Fuel and eating out
29 January 2016 | Luderitz Bay, Namibia
Today dawned nice and bright with no wind at all. After yesterdays blow up into the 30+ knot range, it was a welcome relief to have it quiet and peaceful. We redid our mooring by pulling the entire bridal line from the mooring up on deck and attached it too the forward cleat. Now we no longer have to worry that our own lines might break. Once that was done, we launched Puff and made plans to get the last of our needed diesel.
With our trusty cart in hand, we took all four of our 5 gallon cans ashore and walked the short distance to the Shell station, maybe a ΒΌ miles away if that and since it's all level ground, the cart(and my back) had no problems. we'd brought back 40 gallons yesterday in our two trips and needed a bit more. Today, we carted back another 30 and we are now nice and dull. In the end, we used 70 gallons to run the engine 91 hours so we are still using just a bit over .80 gallons per hour and for an 80hp engine, that seems quite good to me. Total cost was $177 for all 70 gallons or about $2.40 per gallon. South Africa came it at $2.66 so we saved some money but sure wished we could have sailed more getting here. I've saved all the information on our fuel fill ups ever since we started our journey. The most expensive so far has been in Palau at Sam's. They hit us up for $5.36 per gallon. Before them, Tahiti had been the worst at $4.92 per gallon Cheapest was in Brunei at just $.92 per gallon!
Once we had finished the fueling, we stopped in for lunch at the Garden Cafe up the hill from the docks. A nice little cafe set in a converted house with a grassy plot with trees over looking the bay. We found when we came in that we were early for lunch. It was 12:30 but lunch there doesn't start till 1300 so they put together a sandwich of sorts for me--thinly sliced lunch meat(one slice) with tomato, lettuce, and pickle on a nice roll with great dressing and Tracy had left over quiche from the breakfast crowd(last slice). They don't serve "gaseous" drinks so we both settled for iced tea. We both took a treat from their dessert cabinet--Tracy a piece of Cherry Crumble and I had a slice of Pineapple and Banana cake. We had hoped to get them with ice cream(not served where we got them) but the next cafe that had "Ice Cream" stenciled on their doors machine was broken. We ended up taking them back to the boat and eating them there. We are both of the opinion that the folks in Luderitz don't use sweetener in what they bake as while both tasted alright, there was a definite lack of sweetness in both desserts. Oh well, maybe it won't stay on the hips as long that way.
The internet we purchased on Wednesday has been incredible. It wasn't that expensive and we got unlimited data for a seven day period. Now in South Africa, we'd paid a bit over $60US for 20 gigs of data. Here, we paid less than that for unlimited and it's twice as fast as SA! We've been downloading all kinds of things since we got it started, from tv shows and movies to chart programs to program updates. If it needed downloading, we are doing it. We are well past 40 gigs by now and we haven't stopped yet. Tomorrow we will be downloading KAP chart files(Google Earth photos that overlay one of our chart programs)so we can see photos of areas we know we will be going to.
We decided to have dinner at "The Barrel" restaurant. It had come recommended by several cruisers so we wanted to give it a try. It's only open from 1800 to 2200 Tuesdays thru Fridays so with today being Friday, it was time to give it a try. It's been a long time since we have had dinner ashore as we rarely ever left the boat during the evenings in South Africa as it wasn't safe. We got to the restaurant promptly at 1800 as we were told it might be better to get reservations as the place is quite popular. We could never get through on our phone sow we were there promptly at 1800 and the first ones in the door. They have 6 tables with seating for groups at two of them and set of four at the other four tables. We grabbed a seat at one of the small tables and a young man came over and explained their menu. Every evening, they offer a buffet or you can order off the menu. The buffet tonight was a salad, soup, along with meatballs in a sauce, pieces of pork on a stick like a kabob and a seafood paella with shrimp and other seafoods in it. Add in rice, potatoes, squash and it was quite the spread. Tracy went with that and I decided to order a pizza. Tracy took off for the salad table and came back with a plate full of potato salad, melon and a small salad. I sat and waited to put in my order. Only problem was our waiter never returned to take our, or at least my order. Other tables filled with many locals and some more tourists(remember, there are only 6 tables in the entire place. I sat and waited and waited and waited slowly sipping on the coke he had brought back when we first ordered them. Tracy meanwhile finished her salad and headed back for some soup declaring it to be the best soup she has ever had(a soup based on a pork broth). She had two bowls of it and then headed back for the main courses. I still sat and waited. As Tracy was eating her dinner, she finally got the attention of our waiter(not really sure he was a waiter)who came over to see what was the matter. Tracy explained that while she was having the buffet, I wanted to order something else-a simple pizza. He took my order and headed for the kitchen. It is now 1850! Everyone else in the restaurant is happily chewing away on what they had ordered and been served and I was just getting my order in. Can't say much for the service! Here's how they do pizza in The Barrel. First they get the dough ready and pile on the toppings. Then one of the cooks brings it out to the dining room where there is a fire going to heat water in a huge water tank that sits over the fife and sticks the pizza(now on a metal grille) over the fire for a few minutes to cook the crust. Then back into the kitchen to actually bake it. About 25 minutes later they showed up with my dinner. Tracy was long since done with hers. While it was decent pizza, someone had put on a LOT of salt on it. It was ham, salami, bacon and mushrooms with some garlic and onion pizza. Unless the people that cured the meats had gone over board with salt, some one in the kitchen had. I ate half and brought the rest back to Zephyr. In the end, it took close to two hours from the time we entered to the time we left. Shall we say it's not a "fast food" restaurant. We not only had to ask for our bill but had to take it up to the counter since the waiter never returned for it. We had a nice walk back to the docks as the Sun was setting and a nice easy ride back to Zephyr.
Earlier in the day, as we were returning to the docks with fuel, we saw lots of people standing on the docks and the piers watching a fishing boat tied up to the main pier. Apparently, last night, one of it's crew member had gotten drunk and gotten in a small fishing boat, fallen out of it and died and they were working on getting the body out of the water. It was mid afternoon by now so he had been in the water for quite some time. I guess they saw no reason to rush getting him out as he was already dead or it may take time to get together a dive team to recover the body. Not sure but it was the show on shore this afternoon. Not a nice thing to see and hear about. Over the last few years, my consumption of alcohol has gone way down and I don't normally drink much if I'm visiting another boat for evening drinks as I still have to get us back to our own boat and I don't want any thing to affect my ability in the use of our dinghy. A sad occurrence.
That's about it for today and as for tomorrow, we have been advised by Andy off a local trimaran that the town pretty much closes down by Saturday at 1300 so anything we want to do must be done by then or just stay on board.