South Africa

Jim Mather — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:23:33 -0600

The picture is of Drake after he broke his arm in a fall at the boat yard. We have been is Hout Bay since January 4th. Here we hauled Blue Sky out of the water for her 8th time. We removed the anti-foul that I applied in Malaysia. It was the International Interswift 655 and it really held up well. We could not get the 655 here so we went up to the Intersmooth 306 with the appropriate primer put on first. We repaired the slight damage to the keel we sustained in the Maldives when I drove Blue Sky on to a mound of coral rubble. When I looked at the damage underwater with a scuba mask the scrapes looked a whole lot worse than they turned out to be. We had Blue Sky craddled up high enough that I was able to sand, fill and fare the entire keel. Blue Sky now has a really smooth bottom! Emma's parents flew in from Tucson and the children were able to spend some great quality time with Ruth and Edward. We joined them for a trip out to Robben Island & up the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. We also made a couple of trips out to the wine farms and Phoebe and Drake had the opportunity to pet cheeta & lion cubs. The whole Cape Town area has just been a dream. We have been looked after not only by Emma's parents but Emma has a cousin here and Liz & Paul de Beers have been fantastic guides. We also have been able to connect with SoCal native Erik Bjerring who lives here now with his wife Colleen and daughter Tanille. Erik is managing the sales and marketing for Bavaria Yachts in the V and A waterfront. He knows where all the yacht supplies are and has helped us tremendously sourcing all the replacement parts to get Blue Sky back up to perfection. One more special thanks goes to Tony Gervais of 3M. He knows all the practical and ingenious solutions that made the re-fit of Blue Sky a pleasure instead of a chore! If I ever have a choice between a 3M product or a copy, I always insist on 3M. (Continued...)

South Indian Ocean

Jim Mather — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:17:15 -0500

The photo is Blue Sky rounding the northern tip of Madagascar, Cape d'Ambre. This is a very rare calm here! (Continued...)

South East Asia

Jim Mather — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:16:20 -0600

We are back in the Talaga Marina on the main island of Langkawi, Malaysia. We have spent the last three months cruising southern Thailand. We visited the Thai islands south of Phuket, working our way up into Phang Nga Bay. There we stopped off in the Krabi area before rounding the bottom of Phuket Island and enjoying the west coast and getting out to the amazing Similan Islands. The Similan Islands have the clearest water in South East Asia. The children swam with turtles in amongst coral and tropical fish. (Continued...)

Blue Sky: SailBlogs

South Africa

South Indian Ocean

South East Asia