Chasing Summer Seas

I imagine that most boat owners and future owners have a different order of priorities that are important to them when choosing a vessel. I have seen a lot of yachts on the hard being retrofitted with systems and equipment that could have fitted prelaunch. Granted, many people buy preowned yachts and then fit the systems that they wish to add. There is nothing like an extended period on the water to rearrange your priorities. Yeah. That watermaker would have been a great idea. And why didn't I think about hydrogenerators? I have the luxury of hindsight that covers most of the conditions that I am likely to experience in the future. Those define my priorities. The most exciting developments in yachting I am seeing evolve is the push towards zero emissions. With an eye on the next few decades I am sure there will be traditional cruising areas that are will only be open to non polluting vessels in the near future. If you build a yacht with the current and soon to be available technolo...

The last two days have been particularly foggy in the brain department.  My cognitive function has been iffy at best, although I have managed to get some menial tasks done. It's odd, when I'm unable to think very clearly, my creativity seems to rise up and I can work on some graphic designs, which is really nice, apparently one doesn't need too much logic or critical thought to pile some pretty pictures together.  Although, I definitely shouldn't be in charge of heavy machinery or life altering decisions. I know that I promised to wrap up the week with an overview of my WPI and SS, so here we are.  Each time the weather got warmer, my symptoms were reduced, it was quite interesting to see how direct the correlation was.  The Widespread Pain Index averaged around 16 for most of the week, reaching a full 19 points when the weather was 3°C I'm one day, and coming all the way down to 13 when the weather reached a high of 22°C (The temperature at the time of recording th...

This morning when I woke up, it seemed as though it would be an easier day. The ambient temperature was pleasant enough and my WPI score wasn't too high.  I managed to have a shower and get ready to go in to work. It started well. We did some running about town on work errands and go the to office in good time, where I started to get some things done. I think I even got a lot accomplished, although I began to feel over stimulated when we had to work with numbers and make sure out takings from the recent fundraiser were balancing.  Numbers always hurt my head a bit, I find them daunting and many a time in school the subject of Mathematics reduced me to tears.  Interestingly, this trouble only began after I sustained that Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Hmmm, I wonder if there's a connection... Anyway, we muddled through and got things done, although the day passed by in a flash and my back and head began competing in their bit to gain my attention. I tried to pay them no mind...

You can enjoy the ocean-going lifestyle on any budget. I joined a few friends on a Cape to Rio voyage. It wasn’t the triennial race. A friend and I with 2 crew sailed a 30-foot Miura the 3500 plus nautical miles.   Miura’s have been referred to as The Land Rovers of the ocean. The first launch, “Dawn’ was floated in Cape Town in 1974. As of now more than 50 hulls of that class have been built. They have proved themselves as seaworthy with several of the class having circumnavigated the globe.  They are designed for efficient use of the wind.  In December 1975 ‘Sundance Kid’ won Rothman’s week; a 3 day racing event that happened in the seas around Cape Town.. A big attraction was the price. You could buy, for half the cost of a European build, a small, manageable yacht, relatively inexpensive to maintain. They were seaworthy. They could take you around the world, the pleasant way, and the fast way. Tropical seas versus the Southern Ocean; 26.000 nautical miles of being col...

There's nothing like a bit of reality to give you a reason to need something to look forward to.    The weather had been proving my theory right so far, in that each day the temperature plummets, my WPI and SS increase, and the one day this week the temperature was pleasant, my WPI and SS lowered.    I know that it will take more than four days to test this theory, and the data collected over the course of several years, and several locations will be more useful than the data collected in the span of four days, but this does give me hope. Besides, I do so enjoy keeping records.   I'll give an overview of the week on Friday, it looks like there will be a couple of pleasant days as the week wears on, so that will be nice.    The joy of this small town in which we live, is that we don't really have a climate... we get weather. and it changes so much that even the weather forecast can't always keep up.    Our small town is sit...

There are many facets to the yachting lifestyle. Putting weather aside there exists a list of unpleasant experiences that are avoidable. You don't like feeling cramped and confined with too many others? You want a boat big enough to give that space. You enjoy your privacy? There are beautifully engineered rigging solutions where you with perhaps a loved one, cat and dog are enough to manage a blue water cruiser designed for short-handed sailing. Concerned about safety? That question has an answer in two parts. Firstly, most of staying safe lies in the decisions that you as skipper make. Get experience. Study. Get some more experience. You need to be able to shunt trains of thought as easily as a railway engineer. You should never lose sight of the big picture as you focus on a detail. Remain aware of everything that is happening and everything that could happen. Secondly the design and quality of the vessel you sail is pivotal. Make sure that the marine engineer that birthed your c...

Having grown up in the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas in the summer isn't a foreign concept to me. In fact, with movies and books most often representing the concept of a "White Christmas", I have always wanted to experience the fantastical phenomenon.  However, snow is cold. Very cold, I am led to believe. I have a vague inkling of the temperature, as when I was a teenager the weather conditions got really cold and really wet and we had sleet on the higher areas surrounding the town.  Now, I imagine there is a difference between sleet and the white powdery snow that is portrayed in the movies, but, the concept of COLD, and WET still remains.  Our town, and in fact our country is not generally equipped to handle plummeting temperature. There is no central heating, unless you are among the privileged few who have had the resources to install central heating and solar panels, so there is very little respite when the temperature plummets. As it is outdoors, so shall it be in...

This winter has been bitingly cold with the tenacity of a bulldog.  Frontal weather systems, often days apart, whip icy Antarctic air across the country as they hurry through heading east. Naturally I suppose, the memories of warm water, crystal clear lapping along the hull, the sandy sensation of salt crystals forming on my skin as the last damp traces of ocean blow away and feeling on my neck the following breeze: Caribbean cool and steady. There is romance in that lifestyle. Snowbirds own multiple homes and follow the sun. Living on a yacht your home goes along for the ride. I also remembered that the romantic lifestyle wasn’t all that. The ocean is capricious, at times temperamental and always to be treated with the respect that she deserves. Forget that and life is going to be a lot briefer than you anticipated.  “There are old sailors and there are bold sailors. There are no old bold sailors.” No idea who said that, but it holds true regardless. Many of the deliverie...

To take a step into the unknown when you have lived with chronic pain and fatigue for so long is truly a daunting prospect.  Unlike Christopher, I have very little experience with adventures of any kind. I haven't explored the vast oceans, nor have I backpacked through foreign lands. No, I haven't even left the land I was born in, and have only left this small province on a few notable occasions.  My adventures have been vicarious, I have lived through those posting vlogs and blogs, and those heroines in novels, movies an TV series. I have told myself tales of the life I dreamed of as I lulled myself to sleep through the most painful and restless nights. I have distracted myself from the haze of brain fog and fatigue by allowing myself to become absorbed in the adventures I saw on screens or in my mind's eye. And that, I thought, would have to be enough for me.  But then something changed. The Mild Traumatic Brain Injury which was contributing at least in part to the more...

It was a lazy winter afternoon. The sun was stingy. The welcome wash of light through our bedroom window was reluctant to warm. Being buried under a duvet helped, but no electric blanket. The power was off. Loadshedding. Perhaps that needs to be explained. We call a small city in the Eastern Cape of South Africa home. Unfortunately, we do not have enough power stations to meet the demand for electricity in South Africa. Eskom, the state-owned company that manages every aspect of the electricity supply, has calculated a complex schedule of power-on and power-off that nobody understands and can change its mind. This schedule sets out blocks of time when the electricity is turned off in determined areas. This allows the power ‘on’ areas to have enough to function normally. Traffic lights work, you can boil a kettle, and charge a phone. The result is that here, in Grahamstown, on some days we spend two hours in the dark (sometimes metaphorically) and on other days six hours. The patter...

I have never liked the idea of doing nothing and being supported financially by others. When I was growing up I felt that pocket money should be in some way earned, and even when I was in desperate need of an electric wheelchair and unable to afford one, I reached out to helpful strangers and so many made contributions and saw that I was able to move around independently again. This was necessary because at that time I didn't have the strength to take myself to the bathroom, let alone venture out into the world, and the general prognosis was that I would never regain that ability. It was to be a chronic condition.  Enter blessed relief! I miraculously regained my strength and was able to move around pain free!  Now that wonderful, life saving wheelchair is able to move on to a home where someone else in as desperate a situation as I was in, will be able to use it.  Each step along the way has steered me in a direction that takes me by surprise at every turn....

Some may wonder about the wisdom of a life at sea on a liveaboard yacht. Especially for someone who has struggled with their health as I have. However, I have been giving the idea so much thought and I would like to share these thoughts with you now.  On one hand, there is the concept of the fresh sea air and how good that is meant to be for so many people, I have noticed the difference myself, on days when I have ventured near the coast and away from our inland home, I have noticed several positive changes in how my body feels and reacts, the pain in my joints and muscles seems to be momentarily relieved and the symptoms of Asthma that I generally experience, seem to dissipate almost completely. I am no doctor or scientist, and I don't claim to have any medical knowledge past that which I have experienced in my own body, but being in touch which how my body reacts to situations has become so important as I have made it thus far in this journey through life. On the other hand, it h...

Having spent only just less than half of my life as an invalid, after sustaining a head injury which left me in a chronic state of pan, fatigue, brain fog and more. I could never have imagined coming to this chapter of my life. When Covid 19 took the world by storm, I had just begun to experience better health and sustained periods of energy and reduced base line pain. I had just begun to step out into the world and discover life at the age of 28 I was finally finding my feet, right before the rug was pulled out from under most us.  When lockdown was lifted and churches began to meet again in my town, I began to meet with my bible study group and was introduced to the first chapter of the rest of my life. I met my husband in those first months after lockdown, which opened up so many chapters that lie ahead. My Husband works for a local Non Profit organization, which provides food parcels to those members of our community who are unable to feed themselves. Jobs have become increasin...