Sailing around the World ( presently in Richards Bay , South Africa. )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sun 14 Nov 2010 07:14
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SATURDAY 13th NOVEMBER
2010
07.00hrs Skipper up and about , and met Neil
heading up to the showers for an early morning clean up.
Neil is off to the Game Reserve today with Joe,
Oisin, and Jarard , from " Brown eyed Girl " and the 4 Germans from " Lady
Eve V1 "
thats Deiter, Uli and the other two,
They are going on an organised tour in a mini bus,
as opposed to us on our own in our own transport.
In fairness to Neil, he made his own sandwiches to
take on the trip, and was well organised. ( boy scout training.)
Many of the Fleet, ( as Terry would say , "
What Fleet , surely you mean boats " ) were leaving today, they heard that there
was a window in the weather , so they were going to go for it,
Later , we heard that they missed that window and some of them got a right
hammering on their way south towards Durban.
One boat " Grand Filou " returned as she was taking a lot of water on
board,
( as Terry would say ," Cripes boy, She was
blooming well leaking " )
Skipper has to wear a big patch on his arse, in an
effort to kill the pain, plus gobbling loads of pills, Much more of this
and he will
be a fully fledged druggie.
Shortly afterwards, we filled up the Deisel tank ,
taking on board some 690 liters, this was delivered to the boat in a small truck
,
10.30 Skipper and Terry took the Fishing Rod
to the chandlery and had a new and stronger spool ( as Terry would say " you
mean Reel of line " )
of cat gut put onto the thing. plus aquire a good
few new lures, or bait. ( like spinners )
12.00hrs , Skipper, Aileen Terry, and Collette
climbed into the car and off with us to " king Saka " airport near Durban, Terry
and Collette are returning home to Ireland as the have come to the end of their
time on board, The journey is 120km ( about 70 miles ) and the road is a
motorway
A toll motorway.
The Airport is a complete new structure, and has a
look of cork airport about it. just much bigger.
When we arrived, we had a lunch in KFC, god,
we are chickened out. but it was tasty, and totally all the wrong type of food
for us,
Stuffed from this , we found a " Muck and
Bean " coffee shop, now we are in buisness, the coffee's here are tops and
of course we indulged in some sumptious " Chocklete
cake" just to top up the calories, ohhhhhhhhhhhhh but, but, its
yummy.
We eventually said our goodbye's and off they went
into the vanishing crowd going through the embarkation gates... sad scene again
for us,
saying the goodbye's to friends who had spent a
good while on the boat, Terry spent 9 weeks and travelled 4,993 miles with
us, while
Collette sailed a mere 1,650 miles. having joined
us in Mauritius.
So far, " A Lady " has sailed 26,431 n
miles since leaving Cork on the 24th June
2009.
Skipper and Aileen got back into the" German made
charriot" , and headed off to Richards Bay once more, this time
alone.
When we returned, we decided , with the help of
others, to move the boat from her present position to somewhere that we could
get on and off more easily, this took about an hour in total , and we were
much happier now,
There was a big 50th celebration at the club
tonight, as the club was 50 years old. and as it was now around 7pm Aileen
took a strole up to view the proceedings, Skipper , whacked out from the
weeks touring and running all over the place, decided it was a night for
chilling out and relaxing on board.
Neil returned , having had a good, and we all had
an early night.
Thats all for now.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde, ( Skipper
)
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