Friday 26th June 2015
Dramas and Major Bitch Rant.
1st Rant.
The joys of living on a boat in winter in a foreign country.
I actually don't even know where to start, I guess we could kinda start with me wanting some toast for breakfast.
Easy hey pop it in the toaster, butter it, slap on some vegemite done, well if you're in a house that is.
Let me explain what I have to go through, at least I had some bread on board this time, so at least I got out of making bread first.
We have no toaster on board, yes we could have, but to use it you would first have to hunt through the mental amount of adapter plugs to make sure it's the right voltage. Because we travel to so many countries we tend to buy electrical stuff and of course the voltage and plugs never marry up.
(You want foreign plugs? we have them, we could actually supply almost the whole marina with them and still have some left over....haha)
Let me explain a little say if I brought a toaster in America, well we would need at least two separate plugs to operate it and a inverter just for it to run, than you have to run the generator to make it all work, easy well it could be I guess, but at the moment even if we did have a toaster we can't run the generator as the transmission is out and if I start it the boat will fill with water.
So no problem we are tied up to a marina, at the visitors wharf (as we are too heavy and big for an ordinary slip.)
But they have power, we have been using their power for several days now and it does make life a bit easier.
But today there is no power and no they are not having load shedding, there is just no power to our jetty, why well they think one of the boats might be tripping it, ( I hope it's not us)
So that kinda brings us back to no toaster, I usually make toast in the fry pan, I just dry fry it until it's crunchy, but it takes forever, than I need the butter which is at the bottom of the fridge, so I have to take everything out dig down and find it, pack it all back in again and of course it never fits properly, so you move this and that until it all fits, slam the lid down fast and there you have it, 15 minutes later I have found the butter, but I forgot the vegemite, man here we go again.
By this time the toast is almost burnt but hey I have my toast and vegemite.
2nd Rant.
I need to wash some clothes. So unpack the washing machine, hunt around for all the power plugs, ( this uses two different ones) try and get it into the shower, where I wash, drop it curse like crazy get it into place, plug it all in, no power, far out.
3rd Rant.
Well I'll just have a shower instead, go to heat up the water, no power.
4th Rant.
Winter on a boat, well it's freezing to start with, we have gone and brought a few winter clothes, but man it's cold the wind blows in everywhere, we shiver and shake and no matter how many blankets we huddle under it's still freezing.
And don't even get me started with the strength of the wind, man it's strong we rock and roll all over the place.
Than it decides to rain, well that's just fantastic, not only are we now freezing we are wet most of the time too.
Our boat just can not help itself it has to leak, most is in our cabin which sucks big time.
So out come buckets towels tarps you name it, some of it helps but not much
5th Rant.
I'm bored, being cooped up here for days on end, I decided I would get my beads and stuff out and make some jewellery, which is fine, but it's packed away right at the back in the spare cabin, so after moving everything out I finally find what I'm looking for sit down at the nav station and start to play, but the boat rocks. I spent more time chasing beads around the floor than anything else.
Last rant for now.
Hassles, we have more than our share at the moment.
Now some of you might know already, but we have ourselves a situation.
Our visas have run out, now this was something we tried to get sorted in Knysna but they have no official office there, and after a few phone calls we were told you have to apply for an extension 60 days before it runs out, well that's just great. We didn't have a problem back then. It's a bit late now. They said to just fix it in Cape Town.
So we decided to just get going, come here to Simons Town spend a few days here than go to Cape Town check out and leave, not such a big deal the most they can do is kick us out of the Country and we would be leaving anyway.
Well things never ever go to plan in our little world, with the transmission playing up there was no way we can just leave.
Yes we could go after it's fixed, but I want to be home mid August for our little baby coming along and it is going to take too long to get across to the Caribbean and it's not really a good time of the year to be leaving anyway.
So we have decided to leave the boat here and fly back from here and than return in a few months and continue our journey.
We bite the bullet and start ringing around to see what we can do about our Visas , it's all bad news. If we leave the country now and they pick it up at the airport that we have overstayed, we will be banned for 1 to 5 years and won't be allowed back in the country.
Just fantastic , we have gone through all the Piratey things we can think of to get away with and so far nothing is an option.
We thought about just leaving and sailing to Namibia but it does not look like they have any good marinas where we can leave the boat.
So we are now in the hands of a lady councillor from Cape Town city council, who is looking into what we can do, and so it continues.
To all you who think we are living the dream, think again?...haha
Now I said that was my last rant but I have one more, I'm not even sure it's a rant or a total disbelief.
We have a seal that comes around all the time he just swims around minding his own business.
Well just a little while ago I watched a tourist boat that takes people out to swim with the sharks, come in.
The seal was swimming around it and acting a bit strange, and the people on board were all laughing.
At first I could not make out what they were doing, they were throwing something into the water and than dragging it back up again.
Than it hit me they have a rubber baby seal on a fishing line.
I not sure what is more disgusting them tormenting the seal with this or attracting sharks with it, man it makes my blood boil.
Well tomorrow is another day.