Thursday 4th June 2015
Wet bed, wild winds and deadly stairs.
First off I want to wish my baby brother (The Golden Child), a very big Happy Birthday, I hope you celebrate it in fine style, we love you heaps. xxx
Well you guessed it we are still here in downtown Knysna, it used to be such a fantastic place, not so much lately.
It's been miserable, not only are we stuck here, but it's cold, rainy and windy.
It's been well over two weeks that we have been waiting for a weather window to get going, actually more like two months but that's another story.
You may remember from my last post that we had a severe weather warning, well that's still in place, they have actually closed the entry in and out of here through the heads, at the moment they have 6 meter waves, so even if we wanted to go we can't.
The weather was not too bad on Sunday, so we had ourselves a little trip into shore, this time we dinghied in the opposite direction and went to a little place called Thesen Island.
Its another very up market area but we enjoyed wandering around looking at this and that, our main plan was to have a bite to eat at Quay Four a little restaurant here and listen to some live music, it sure was a nice afternoon spent, and as luck had it we made it back to the boat just before the rain started, and has it rained on man we are so so waterlogged.
As per usual this vessel of ours has lived up to its name, they do not call them Leaky Teaky for nothing, and most of it comes into our cabin.
No matter how hard we try we just can't find where it is coming in, it drives us crazy and after a night of Chinese water Torture and a soaking wet bed I had, had enough.
I went and dug out all the old canvas covers and a few plastic traps, (these I have been threatening to thrown away for years), I am so glad we still have them, I finally have found a use for them.
In the pouring rain, I went out and layed and tied then onto the back deck, problem solved, no more rain coming in, the boat does not look very stylish but at least it's working, I think The Captain may just be a little impressed as well ( he did have his doubts that it would work), the rest of the leaks we can control with towels so they are not too bad.
Yesterday we had a good chunk of the day with no rain and managed to get all the bed linen, towels and clothes dried, well almost it turned ugly real quick.
It started with The Captain falling down the stairs, well sort of anyway, he was helping me hang the wet stuff out and and had gone down to get some more, wet feet and our steps just don't get on at all, I heard a crash and pirate language and came running, somehow his foot slipped on the top step slid down the rail and wedged between the step and the side post, he fell head first but lucky he saved himself, by grabbing the sides but it resulted in him straining both arms, I was more worried about his foot at the time, but although today he is hobbling around like a old man, and popping pain killers, I think he will survive, this near disaster.
Last night was just horrible, we had a little interesting time early in the night when I noticed a lot of small boats slowly moving around the lagoon with torches and nets, I watched them for awhile and thought they were either catching crabs, squid or maybe prawns, we grabbed a torch and shined it into the water.
Well I have never seen anything like it, they were catching these kinda of worms, and they were big, they actually looked almost like snakes, they were at lest a few feet long but thin, so not like an eel, I really have no idea what they were I tried to goole everything from, worms, fishing, Knysna lagoon, catching worms with nets and torches, nothing so far, I think I'll have to have a chat to some of the locals here and it was a full moon so maybe that had something to do with it, as we flush our toilets with a pump system which draws up fresh water, I was sure checking before I went, oh man imagine if there was one of them in there.
We eventually went to bed, and were woken by strong winds, they had to gusting over 60knts, we were blown so far over on our side that things were flying everywhere, I lost count on how many times we got up to check stuff, The Captain at one stage braved the elements and moved the dinghy to the back of the boat so it will still be there in the morning, I had got up several times to save some bottles of fine red that went flying along the floor, and sat up for hours feeling very seasick, it was a shocking night.
The rain has not let up at all, and man is it cold, we can not find enough warm clothes to wear and are huddled under blankets, I keep thinking of things to cook in the oven just to heat the boat up to get some warmth.
Well tomorrow is another day.