So whilst we wait for our own yacht to be kitted out, we are off on a trip from Weymouth to Las Palmas on a yacht that will participate in the ARC and head on to St Lucia. As we would ultimately like to join the ARC (or similar convoy) for the first time on our own yacht, we will be saying goodbye to Misfah and some of our fellow crew in Las Palmas and will have to fly back to England. It will seem weird to take a month to get out there, then a few hours to get back, am sure the return trip will be a shock to the system.

Will need to pack today, going to be interesting to see how well or badly we do it - perfect opportunity to test ourselves. Warm kit for first leg, then slowly peeling off layers for next leg, then returning by air, in all likelihood on a low cost airline who will probably charge for extra weight gained by having two breakfasts every day.

Here she is, well, the bare bones of her. Can't wait to see her in person, name her and bring her home to England, never mind actually get on her and SAIL!!

It is with great excitement (and relief) that we announce the purchase of our new nearly-home!

She is a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45-DS (Deck Saloon, which means that Pete and I can stand up in the saloon and the bigger windows let in more light and apparently one tends to not feel as sea sick below with all this light and the ability to see the horizon, weather permitting. I will comment on that when I have to go below to make tea in inclement weather and land up not making carrot pizza instead).

The one we have bought is not the latest model but she is new. She was the last one in the factory, so kind of like a car demo model but one that has not been driven by demented salesmen trying to get 6 months on the clock without experiencing any illicit relationships with pavements, potholes, pedestrian and any other cars being driven by people texting on their phones. The link below will give you an idea of what she looks like.

The same model as our new home

We will only take delivery next year as the factory will need to fit bits and pieces on site before delivering her to the UK. The salesman told Pete that she would arrive all shrink wrapped. I misheard him, I thought he had said 'bubble wrapped' so was almost apoplectic with excitement and positively drooling over all those bubbles I could pop. My hands even started shaking. I was more disappointed than embarrassed at my misunderstanding when it was pointed out what yachts are normally delivered in (besides water).

How funny that we landed up buying this type and model. It was just one of many photos I could have used on the blog when we first started our serious search for a suitable yacht. It is also the only one out of all the ones that we have looked at over the last few weeks that we have not actually seen.

Besides looking at many different makes, models and sizes over the last few years, we had narrowed our search down to:-

1. The Allures - this one has started with our viewing of an OVNI at one of the boatshows.

o The latter had been used for cruising and was appropriately fitted for that purpose. It made us think / realise a few things, viz. She was broad in the beam - Pete, not being a traditional African male, had not immediately fallen in love with such beauty of course, but we were looking at cruising, not racing, so a fat butt meant a bit more stability in the water. Other notable features were that she had an aluminium hull, a bit tougher in the sea we thought, and a swing keel. At the time we had been sailing out of Pwllheli which was not 24/7 access, this being denied to yachts with a bit of draught 2 hours either side of low tide, so we thought not having a fixed keel would help with access as well as for beach landings in warmer climes one day.
o We looked at 3 Allures in Cherbourg. One was purpose built to go to Antarctica and she had been to Greenland. She was great but felt like a 'Bachelor's Pad', very functional and more oomph than we thought we would need, the other 2 were okay but neither of us got that thirsty-for-more feeling with them

2. The Wauquiez - this one was great and we thought that she might be the one when we went to view and sail her in Almeria. A lovely solid proper cruiser which had been lovingly cared for by our Belgian hosts. She was a bit older and although she was well kitted out, we thought that she might need some items replacing. Also we would have needed to hole her up somewhere over winter. A few minor things also added to some unease over putting all our eggs in that basket

3. The Ocean Star - after having completed our Cross Channel on a 56 ft Ocean Star, we thought this would have been a make to which we could commit ourselves. The problem was that there are not many on the market and we could not afford a new one, even the smaller ones. 56ft is probably too big for what we wanted sailing short handed. The only 2nd hand one we saw needed about £80 - £100k worth of work and even then we worried that we might not have captured all the changes we would have needed.

4. The Jeanneaus - One of the misgivings that we had about the Jeanneau was that the old timers of the cruising world appeared to grumble and mutter about whether she was a suitable make made for cruising. I am still not sure whether this is snob value or there is factual evidence to back these whispers, only time (and perhaps the RNLI) will tell.

We think we have found her!

Yippeeeeeeeeee!

Now if only Chops would get better, a Friday 13th could be the bestie of weekdays.

Just back from a viewing trip to Cherbourg. Saw 3x Allures, only one could be a possibility. It was modified specifically for trips to the Antarctica and Greenland, so it has all the gear and then some for what we might decide to do! (and we are unlikely to go cold as it has some additions in the heating department). Very functional but fully kitted and been looked after and loved. The 2nd one has been sorely neglected, what a shame! Hardly any miles on the motor but poor thing had been left to gather slime and its own ecosystem below and on the rudder. It was like a rescue dog, you want to adopt it and give it a nice loving home but you don't know how it will react after years of abuse!

However this one has probably never been tried and tested under many conditions, too risky. The 3rd one was 'nice', but just that. Broker treated us to a visit around the factory. That was the trip highlight! I kept drooling over the new 39.9 they had moored up close by sigh.... a small lotto win would be handy.

The second highlight was missing the ferry home. After having had 8 hours to kill waiting for it, we let a dinner and a bottle of wine delay us....

So far I have loved 99% of the yachts that we have seen, but we still have some more lined up. Our next trip is off to see a Wauquiez in Spain.

I grew up around Johannesburg, so nowhere near a beach or sea (nope, Boksburg-by-the-sea and the Sun City Wave pools don't count).

I probably spent more time in and under the water than on top of it. Family weekends away were mainly to the Vaal Dam. Its surface area is about 120 square miles. In my early years, this would have been smaller as they only raised the dam wall in 1985 (the second raising, I am not old enough to recall the first one!).

As kids we wouldn't have noticed, as long as we could get out and about on the water in the big old canvas canoe we had bought for R70. This could have been a fortune in the late 60s / early 70s but I don't know. It was just the most beautiful canoe I had ever seen and it was so BIG.

I guess that the size of the dam would not have been a big deal as long as we could hop on the canoe, swim and make huge fires on the shores.

Vaal Dam info...

In later years the family acquired a Vivacity twin keel and a Halcat. My older brother Allan had a speed boat and then later he also moved in to sailing and owned a Mistral.

As far as ablutions were concerned, the 'bucket -and-chuckit' system was fraught with difficulties for us children, so if one of us felt queasy or was in dire need of a wee, we would jump overboard and go for a long swim. Considering that this dam was one of the largest suppliers of water to a large section of the country, we didn't worry too much about the purification process of the water which found its way into our taps.

The alternative was to wait until we were on the shore and either we had to dig a hole, or, on the odd occasion when we camped at a proper camp site, we would brave the long-drop. The hole-in-the-ground loo was okay but the long-drop hid all kinds of terrors.

I could only imagine what creatures lived and lurked in that swamp below, from snakes to many headed serpents and other 'things' that would rise up above the bog to tickle your shivering butt. (Twerking hadn't been invented yet, maybe that is what it looked like from below). Worst case was that if you fell through that hole (which was made for adult size bottoms to perch upon), you wouldn't be able to scream... what if you swallowed something? You wouldn't be able to reach the plank seat above to scramble out again either. All this time, the slithering sheet whisperers living below could be after you.

It is no wonder that I developed stage fright for new...er..facilities that persists today.

It is also no wonder the barbel were said to grow to sizes only previously mentioned in mythology (or in the vicinity of Loch Ness). Only the giant vundu that fed at the base of the Kariba dam wall in neighbouring Zim were allegedly bigger than the Vaal Dam catfish.

My Dad (Rick) used to tell us stories about how these whiskered beasts would crawl out the dam and snatch small dogs and loitering little boys to take back to their underwater lairs. My younger brother, Ronald was so terrified of them, he and I once pitch-poled the catamaran and by the time I re-surfaced, he was already hopping up and down on one of the hulls like a rabid Rumpelstilzkin yelling at me to un-cleat the f*%$@~g sheets. He was only about 8 or 9 but had a potty mouth of note. He was convinced he could see whiskers on the surface coming after him.

We clearly had been told too many terrifying bedtime stories. Ronald had bush-pigs to worry about too but that is another story. Back to the sailing one.

Despite the murky water and what lay beneath, I still preferred to spend more time in the water than on the yacht, especially when taken out on the Vivacity which was a bit of a ponderous old lady. I enjoyed sailing but it was often marred by yelling and bickering and belllowing of old and young bulls locking horns, so a combination of that and other interests eventually saw me joining the family trips to the Vaal dam less and less.

My folks moved to Durban when I was in final year at UCT (University of Cape Town). They sailed off Hobie Beach at Vetch's pier and I spent some holidays with them and was taken out on Ronald's cat again. This time it was offshore so was terribly exciting. Allan (older brother) must have visited at the same time as me once as I remember him and Rick hoisting a sports bag up the mast with the mainsail. I found it hilarious but Ronald, not so, and once again the potty mouth rumbled on, but that too turned into merriment when we watched Allan and Rick set off into the surf to get past the breakers and there was a sudden panicked scrambling up the trampoline as they tried not to slide back into the surf as the waves lifted them. The water was glittering with big patches of knotted stinging blue-bottle tails. They were floating on the surface like toxic chewing gum bubbles. Ron and I had stayed on the beach but the older macho men had gone out and provided a show that made me nearly wet my pants. Even potty mouth laughed.

Eventually they moved back to Jo'burg and Allan's Mistral provided the base for family sailing experiences. He had his own family by then, so it was mainly my parents, my brothers and the next generation who went out to the Vaal Dam again. My sister (Karin) and I had been away at varsity for a while so did not go out sailing that often although I did brave it once or twice again. Allan would make us scrub bird-pooh off the deck for a few hours before we could go sailing, so scrubbing the yacht at both ends of a trip with a bit more effing and jeffing in between became less appealing to me and I guess I had moved into the shadows of adulthood and had other interests to pursue. Karin did some more sailing with the family and some Appletiser offshore courses in Durbs, but I dropped out of the sailing expeditions.

I still loved being in and on the water and years later I lived on a river in SA. We had an old bass boat that I used to putter up and down the river on, with my Newfies as passengers. They would sit there looking like the Queen and Consort on her Jubilee barge.

At some stage I took up diving but I never sailed again until I moved to the UK. A long term relationship had ended and sometimes when one thing dies, you discover or re-discover old interests.

I met Pete. He had also just emerged from a broken relationship and had freshly re-discovered his interest in sailing, so I thought to give it a go again too.

He had been a dinghy racer in the UK in his youth and was now training for the Fastnet (not in a dinghy). He had completed his day and coastal skipper courses in SA (ironic considering I have done my courses in the UK!), however my 're-discovery' was way more leisurely than his and the only racing it included was first one in the pub at the end of a day's sail.

Racing had not been for me. The only racing experience I had had with my family on a yacht, other than Ronald's lightning swim away from pursuing barbel to launch himself back onto the cat, was one race where we took so long to get to the finishing line, all the officials had packed up, had their prize giving, downed their beers and gone home by the time we limped in.

The big race at the Vaal was the 'Round the Island', but we used to watch it more than take part in it. In our canoeing days, we would row over to this island which we used to call 'Goosie', after the abundant bird-life that inhabited the bluegum plantations on the island. It was quite a surprise to me when I heard that the island in the 'Round the Island' race was called 'Groot Eiland'. It was another surprise to hear that the old SA government allegedly used the island for something secret. We knew it was forbidden territory but thought that was because RAU (Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit) used it for some wildlife studies. Who knows what the truth was, but we were never shot at when we illegally ventured onto the land so I don't think that there could have been any government involvement.

This just meant that my family's racing history dictated that my UK sailing debut was always going to be of the more leisurely kind, even though I surprised myself to be doing it in the middle of winter. It was a few days after Xmas and straddled New Year ( a very memorable one in Dartmouth). It also meant that there was to be no more jumping overboard for me plus I had to wear considerably more gear than a bikini and sunhat.

Other than these small changes, it was just like old times, some effing and jeffing and potty mouths (never including me of course), but what a joy it was to remember an old love, that of being back on the water again.