This morning I was in the process of inspecting our dock lines and fenders when a stranger came up to me and asked if I knew who he was. I stared into his face and reached as far back as my memory would allow and said" "Nope, I don't remember seeing you". A broad grin spread on his face and he said: "I'm Willie"!

OMG! This was Willie, one of our blog readers who lives near Richard's Bay and had emailed us recently asking that we all get together when we arrived in Richards Bay. In fact, when we were hoping to sail directly to Durbin, Willie had offered to drive his inflatable ski boat out into the ocean and meet us as we sailed by Richards Bay.

He apologized for coming to our boat so early (we had made arraignments yesterday with him to have lunch together tomorrow) but he said he had a surprise for us coming to our boat soon. We invited him aboard Leu Cat to wait for the surprise to come. We could not guess what the surprise was and he would not tell us.

Soon he received a call and said that the surprise had arrived so we went up onto the quay in front of where we are docked and met a gentleman named Hilton Wheeler. He is the director of Avis Van Rental, a vehicle rental firm here in Richards Bay. Our surprise was a free pickup truck rental while we are in Richards Bay. Wow! How great is that!!!!

As it turns out, Willie was a Good Samaritan a little while ago when he was fishing with his boat and saw a pickup truck half submerged in the ocean along a beach. The workers of the company that had rented this vehicle from Hilton's rental agency had parked it on the beach at low tide and left it there only to return at higher tide to find the vehicle awash with water up to the windows of the vehicle.

After a day or two of not reading anything about it in the newspaper, Willie called Hilton's agency and asked if they had received a report on the vehicle. They had not and when Hilton called the company that had rented it, he was told that the vehicle was fine and the staff was still using it.

Hilton then turned on the electronic locator and discovered where the vehicle was being kept and went there to find that the company was trying to clean it up and cover up the damage. When confronted, they refused to take responsibility for the disaster and the damage to the vehicle so Hilton had to sue them to recoup the cost of damages and legal fees. Willie's photo was the key evidence which helped win the case.

As a gift to Willie for being such a Good Samaritan, Hilton is honoring Willie's request to loan us a rental pickup truck while we are here. We now are driving a brand new Chevy pickup truck and it is a god sent since we have been running around Richard's Bay to get Internet access, reprovision and start the clearing out process to continue our voyage to Durbin.

We ended up inviting Willie and his lovely wife, Louise, to dinner this evening where we had the most wonderful time. They are such a warm and loving couple and the four of us get along famously!

In fact, after dinner we returned to Leu Cat to have some of Mary Margaret's decadent Pots of Gold for dessert (she made it special for this this afternoon) and Louise and she discovered that they both love to play the slot machines in casinos. Therefore, tomorrow afternoon, Louise will be taking her to the local casino and they will gamble the day away. I am counting the winnings that Mary Margaret will bring back after she and Louise break the casino wide open by winning the various giant jackpots that are there :�....

In yesterday's blog I had promised to write up the adventure we had coming into Richards Bay. Well, it certainly was an adventure because we had to squeeze by the huge remains of the bow of a large coal cargo ship that was sticking up out of the water next to the narrow channel that leads into the harbor.

As we approached we saw what looked to be the submerged remains of the rest of the ship lying underwater across the channel. In that area the water was black and there were a couple of support boats anchored next to the bow to support the workers that were addressing the shipwreck.

As we approached the black water we veered to the north as we decided to go around the bow instead of attempting to cross what looked to us to be the submerge hulk or some sort of reef. As we were rounding the ship's large bow, just a few hundred meters away, one of the support boats raced over to us and shouted for us to keep away, we were getting to close. We told him that we needed to enter the harbor and did not want to cross over the submerged hulk or reef or whatever the black water was. He was adamant that we needed to go that way to enter the harbor so we turned around and headed back toward the black water.

As we did, another monohull sailboat went in front of us and headed toward the black water. As he reached it a large swell went under him and lifted his boat and he slammed back down, with his boat heeling well over. OMG! It looked to us as he had hit the submerged hulk and was having trouble. We immediately turned to him to offer help. He was rocking and rolling side to side but then he kept on going and cleared the black water. We stopped and continued to watch him to see if he was taking on water. However, he just kept on going and looked fine.

We then slowly crept up to the black water and discovered that it was just a plume of coal dust and oil and not anything to worry about. The fact that the previous sailboat lifted high up and then plunged down again and in the process rocked heavily back and forth as he crossed the plume was just a coincidence of a monster swell passing under him as he crossed. Whew! It was a relief to cross the plume and get into the protection of the harbor safe and sound.

What a welcoming Richard Bay presented to us�...