December 18th. My mother’s birthday. A date that also means that Christmas is but one week away. That can’t be though. Tanned, bared skins lounging on white sandy beaches soaking up the hot December sun. “Hot December sun” - it sounds like an oxymoron, until you remember we are in the southern hemisphere where it is normal for millions to celebrate Christmas dinner as a picnic on the beach in 30 degree heat! Despite the odd decoration here and there in the shops, there is really nothing which heralds Christmas to me.

It is just weird to have Christmas in the middle of the summer holidays. It is strange to wear as little clothes as possible instead of piling layer upon layer in a vain attempt to keep warm. It is not appetising to think of having to stuff myself on a huge turkey with all the trimmings in 30+ heat. It is strangely unfulfilling to be able to shop without getting squashed and harassed in the frantic last minute crowds of Grafton Street. It is odd to drink chilled white wine with cubes of ice instead of nursing a hot toddy. It is wrong to walk past houses with guard dogs and security lights, rather than giant beardy Santas crawling up people’s side walls and fairy lights covering outside trees. I hate to admit this, but a large part of me actually misses the over-commercialisation of Christmas!

I am sure you are all curious about the boat and when we are off. Sadly we had to pull out of the Governor’s Cup as the leave date of 29th December was simply too soon for us. Despite long hours and hard work on JC’s part, the boat has given us challenge after challenge.

There appears to be a problem with the propeller shaft which means the boat must come out of the water, but as it is Christmas as well as summer holidays here, most factories are closed for a full month so we are stuck until January to get that fixed. Only then will we be able to sea trial the boat - all the sails and equipment are new so we have to be sure that it all fits/works and would rather find any problems out during local sea trials than on the open ocean… The boat is looking good though and we are aiming to be able to leave in late January. For the next update I will take loads of photos of the boat as I know you are all curious about that.

Our friend from Dublin, Barry MacNamara visited for almost 3 weeks which was the definite highlight of the last few weeks. He had some time off and lots of unused air miles and given the awfully cold weather Ireland has had over the last few months, it was a no brainer to come and visit us. He is a big sailor (sailed to the Marquesas and other exotic locations) and was interested to see the reality of building/renovating one’s own boat.

The day he arrived I had organised a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and we had almost 40 friends at the Yacht Club. He managed to do some sightseeing, spent a day in a township helping rebuild a burnt down school, drink lots of wine in the Wine Country, convince us both to take a day off to see the views from Table Top Mountain, cook many meals for us all, as well as help JC with some boat stuff. As if that all were not enough, I convinced him to join me in the one week medical course I was enrolled on (Ship’s Captain Medical License).

JC had made me sign up for it as I have zero medical training/knowledge and should he end up unconscious or worse, I would have no clue what to do. Despite my absolute terror of all things medical (I faint at the sight of a needle), I had to agree with him on this issue. About a month ago I did my basic “First Aid at Sea” course and passed. It was actually easy enough so I was not too worried. On the Monday it became obvious that the levels were much higher than the basic one. During the 5 intensive days we covered an immense amount of theory and practicals. On the Wednesday we were supposed to have not eaten breakfast as we were to do a glucose test to check for sugar levels (aka, the pin prick on the little finger test). I was nervous all morning and when the first person was pricked I became very faint and ended up missing about 30 minutes of the class as I was so sick. There was never a chance I would volunteer to have a needle stuck in my vein, but some of the others did! From then on the class laughed every time the term “phsychogenic shock” was mentioned as the new definition was simply “Jackie”.

We covered an amazing amount of information and both studied very hard for the exam on the Friday. The week culminated with a night shift practical in the Victoria Hospital in Cape Town. The paramedic in charge of our small group had been told to keep a special eye on me, given my extreme reaction to a simple pin prick. I have to say, I even shocked myself at my reaction in the hospital. I was amazed at everything and did not once feel faint. I was enthralled and excited to see in real life all the theory we had studied : - we had heart attack patients, asthmatics, diabetics, an epileptic drunken 16 year old, a mouth abscess bigger than anything I have ever seen, a gun shot wound to the leg of a (I assume) criminal (he was not off his mobile phone once and his stomach and chest were full of knife scars), a woman needing a catheter with renal failure….

Amazing stuff. One woman was so drunk that she did not know where she was and cried hysterically, not about the fact that her face had been cut open and she was in hospital , but rather that she had lost one of her shoes! Barry inserted an IV into a patient and I did a few pin pricks to do glucose tests! I was so proud of myself. The only negative experience I had was at the very end of our shift, a 3 month old baby came in with suspected meningitis and that was so sad I got quite upset. The doctor told me she had lost a baby the week previous after only 2 hours in the hospital from meningitis too. She told me that she had to insert an IV and that on babies it was not a pleasant thing to watch. She was also anticipating having to a spinal tap on the little mite so when I heard all that, it was definitely time to go home.

The amazing thing is that I passed the exam and Barry scored top of the class!!!

Well, in 2 days we move out of this rented house which I have grown to love and into a bigger place which we have rented till mid January when the boat should be ready for our arrival. My folks arrive out on 24th so we will all stay together and celebrate Christmas and the New Year together. I wont get to write again before Christmas, so if you have managed to read this far, I will take the opportunity to say - thanks for reading the blogs, thanks for your comments-we don’t answer them but we love knowing that you are thinking about us and most importantly, have a super, safe and “commercial” Christmas this year!!!!!