Well, things have picked up here and I am feeling much less bored than the last update I wrote. JC’s father Jim and his wife Kay arrived a week ago from San Diego and that has been great for us all. They, like my parents have been a tremendous help as far as Saoirse goes and actually babynapped her for two nights – her first “sleep over”!!! It was a win-win situation as JC and I got some unexpected extra sleep and they got to dote on the baby they wont see now till June.

So, I spoke with the parish priest and he had some notion of me teaching the catechism in a local junior school and helping draw pictures from bible scenes. I had to politely as possible explain that I wasn’t big on religion and was there not some sort of humanitarian work I could do instead?!! After exchanging a few ideas he thought it might be possible to teach basic English to some of the refugees from Angola who were Portuguese speaking and mostly had no English which was hindering their job prospects here. He said he would get back to me. In the meantime I met a lovely medical student Nikkie who said she is always looking for volunteers to help at the free monthly clinic in the black township in Hout Bay (I will write separately about the townships). Simple stuff like weighing and measuring the babies and children. Looking forward to the next monthly session. I also joined the gym. It costs all of Euro 25 a month and it has 2 swimming pools. That should keep me out of trouble for the next while at least.

When my father offered to help JC on the boat last month, he never realized that he would be worked till he bled – literally! Dad was chucking a large piece of wood out one of the hatches and in the very strong wind it boomeranged back onto him and knocked him out for a few seconds. He had a huge golf ball swelling on his arm and blood everywhere! For many days he sported a massive bruise on his arm and JC felt very guilty. Well, last Saturday, as Jim had taken JC up the mast (does that sounds dirty or is it just me?) he lost his sandal coming down the last few steps of the hatch and fell, knocking himself unconscious for a few seconds and hurting his arm badly. As he is on a special blood thinning medication there was blood just spurting out. JC was shouting down to his father to say that he was ready to come down from the mast unaware that poor Jim was lying in a pool of blood! Luckily nothing was broken but the bruise and swelling is nasty. I called my father to tell him that Jim had the exact same injury as he had had. He now suspects JC’s motives and wonders is he looking for an early inheritance!!!

Saturday last we had a bunch of people over for a Braai, which is South African for a barbeque and a meal taken very seriously here. Every boat in the marina has a braai attached to it, in some cases it seems to be bigger and better than the actual radar equipment! Polish Paulinka and her South African husband Reinie, their 4 month old baby boy Tristan, Reinie’ s brother Bjorn and another South African couple Kyle and Tanya with their 2 daughters Savanna and Ailla were also invited. People arrived at 6ish and in true boys fashion, too many Windhoek beers were drunk and we only ate the meat at 11pm! It was nice though for me to chat to the other sailing women and reassure myself that I am not the only mad one doing an ocean crossing with a young family/baby.

On Sunday I had a mole removed. My Spanish friend Victoria is a dermatologist and scanned both JC and I before we left for any dodgy looking spots as the sun here and Brazil is brutal. Given that JC ran around surfing all his life with minimal sun tan protection and even had pre-cancerous cells on his nose, I was really annoyed to find out he was in the clear and I had to have one suspicious looking mole removed off my back. It is of course a simple incision done with a local anesthetic but I was still traumatized for quite a while afterwards. I insisted that JC came with me rather then Kay who had offered but JC knows how pathetic I am when it comes to injections, she doesn’t. Saoirse had her second round of vaccinations yesterday and Kay came with me. I am sorry to report that I really am so pathetic that I could not even see Saoirse having an injection so Kay had to hold her. Luckily she is her father’s child and did not seem to notice it. Today I got an x-ray done on my wrist for suspected Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Conor, our GP at home (one of the few people who genuinely does not think we are mad to go on this trip and we love him for it and all the good advise he has given us) hoped it might clear after a few weeks as it is often pregnancy related but it does not seem to have. Worse case scenario I will need an operation on my wrist. Ugh. I should know more tomorrow. It is incredibly painful at night but not too bad during the day.

Jim and Kay are on an overnight safari/game reserve and leave on Friday. I am sure I will miss them on many levels when they leave – when my parents left I felt a huge vacuum in my life and really did miss them. On that note, what an obvious invitation to you all to come and visit! We have land accommodation till 26th March and we have an extra bedroom and a small cute swimming pool… See you soon?