Welcome Benson!

Join us in welcoming a new ‘crew’ to the family, “Benson”. Benson comes to us from Germany. Born of Mercedes Benz in 1994, he’s got quite a few miles on him (325,000 km!) but he shows signs of being up for doing a few more. On the outside, he’s got a few bangs and bondo on him, and on the inside he’s a bit frayed and worn, but we are so pleased to have him as wheels, we think he is the most beautiful thing in the world. I mean to have a car again, how good is that?!

This weekend we are off in Benson to wine country for our second trip. The photos are from our first foray when Breanna, Mark and Eitann were still with us. Gosh that was fun. Sunday we are visiting our new friends, Mashupa and Khabiso out there too. They are South Africans from Lesotho. We met Mashupa, when he picked us up hitchhiking in Richards Bay in November and have stayed in touch since then.

If it sounds like it’s all play and games, it’s not. Irena and I have spent the last two weeks digging for work. Just this week, I have thrown my lot in with a coaching firm in Cape Town, developing the corporate side of the business. Now I am working every day, partly from the boat and partly at the office! Irena is busy networking with various prospective clients and other consultants, and we expect she too will be finding something to do besides make me lunch. (Just kidding Honey!) Soon Coaching Works Pte. Ltd. of Singapore will have two contributing consultants.

We can see the end of our time in beautiful Simon’s Town is coming. It’s an hour’s drive to my office in Cape Town and Irena will be busy probably soon in the city too.  I expect we will choose to move the boat to Royal Cape Marina, right in the centre of the City. Not very pretty, but very practical. My immediate goal is to make enough money to allow me to do some ‘no guilt’ soaring at the Cape Soaring Club, Irene’s goal is to make enough money to go see her grandchildren!

Reflections

It seems fitting we should be so close to a place called the Cape of Good Hope. This is the way I am feeling these days. Amidst the busy-ness that is my life, I feel a returning glimmer of calm satisfaction. I am meditating again more regularly, reconciling myself to dealing with the boat waving back and forth while I sit cross legged early mornings in our berth. I am also tapping the inevitable fears and insecurities (EFT, definitely my favourite tool for releasing emotional energy) that arise in the course of this transition. And, Irena and I are exercising pretty regularly, very gradually, working our way back into some resemblance of fitness.

These are all modest efforts, but remarkably helpful, nevertheless, in their cumulative effect. At sea, and during the tumult of transition from harbour to harbour over the last six months, I have failed to maintain this regime, and lost touch with this other ocean of calm as a result. Today, I am reminded again of the deep value to the quality of mind, and hence quality of life, these activities engender. Today, my sense of calm satisfaction is the immediate reward for my ablutions of self-care. Tomorrow, the longer term reward will be the quality of life past experience has demonstrated I create out of this state of being. It is amazing and humbling to see how much arises out of so little.

This is the ‘C’ for Capacity of which I speak in the 7Cs. Capacity is about the practices of care and strengthening of body, mind, emotion and spirit. The practices are so basic, so simple, yet so hard to discipline. They are so rewarding, yet so easily sloughed off. Join me in a newfound commitment to stay with the program, and compassion for ourselves when we do not!

Open Letter to Mr. Ritchie

It is the cruiser’s lot to be in a constant struggle with the elements to keep our gear working. Fair enough, it’s a tough environment. But sadly, like everywhere else in the modern world, we see the gradual deterioration in quality of virtually all marine products, more and more built as cheaply as possible, hoping to snare the unwary with cheap, fall-apart stuff. Raymarine sold me a heavy duty, offshore drive for my self steering arm made of plastic gears. West Marine recently shipped me two Ronstan snap shackles (the volkswagon of marine hardware manufactures) in Harken (the BMW) bags at Harken prices. And on it goes with line (rope) without UV protection, galvanized shackles that rust within days, Stainless steel fittings that aren’t “stainless” because they are made of such low grade steel they rust happily, blocks that blow up… and now a compass that failed within months.

I am a little embarrassed by my invective in the open letter to Ritchie Compass below, but I want to vent. I don’t know if I’ll ever send this to them directly, mostly because I doubt anybody at Ritchie would care one way or another, or that it would make one small bit of difference. But, at least, sailors contemplating a new compass need to hear this. And I’m mad as heck and not going to take it anymore!

Open Letter to Ritchie Compasses

Dear Mr. Ritchie,

Your Compass sucks.

Can you imagine my disappointment, after spending $800 on a brand new Ritchie “GlobeMaster SP 5c, to find, just months after it came aboard, a pool of oil on the teak cockpit sole and an air bubble the size of a tennis ball in the liquid filled compass? 

But the whole product had a cheap feel to it, from the moment I first saw it. When I unwrapped our mail order, to my vast disappointment I found the compass light is ‘engineered’ from two LED lights, mounted on an unprotected circuit board, just waiting to soaked by the next wave to come aboard. (Getting that replaced will mean a lot more than finding a light bulb!)  And everything else is made of plastic of doubtful dimension and the modest materials. Just days into our first passage, I was not impressed to see splotches of rust showing up all over the “stainless steel” mount.  But the last straw was the bubble!

Now you and I are faced with the hassle and expense of a warrantee repair. I lose time. You lose money. I mean really, what are you guys doing? You know this product is used in a marine environment of salt water spray and constant motion on ocean passages of thousands of miles. You know we will expect it to last more than a few months, one boating season, or even, heaven forbid, a few years. Why then are you using 304 stainless on the mount? Why would you design a compass light around an unprotected circuit board? Why would you build it so poorly that it leaks in the first three months?

Yup, your compass sucks. Shame on you!

I am telling my cruising friends about my experience with Ritchie compasses, because as your website says, "navigation really does begin with the right compass", and its sure not a Ritchie!

Reflection

There is more at play here than consumer rage. There is a much more serious issue. It is not just about “fucknowlogy”, fumbling high tech stuff released into the market place, nor is it about businesses maximizing profit by squeezing quality, or our mute acceptance of ever more false advertising claims, though all of these are issues too rankle and highlight civilization’s failing social consciousness and values. 

Rather, the more serious issue is the question of our very survival – we are wasting our planet’s resources. And I mean ‘wasting’ as in depleting, diminishing, exhausting, stripping, denuding, wrecking, etc.. because almost everything we produce is designed to fall apart quickly. And we are doing so exactly when we need so desperately to be doing the opposite. When we should be doing our modern best to build stuff that lasts a long, long time (repairable) – things that make the most prudent use of the planet’s resources -- we are, instead, building C.R.A.P.(Carelessly Resource Assailing Products).

And so we all ask, "What can ‘I’ do?"

This is the important question. I hope you will join me in a personal quest to stop buying CRAP. Join me in rewarding manufactures who produce quality repairable products and punish manufactures who build cheap fall apart stuff.  Save the planet - DON'T BUY C.R.A.P.

Hurray, after 40 sea days from Jakarta, we are safe in Cape Town! Well, actually we are in Simon's Town, one of Cape Town's suburbs. Our last passage down the coast from Nnysna to arrive the day before New Years Eve was perhaps the most pleasant of all our short passages around the cape. Sunshine and light and moderate following winds.
There is much to reflect upon, and it sounds silly, but it was important to us to sail the South Indian Ocean in bare feet. We wanted so much not to stretch out at least the illusion of warm water sailing even as we sailed all the way south to 35 South Latitude. Yes, there were nights in the cockpit in toques, foul weather gear, and safety harness, but never did we succumb to putting on our sea booties!
Now we are in transition as we seek now to discover where we can make a contribution here in South Africa. Our crew Eitan and Mark are leaving us one by one, and Breanna is set to fly home tomorrow. We are scouting out the most suitable place to moor Conversations as we plan to continue living  aboard.
In the meantime, we are enjoying quaint Simon's Town and  doing lots of hiking and sightseeing, including a trek to the Top of Table mountains, alas, in cloud.

Snug In Knysna for Christmas

It may not have seemed like Christmas as a Canadian would know it, but by golly, we had Christmas lights up so it must be Christmas. No snow, no Christmas tree, no eggnog even, but Irena, at long last, had Christmas boat lights. Yes, two strings of classy white lights ran up the backstay, over the top and down the forstay to decorate Conversations where she lay alongside the town’s quayside village. She looked pretty nifty that night untill the rain started. Tragically, the lights only lasted a couple of hours before they all failed So much for outdoor lights! We took them back for a refund next day. The hunt continues for real outdoor lights…..

Since coming to Knysna, it’s been a whirlwind. The day of our arrival, Irena and I left the boat in the capable hands of Eitan and Mark to drive 1000 km round trip to Cape Town to pick up Breanna at the airport. Now we have five aboard.  Two days later, all of us piled in a rental car for a two day road trip up the coast to Addo Elephant Park, where we drove around the reserve dodging, you guessed it, great mounds of steaming elephant pooh. 486 elephants churn out a heck of a lot of it, which they seem to prefer to drop on the road. This however, only adds to the viewing experience: Armies of dung beetles carve out great balls of the stuff, and race it off into the undergrowth where they lay their eggs and bed down in comfort. And, oh yes, and we also saw lots of elephants too!

Next day we stopped at a research centre to pet a Cheeta and pair of lion cubs. Real cool, but tame. So off we went to the world’s tallest bridge bungey jump where Breanna, Mark and Eitan put down a $100 each, and jumped! Very courageous. I must say they made it look like a walk in the park. Irena and I caught the action on closed circuit TV in the bar and bought the beers for our returning heroes. Also fun.

Back in Knysna, we moved Conversations  in from the hook and tied her up in the only vacant place in town - smack dab in the middle of the town quay.  We are sort of on display here, right under the nose of the waterfront restaurants, shops and charter operators. Lots of curious vacationers stumble up to the dock with questions, people from all over world. This too is fun. Yesterday, a gentleman of 87 came up told me of his 6 year ordeal as a German prisoner-of-war in a Russian concentration camp. On a lighter note, within 10 feet of the boat is the Gelato stand, much to Breanna’s delight.

Christmas eve, we had a great Polish dinner of Borscht, Pierogi and Nalesniki prepared up by Irena, with Mark and Breanna's learned assistance. Christmas day was, of course, turkey day. Mark took over with Gertrude (what else would you name a turkey?) to see she was properly dressed for the occasion and stuffed into our pint sized oven. Yesterday, boxing day, we had a “left over party” aboard s.v, Papillion with Jim and Julia and Mike and Cathleen from s.v. Content.

A very nice weather window is shaping up tomorrow for our departure for the Cape Town suburb of Simon’s Town. Thanks to Irena we have a long term berth booked in the False Bay Yacht Club. It’s a 250 NM passage, the last passage on our voyage to Cape Town from Singapore and Indonesia. It’s hard to believe how fast the time has gone by: We left Singapore early June with Dennis and Rita, and we left Jakarta, Indonesia in early August with Eitan. By New Year’s we will have arrived and it will be over. We are glad to be here and glad to be moving into the next phase - working in South Africa!

Reflections:

At this time of year, many of  us reflect on our good fortune, a time for review if you like. Here in Africa, where most have so little, I think of my own life and I wonder more generally, where does good fortune come from? Is it purely about the circumstances of our birth, does it show up one day in a lottery draw, or is it something we work for. Is it chance or design or both?

Suppose good fortune does live at the intersection of circumstance and luck, design and choice. If that is so, then there is some chance to our fortunes about which we can do nothing. So be it. But where can we influence our good fortune beyond our good luck and bad? How do we 'get in the game' and do things to help along our good fortune?

Do the 7Cs apply here? I think so. Together they can  be a framework for pro-activity. 

There is another big question in our experience of people in Asia and now Africa - what is the link between good fortune and happiness? When I see how happy so many are who have so much less, I wonder, is happiness not much about good fortune, but more about something else, and if that is so, what?

I think a partial answer to happiness is opportunity to be pro-actively engaged in creating good fortune! To be self responsible (Captaincy), to have a Course, to have Companions, live a life of Curiosity, be building Courage and overall Capacity, and to be doing so in self Compassion is to be in the game, which itself contributes to both happiness and good fortune.

Enough! Irena and I both reflect on what  enormous good fortune we have had to live the lifestyle we wish these last 7 years since leaving Canada and look forward to whatever fortunes appear as we seek to find work in South Africa.

Stunning

South Africa is stunning. Its landscapes are bold, the people friendly.

We rented a car for a two day junket to Drakensberg Mountains. The first day we drove to Underberg and hiked a couple of hours up a meadow in the foot hills. Next morning, after a hearty 0630 breakfast at a B&B, we hiked up Sani Pass from the South African border to Lesotho. This was a 16 km round trip, climbing and descending nearly 3000 feet. Mark sprinted up in 90 minutes, Eitan in 120, and Irena and I staggered into Africa’s highest pub at the top after a 150 minute climb – it was a beast but we made it up. After the best pub chicken curry and coldest beers in the world we walked back down to the car and drove back to Durban before dark. Big enough two days for me!

After a couple of day’s recovery, a weather window cracked open for the sail from Durban down the East African Coast to East London. Its only 255 miles of coastline, but once we out of the comfort and safety of harbour, we would be committed. In this part of the world, the sea never seems to rest: Its either blowing in hell in one direction, or blowing like hell in another. The passage to East London happens between a 3 to 6 knot current down one side and an unbroken wall of coastline on the other. There is no place to duck in out of the storms that blow through every two or three days and wind against the Agulhas current conditions creates legendary monster seas.

As recommended, we left on the back of a passing system. We had about 36 hours before the next system was due to blow in from the SW and we hoped to get a head start. From 10 am until just before dark we beat into 25 knots of SW wind. It was really unpleasant sailing –  huge southerly waves were coming from ahead and a NE swell were bashing up from behind. It was, as I like to say, like sailing in a giant washing machine. After dark the wind went light and began to clock (change direction in a clockwise direction). With no time to hang around before the next system came in, we started the engine but after about an hour it choked from fuel starvation. From 1130 to 0300 I changed all three fuel filters and bleed everything living part of the fuel system I could think of. No joy. I was concerned we’d not make port before the next South Westerly. But by dawn the wind had come all the way around to NE and it started to blow. It soon hit 30 knots, but it was at our backs and we were moving with the current. We were doing 8 and 9 knots through the water and 11 and 12 knots over the bottom with genoa only. Wow, now this is sailing!

The first monster wave surprised us. We broached to wind and it pounded down over the port side, filling the cockpit, tearing the dodger, and soaking Eiton, Irena and I, leaving us open mouthed and gasping. We were more ready for the second wave when it hit, with a boom. It climbed over the transom, and tried to get into the aft cabin. Not able to get down the companionway, it re-filled the cockpit instead. Below I spilled my tea and clung to the nav station, glad I wasn’t in the cockpit to get soaked again. A few moments later, when the cockpit had drained, we hit an all-time speed record of 13 knots through the water surfing down another wave!

Under these conditions I was getting concerned we could get safely into East London harbour once we got there. It’s a river entrance facing into the NW seas. Without the engine to help bail out, we would have to sail into the narrow slot amidst breaking seas and it would be very tough to back out in 30 knots of breeze if we got in trouble.  I had visions of breaking seas overwhelming us and being tossed up on the beach or rocks beside the entrance. So near yet so far. Now that is  “instant failure”.

But by late afternoon, we had a break. The winds and seas eased back to about 15 knots and we arrived just after sunset and sailed into harbour, surfing over the entrance bar. No sweat. Well lots of sweat, but by 2000 hours we were safe alongside the dilapidated inner harbour shipping docks, tired but pleased to be safe in East London. Another passage done.

After a day’s clean up in East London, tomorrow we set off for Port Elizabeth in another weather window. Another passage, another adventure.

Reflections.

I climbed into bed soon after tying up in East London, exhausted but curiously filled by the success of a passage safely completed. It is enough for anyone to deal with the motion, the physical hardship of no sleep and the tension of conning the boat down steep seas, but as skipper, I feel the added burden of responsibility. The skipper is the one who has to make decisions (manufacture certainty) in the face of uncertainty, the one to whom the crew looks for reassurance that it will be okay, the one who takes ultimate responsibility for how it goes, the one who must make the right decisions or else.

It is no different for all the leaders of the world. Not the politicians who mascaraed as leaders, but those unsung heroes of the workplace who put themselves on the line every day for the success of others or the organisation; the silent heroes who put their own needs for reassurance second to supporting others; the people who risk themselves so others may succeed; the people who care more for creating the vision of the greater good than they care for their own comfort.

This is a great privilege in life: to be in a place where we can lead. There is something in us that calls us to this challenge, this challenge to bring not just ourselves, but those around us to a greater place, to champion others in crossing their own desert of adversity. And leadership is not reserved for those in recognized roles of leadership. Every person, everyday has a chance to champion others, to put and support the success of the greater ahead of the self. When we are response-able, we are able to make this choice.

 Captaincy is a gift that gives twice: first to the people nurtured by acts of captaincy, then to the person who practices captaincy.

Our first taste of South Africa

We have been in South Africa for 2 weeks now, and really loving it! We have done a bit of exploring in between boat jobs and various yacht club BBQs and catching up with all the cruisers. Invariably we all compare notes on how our passage was and how much wind we saw and how many days it took (we took 9 days, very respectable). We were definitely one of the lucky ones as far as the passage from Reunion goes. We made it into Richards Bay harbour before some of the high winds started. On that same passage a few boats were damaged, some even towed into port and one very unfortunate boat hit a container 500 miles offshore and sank (the name of the boat was Wizard, a South African boat with 5 crew on board - all 5 were rescued by a passing freighter). So we count our blessings and thank our captain for getting us here safe and sound.


We are slowly getting ourselves into gear - getting cell phones and internet and arranging moorage in Cape Town. But it will still take us a couple of months to ease into work. Eitan is still with us en route to Cape Town, and we have a new crew (Mark) joining us next week in Durban and Cress's daughter Breanna coming for Christmas. And we still have about 900 miles to sail the rest of the way to Cape Town. The plan is to start that trip next week as a series of 1-3 day passages as we wait for good weather to get to each port. Next stop is Durban only 85 miles down the coast.

We have managed to rent a car for a day here and a day there to get out and see some of the game parks and African terrain. All wonderful - but this is where a few pictures are worth a thousand words!

Irena and Cress

Impala - we saw tons of these

African Elephant

Very elegant Giraffe

Zebras and Giraffe; up high.... down low

Hippo yawn

Lotsa hippa... or is that hippi???

Black Rhino 

Hornbill

African Buffalo

Nyala

Can't recall his exact age.... but over 100

Zulu warrior dance

Tiny Zulu dancers

Happy Birthday to Anglin!!!

This blog post is dedicated to my grandson Anglin John Macintosh who turned 5 today - November 12th! I can hardly beleive it - 5 years old already.

For Anglin, I have 5 pictures and 5 things that remind me of him.

1. Enthusiastic; quick and bright Anglin loves to do new things. A future sailor I am sure of it!

2. Thoughful; Anglin likes to have some time to himself each day to just chill.

3. Determined; to learn to do things independently. I think his first words were "I can do it myself!"

4. Curious - wants to know how everything works and he learned a lot about how all parts of the boat work - even the head!

5. Imaginative - this is a picture of Angllin drawing in our logbook. It is a very detailed map which shows a path all the way from Orillia, Ontario to Phuket, Thailand where he was visiting us on the boat.

Anglin - We miss you like crazy and want to wish you a very happy, happy birthday filled with lots of fun and presents and cake! Sending hugs and kisses xxoxoxoxoxoxoox.

Love from Gramm and Cress