April 17, 2008

"Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger."
Friedrich Nietzsche


Donna took over the blog while I was taking a nap, and I like what she wrote.
I wanted to add a little information on Samantha, our tour guide for the Gospel tour.
I was impressed and saddened with her story: her father moved to the shanties of Cape Town when Samantha was 17 years old, and after Samantha graduated from High School she was one of the first blacks to be allowed to attend Technical College. She studied tourism and after obtaining a three year certificate was allowed to become registered with the government as a tourism director. Several years later she was one of the first blacks to be allowed to attend the University, and is close to graduating this year. Samantha has worked her way through school by starting her own tour company; she has an eight year old child and is pregnant with her second child due next month.
It was amazing to see her on the tour as we went from the Baptist church to the shanty town where she still knows people (having moved out several years ago) keeping her feet in two worlds.
I have to admire her strength and desire to better her's and her children's life by realizing the value of education. It would be so much easier to give in to the lifestyle of her past by rationalizing her fate; but she did not do that. It is to me a story of real inspiration, courage and character.

We have started provisioning for the trip and Donna has begun cooking and freezing meals. We knew it would be work, but we are experiencing issues we had not anticipated. First off we are using an oven calibrated in Celsius and Donna is thinking in Fahrenheit. Secondly some of the recipes are in Metric and we are thinking in Imperial. I now see her cooking with a calculator in one hand, but she depends on it less often as she becomes more proficient cooking in metric. Next problem: exploding kitchen appliances. We accidentally plugged the U.S. 120 volt mixer into the African 220 volt receptacle without following our policy of checking for the need to use a converter. When Donna turned the mixer on, it really revved up which made her think a setting of one was high speed. She decided to turn it down to five, which really was high speed, and the resulting buzz only lasted briefly as the kitchen appliance commenced to die dramatically with smoke and screaming (both the appliance and Donna). No one was physically harmed in the making of this meal.


Finally: our boat. We are extremely encouraged at the progress over the last five days. All of the exterior stainless steel is installed including the stanchions, pulpits and grab rails. The interior has all of the plumbing and electrical in along with the water maker, oven, freezer and refrigerator. What waits until we get to Ft. Lauderdale is the Air Conditioning/heat, generator, and washer dryer, all of which we can cross without. The cook top and sink now go in and then the finish wood work and sole (floor) and engines are the last part of the equation.
A tentative launch date between April 26th and May 3rd is scheduled. If we can get launched within that time frame and finish the shakedown and provision by May 10th, Donna should be able to go as far as Brazil, and maybe Trinidad. I think it would be wonderful if she comes along and can learn the boat and systems along the way. I am sure she would feel more comfortable with the boat and become acclimated more quickly to the environment. She is already much further along than her first long cruises on the other Eclectics.

The quote at the beginning of the blog was meant for Samantha, but it could just as well go for Donna's transatlantic cruise.