A few days in the life of a Captain in the build up to the travel show when we will be welcoming guests onto our Ocean Sunrise.
So today felt like a pretty awesome day….. but lets go back a couple of days - quickly re-tying the mooring lines saw my favourite old blue frame R70 discount special readers splash into the harbour about 2 feet below me
The thing is they are my favourite (and only) readers that lasted all through the mind-numbing lockdown, and in fact the entire yachts crew used for our 7,200Nm Atlantic crossing last yea. And so when they dropped in I couldn’t let them go to Davey Jones locker without a fight - and being plastic they sort of floated - well….didn’t sink too fast - I could see them - within reach. The Hout Bay Harbour water is pretty clear which is nice - except the glasses were therefore deeper than I thought - so I missed 1st time - error of parallax and all. But not willing to give up I lay down on the jetty and stretched max for a 2nd go - and before I knew it I’d joined my glasses in the deep blue, superman t-shirt and all. Not a bad thing considering the clean water - and now I was closer to my quarry - what I hadn’t anticipated was the 12DegC Atlantic - and was gasping with my head, ankles and hands throbbing painfully. Well the throbbing subsided as it does and eventually Matty the now properly amused spectator lent me his mark and fins but after several attempts I clawed my way back into the jetty empty handed. Remarkably the iPhone I’d so carefully stop din my shorts pocket remained there through all of this and survived somehow the repeated 7m dives, and after an evening drying out in the oven and overnight with body warmth (on airport mode) seems to have turned out fine, so far. Apart from the speaker not working but headphones now do seem to overcome that problem.
Since Matt During (Matty) joined Ocean Sunrise on Monday (now its Friday) we’ve shortened and reset the mizzen boom vang, rebuilt broken main boom kicker pulley, fixed the main gooseneck assembly, pressure-washed the deck and toe-rail that both look new, re-bedded Mikes dripping/gushing stanchion, re-bedded 3 fairleads and replaced a 4th broken one, polished all (really ALL) the stainless steel fittings, refitted the auto helm, taken out the bow-thruster motor for a rebuild, managed to get the windlass working (it needs to be rebuilt too) removed the vane/anemometer from the main mast. And mast collars finished off (still need to find leaks) so masts totally secure!
And yesterday managed an hour of paddling with a superposed of about 300 bottlenose dolphins at sunrise - quite splendid!!
And today as a bid day - well - as of today all Nav lights working (after struggling to replace both the cables in the main mast - what an long trying tedious effort but thanks to Matt’s orangutang-like mast-climbing ability (about 10 times today) we finally got its done with seconds to spare as he tore off literally running to catch his MyCiti 17h17 back to Seapoint!!
And we now have a foghorn, a hand-held marine radio, strobe lights for both the danbuoy (used for man-overboard) and my life-vest. And a nice new most favourite and very useful vice-grip!
So a really productive week!!!
Time for a beer and a bit of dinner
This place is chilly!!
