Fire!

18 June 2013

A sailor's worst fear is not a giant squid crushing a boat. It is not a whale smashing the boat. It is not a great white shark breaking a hole in the boat and eating you.

It is a fire.

We had a near death experience today. My parents smoke. So they bought an ashtray. Now to empty the ashtray they have to wait for the cigarettes to die out first before putting them into the plastic bag. My dad did not wait for this and dropped a burning cigarette into the plastic bag. We now put this bag onto the dingy which we are rowing across to the shore. As we all get on we see smoke rising up out of the bag.

We now have to choose to open the bag and dig though the rubbish looking for a cigarette bud that might just die out anyway, or just row across and sort it out later. So we row across. As we start rowing more smoke is coming out. I can see everyone looking at the bag. I'm sure we all had images of the bag bursting into flames and setting the dingy on fire and all of us having to jump overboard into this toxic waste. As we got to the other side we all jumped into "eliminate the fire" mode.
I got off the dingy as normal. Helped Kyle off the dingy as normal. My dad passed me the plastic bag as normal. I helped him and my mom off the dingy as normal.
Then my dad put some water from the tap on the burning bag not as normal.

20 June 2013

We went to visit my dad's mom again. It's not the most fun day off that I get, but the one good thing is that I am allowed to skate. We went to a bar/restraurant to eat. I thought this would be the perfect time to skate and brought along my skateboard. I skated whilst my mom and dad ordered food. I finally landed my verial flip enough times to say that I can do it!
A verial flip is a combination of a kick flip and a popshoveit. A popshoveit is were the board turns 180 degrees under you. A kick flip is where the board spins vertically 360 degrees under you. So to combine the two tricks was a very difficult task to master. I am now starting to walk into the line of the skating pros.

 

Skating addiction returns!

12 June 2013

I've recently been having sleeping trouble, where I'm awake until midnight every night and up at four or five in the morning. I also randomly wake up during the night. My dad on the other hand has been going to bed early and waking up and midday. It has seemed that our sleeping patterns have been exchanged. That means now I'm the man of the house....... Or in our case man of the boat.

Today I did quantitative chemistry with my mom. I flew though the work because it mostly contained mathematical calculation. Which is one of the few things I can easily understand. It only took a couple of hours to get though the whole chapter.

Today my mom and dad when to work for the day. A friend of their's asked them to do a job of him. So my dad put on jeans for the first time in a very long time. I almost didn't even recognise him. Kyle and I were left to fend for ourselves whilst my parents when to work. At least I had some school to do in my room so there was very little chance kyle and I would kill each other before my parents got home.

During our lunch break Kyle and I watched a boat attempt to park on a mooring. Its good to know we're not the only ones who fail at parking. They got a person on a dingy to come help them park. It's more help then we get. We have to do everything on our own!

13 June 2013

As always on a Thursday I go to chess club. At chess club the top chess player in the club decided to play multiple games all at once. He played six different players. He won five of his six games. I saw a whole new level of chess playing. I have a long way to go before I get to that level.

16 June 2013

We spent the night at my granny and my grandads time share flat. They are visiting for the long weekend and we decided to see them. This morning we decided to go to Spur for breakfast. I thought this would be a good time to bring back my old skating skill. We walked down the road to the Spur and I did a couple of kick flips and some small stunts. After breakfast my granny wanted to go to Checkers. It was a long walk but I skated the whole way finding things to jump over or onto.

Its an awesome feeling skating down the road and everyone stops to check what you are doing. Even if you flop, you flop with skill so you still look good. As always there is no one who skates without adding blood. I when down a steep hill and I built up to much speed and crashed into a wall scraping open my whole hand. This type of pain feels so good! It proves that you did it right.

Today showed me again the reason I started skating. I need to make a plan to break the sign that tells me I'm not allowed to skate at the yacht club. I was away from my drug and now I have started to crave it again.

Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom

Smart Casual

9 June 2013

Awhile ago we ordered some suntan cream and insect repellent, in hopes that we can sell it to generate some income to fund our trip. Earlier this week the order arrived. We decided to try and sell it at the Spar. My dad had a selling technique that he wanted to try. He decided to dress in a smart casual look. So he put on a smart shirt, a tie and a suit jacket, but he wore shorts. He brought a new definition to the term "smart casual".

My dad's definition of Smart Casual
 

On Thursday night I went to the chess club and I played a couple if friendly games. But it was not what I expected. It turns out it was a mini tournament that you pay R10 to enter and you play a couple of games. The top two players get the prize money. The time in each round is only 5 minutes, which in my case in not enough time to think clearly. So in other words I lost most of my games. But next week I start the club tournament and in that tournament we have way more time. So I hope I can do better in that tournament.

Epic fail at fishing!

1 June 2013

Wow. One tough week. I am going to jo'burg for some lab experiments in July. I have finished two of the three subjects need, so for the last week I have been doing non-stop school work. Luckily it is easier to do school now that I am working in my room, were I can't get distracted by outside activity. There is one slight problem. Every now and then Kyle comes and knocks on my door to go to the heads. I then have to move the two buckets I am using as a chair, and I have to exit my room until he is done.

Kyle and I have realised how much we hate other people. We go up to the club house everyday so Kyle can watch Naruto and I can charge my phone. There are some people that argue about the TV. Others tell me that surfing is better then skating(its an opinionated subject). Some even act smarter then you even if they're wrong. But hey, in life you meet some good people and you meet some bad people.

I've started going to chess club every Thursday night. For the last four weeks there has been a tournament but next week the new one begins and I will be able to see how good I am and finally get a ranking. I have played a couple friendly games, and I've won some and lost some. So I sort of know where I stand already. Let's just hope I can play just as well when a clock it put into play.

2 june 2013

My Dad's first fishing try with his new rod. He failed dismally. He caught three plastic bags, an old pair of underwear and a tree. Kyle and him had to launch the dingy at 8 at night just to go unhook his line that was caught on the tree. I don't think he is going to be fishing in this water anytime soon.

Scout Camp

18^th June

On Wednesday the scout leader told us that we’d have a camp this weekend and asked Andre and I to come earlier to set up the tents. We arrive at 10 past 1 and one of the scout leader said ‘We are late.’ I don’t know if she was joking or serious because the camp started at 5 and André and I were supposed to be there at 1. Well it didn’t matter because we got all the tents up before any one got there.

Louis brought his own tent which was a 1 man tent. He got the tent from André because he is also sailing and he has no need of a tent. Oh what we just went camping my mistake. Maybe he just doesn’t want it, but anyway when everyone got here the scout leaders told us that the camp would be a Robin Hood theme and gave ever scout leader a new name that we had to call them. If we did not address them at this name we had to run to the gate and back. The one time Andre and I had to run to the gate and back because we were talking, there was tape around the trees at the scout area and André said he wants to race me to the gate and back and he ran straight into the tape and I ended up laughing so much that he ended up beat me.

 André and I thought we should prank Louis and fill his tent up with plastic balls. He didn’t know until we had to go to bed at 12 and he was so angry that he tackled me down to the ground then André saved me by telling him it was both of us. He took all the balls out and through them in our tent. Then we did the same back. After a while it stopped and we tried to go to sleep but our tent end up being an ant farm because there were tons of red ants in our tent. So the scout leader said we should sleep in the hall and sort out the problem in the morning. Louis also slept in the hall because he’s tent had all the plastic balls. André had a good idea he said ‘We should sleep on the tables. ‘I agreed because the ants just might come into the hall this time.

 I ended up helping Louis and André wake everyone up with pots and pans. We spent most of the day building a catapult, bows and arrows, armour which was made out of cloth, and an arrow holder. We had to have all these things at the dinner table; it was decorated as if we were in the medieval except there were menus and in the medieval time people could not read and wright. We had a camp fire and sang songs until our voices were hours. That night we all slept in our tents and André and I stayed awake talking until about 1 in the morning again.

Then finally father’s day arrived and all the kids and fathers vs. each other in pillow fight and had to see who can get more points popping balloons with bows and arrows. We had a round of pillow fight to see who the best yacht pillow fighter, Leo beat me and André beat Leo. I beat Leo twice after words. Then the boring stuff happened, we had to pack up the tents but Louis, André, Leo and I can make anything fun. We then had the long hike home, down the road.

 I got home and André went to his boat and Leo and I skateboarded. We met a new skater at the bar, his name was Christen. We all learnt how to fifty, fifty grind. Then we went back to the boat and I was so tired from the camp and the skateboarding I went straight to bed.     

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. 

Richards Bay to Durban

We arrived at the Bluff yacht club yesterday morning from a long and hard sail from Richards’s bay. The journey started  on the bad side were we tried  to reef the main sail and found out that the clue was out of place so we had to make a make shift rope for the clue. After we sorted the sail we decided to leave the harbour on our big journey to New Zealand. I was both happy and scared I think I was 90% scared and 10% exited or was it 90% exited or 10% scared I really don’t know but either way it defiantly was fun. We motor sailed most of the way and the motion of the boat made me tired. I went and had a nap so that I could be awake for the night. I woke up to the scream of my dad to Ryun and my mom saying “What is going on!” and I jumped to my feet  and run out side to see our head sail flapping crazily in the night sky. I saw Ryan on the one side of the boat and my dad on the other trying to roll the sail in after getting torch out for my dad I don’t know what we saw but at least we got the sail rolled up. Later we decided to take out a little of the head sail and our speed went from 5 knots to 6 knots.

We were all complaining about how cold it is and Ryun was in shorts, I thought he had a mental problem bur this morning I found out that he was freezing but he was too sick to get warm cloths. Not only was the weather freezing but our auto pilot thought we should hand steer through the night and just stopped working so we ended up taking shifts the only word that came out of our mouths that night was dad it is your shift or Ryan do you want to take the helm and Rauen come take over. As the day approached Durban got closer and Richards’s bay got farther. As we got close to the harbour our starboard motor cut out. Typical that we are one hour away and we can’t reef our sail we only have one motor and no auto pilot and it does not help that no one has slept.

We got into the Bluff yacht club and docked and the first person that spoke to us was Mike and he told us to eat sleep then move our boat. We went up to the restraint and had a lovely breakfast. I instantly looked for a place to skateboard and found out the only good place to skateboard had a sign that said no skateboarding I was so unhappy, so the only place I can skateboard is unknown. Not only are they taking way my skateboarding pleaser but there are no girls either so I’m going to be a bored man.    

Me at sunrise as we arrive in Durban