Back to Richards Bay

2^nd June

Well, we are back in Richards bay after a month in Durban. We were going to go to East London when a weather window opened. When we looked at Wind Find it said we had a three day North Easter so we decided to go for it, but we had to quickly try and fix our motor and autopilot. We got the part for the motor and sorted it out. Then we stripped the autopilot and found that the belt was broken. We asked people where we can find a new belt, but no-one knew. Then we heard that we can’t get the belt, we had to buy a new autopilot which was out of the question because it is roughly between 30 000 and 40 000 rand which we can’t afford.

My mom looked on Google where we could find a belt and she found a person in London that makes them but if we order them it will have 100% import fee. Luckily my gran lives in London, so she can order it and send it to us as a present that way we don’t pay import duties. This process would take about 6 weeks. We sat and spoke about it and we all agreed that we should wait in Richards bay because it is easier to get onto land because we are on a walk-on, the showers are newer, cleaner and have more space, and here we have friends and we know where the shops are.

We saw that there was a South Wester blowing on the Thursday and said we are sailing back to Richards bay. My mom and dad said “We must have an early night so we can get up at 1 in the morning.” I got woken up at 2 in the morning to find that my dad ignored the 1 o’clock alarm and ended up leaving at half past 2. We left the mooring and headed for the exit of the harbour. I helped my dad hoist the main sail and went to bed. I woke up at about 5 to hear my room talking to me all I heard was creak, creak, creak. I didn’t know what it was trying to say or if it was the creaking noises the boat naturally makes.

I walked outside to see my dad at the helm and I asked him if I should take over, because we didn’t have an autopilot we had to hand steer. It felt like days hand steering. We saw a cargo ship on a collision course with us so we changed course and the ship looked like it wasn’t moving. After 15 minutes we all thought it wasn’t moving so we changed back to our old course. We past the ship but it put an extra hour on to our trip. People should be more considerate and put up a flag to say you’re not moving or on anchor.

It took forever to pass Durnford point and even longer to get in the harbour. When we got in we phoned Ryun and asked him to catch our lines, he jumped up and ran to our dock before we had time to tell him that we will still be 15 minutes. It was about 9 o’clock when we docked. I got off and ran to Leo’s boat. Leo was my old friend that I met here last time, to his shock I was standing outside his boat. The next day we went to the skate park and played guitar. 

The week went on as usual we did school in the morning and skated in the afternoon. On Friday Leo got a new mast on his boat and I did a whole lot of school before 1 o’clock so we could go to the skate park again. When we left the skate park we were both happy because we could go down a ramp and do a trick and come back up. Yesterday we both had school again but we still got time to go to the skate park. I have discovered that all I ever do is school and skate and every now and then play guitar. It’s funny because I think I’m the only sailor that likes the waves on land.