, so it is hard to get a level cut. After about half an hour of cutting, trimming and levelling, David had had enough and refused to do anymore so I had had a go and together we had worked up to an ‘elfin’ cut with the clippers (otherwise known as a number 8 all over). Luckily she looks gorgeous – and she likes it! We did however, take her into the salon at Leclerq and they finished tidying up the bits we’d missed. Their parting shot was “Don’t ever let your parents cut your hair again!”

The CAPE elf.

Bryn lost another tooth – luckily the Tooth Fairy continues to track us around the world and the going rate is 1.00€ per tooth!

Bryn is keeping the Tooth Fairy in business.

The F-disk incident

Why is it that computers only play up when you need them for something really important? Well, it was only a couple of days of work, but it did have a tight deadline attached and I needed the computer to be able to do it. It got itself into a real tizzy in a start/restart loop, interspersed with an error message that was only on screen for a split second so that we couldn’t read what it said. Eventually, CAPE’s IT Manager (David), consulting with Toshiba, and TENGY’s IT support line (Mike’s brother, Andrew, back in the UK), worked out that Windows had got corrupted and that David was going to have to F-disk the machine and reload all of the software. Luckily, I already had my work backed up (miracles do happen!), and the machine would let us start in ‘safe’ mode so we were able to back up all of our photos, general files and most of the e-mail info (cheers Andrew, we couldn’t have done it without your help!). It took David about 3 hours to back stuff up and a further 6 hours (working until 4 am) to get it all reloaded, and I was able to finish the project on time.

Prawn pig-out and other parties

As Mike and Mandie were flying home on the 10^th November at the end of their 6 months of cruising, we had the perfect excuse for a few drinks, meals in, meals out, a Caribbean evening, a bottom-scrubbing party – and a few more drinks.

‘Pig out on prawns’ night – the ‘before’ photo.

‘Pig out on prawns’ night – the ‘after’ photo.

‘Portuguese-style steak and port’ night.

Tackling the to-do list

With the imminent arrival of Mick and Jenny (WHIMSEY, ABERYSTWYTH) for a week, David tackled the URGENT section of the to-do list while I got on with my work. He put up all of the hooks that I have been pestering him about, sorted out the spare bed in the saloon, and fitted a breather pipe in the heads. For those of you boatie types who suffer ‘eggy’ smells from their vented loop (it’s only the inlet that smells), we now have a pretty good idea of how to stop it permanently without taking the toilet out. For non-boatie types, it isn’t as painful as it sounds, but it makes life a lot more pleasant. We had a long-overdue sort through the whole boat, tidy and clean inside and out.

With my work out of the way, I got out my sewing machine and made a cover for the bit of the mast that pokes through the saloon. When we bought CAPE, this bit of her mast was covered in pale blue carpet mottled with green mould. It gets better. When we peeled off the carpet to step the mast, we revealed a particularly attractive random smearing of stubborn, poo-coloured glue. Being in the centre of the saloon, it is the feature that visitors can’t fail to miss, and we always end up explaining what the covering was and is. At least now it is disguised with a patchwork of old Indian embroidery (that I picked up while travelling in India about 12 years ago and had brought along on the boat in case it came in useful) with black, silver and gold thread and tiny glass mirrors. I know the mirrors are glass ‘cos I broke 3 machine needles sewing the stuff...

CAPE’s new mast covering is even older than CAPE!