Farewell Cape Town
Tucanon
Dick and Irene Craig
Tue 11 Jan 2011 12:34
The only seats available were outside on the terrace so, despite the swirling mist, we ate outside, wearing jackets to keep warm.
It rained again during the night and was still raining when we got up next morning. The mist still enveloped the marina and it felt cold even thought the temperature shown on the barometer read 20.5º. I can’t believe that this is mid summer in Cape Town. This weather just has to be unprecedented. We have been using a duvet on the bed most nights since we arrived in Cape Town. In fact, the trip from East London to Cape Town was so cold it warranted the use of multi-layers of clothes for day wear and the additional warmth of a duvet at night.
As though our bodies weren’t suffering enough from over indulgence, we went along to Tzigany at 1pm on the 2nd January where we imbibed very more-ish rum punch and lots of yummy nibbles, before staggering on to Voyageur for a scrumptious lunch, afternoon entertainment and supper.
The cabinet maker returned to add another coat of varnish to his repair. He had already been on board once during our absence, to replace the veneer panel which had been damaged when the agent from the Raymarine dealership dropped the chart plotter on the floor, bruising the cocktail cabinet and scraping the wooden corner on the base of the sofa. If the chart plotter hadn’t been working properly already, it had less chance now. However, Raymarine accepted the responsibility, took away the chart plotter and arranged for the cabinet maker to make the repair.
Dick managed to get a number of jobs done on the boat with some help from Mo then during the afternoon went to the yacht club to send some emails. There were about 60 emails waiting but because most of them were photographs, they couldn’t all be sent at once or a lot of them would not be delivered.
Paul and Suzana returned having had lots of flight delays while they were traveling between Europe and Las Palmas, to provide support to the boats participating in ARC 2010. Welcome back guys, it’s great to see you again.
Tuesday morning, the sun shone, the sky was blue, the wind had dropped and the temperature was at the top end of the 30’s. Before it became too hot, Bev accompanied me twice to the supermarket, which helped enormously. Apart from just a few items, all we have to get now is the fruit and vegetables the day before our departure.
The chart plotter was returned and the new goose neck fitted, ready for the delivery of the new mainsail. John from Tzigany collected from the other side of town, the repaired outboard motor and Dick and Moe manhandled it from John’s car, to the boat. Not an easy task as it had to be carried along the street, up 3 steep steps to a ramp and then along a very rickety pontoon. Fortunately, as it wasn’t windy, the task was not as dodgy as it might otherwise have been.
We took the boat out around the bay, to calibrate the course computer, then refueled before returning to our berth. The replacement course computer still hasn’t fixed the problem with the auto pilot.
The new main sail was brought on board late Tuesday afternoon, the repaired mainsail was stored in the port bow heads and the mended foresail was fixed back on the stay.
That evening we met up with a number of other WARC participants for a welcome drink and some freshly cooked mussels with a mushroom sauce, at Hout bay Yacht Club (HBYC). Another successful evening organized by Rally control and hosted by the Yacht Club.
Unfortunately, one of the two hard drives has malfunctioned and we can now only access 500 of the 1000 films that were copied over, from our DVD’s in Spain. This has caused considerable distress to Dick as he considers this to be a personal affront.
Thursday 6th, Moe and Bev washed the boat and the main stays were clothed in leather. Dick went out and about in Cape Town to collect more items from the chandlery and to purchase a new WiFi aerial to replace the one which isn’t functioning very well any more. There is a lot of activity getting the last items sorted on the various boats and completing the provisioning.
That evening, we attended the farewell supper, hosted again by HBYC, following the Skippers briefing at 6pm. It was another great success, with live music and lots of dancing.
Friday arrived and the company who were supposed to do the rigging check still hadn’t arrived by 3pm despite being booked 3 weeks before and being promised on a daily and finally an hourly basis, that they would arrive to do the job. Unfortunately, by this time the wind had come up but having no choice, Dick still went up the mast to check the rigging. In the course of making repairs, he managed to slice the top of his finger and bled profusely.
David, on Voyageur found a tear in his sail and North Sail came to his rescue immediately. However, because the wind was now blowing 20-25knots, he deferred putting it back on until the morrow.
No photos with this blog I am afraid. Will have to wait until I have some more bandwidth before I can send them, hopefully from St Helena.