Well, we are still here, despite our best efforts to leave! Things just don’t get done quickly on a boat. We had hoped to test sail last week and the weather was at last just right when the solenoid (electronic by-pass valve) for the autopilot burnt out, after only 10 minutes of use. Of course, being a Friday, no one was available or interested in helping us, so it had to wait till Monday. We managed to get the problem resolved with a new dual hydraulics design allowing us to override the autopilot to manually use the tiller, but when we went to bleed the hoses for the system, we could not get rid of all the air. After 4 hours of air bubbles, we finally gave up and called in the experts. They told us that the ram (piston which drives the rudder) was broken and needed to come out. More money and more bad news. Even worse, the weather has changed again and we are at the start of 3 bad cold fronts with high winds and driving rain hitting Cape Town. That means the ram can’t be welded out till the weather is calmer, i.e. mid next week and will then take a few days to fix and install again. There is nothing we can do about it so we are just readying the boat so that the ram will be the very last thing before we test sail her and head off. Ugh.

Because we could not test sail last Friday, we decided to take the new dinghy out, as the motor needed to be run for a few hours. JC pumped it up and I put Saoirse’s layers of clothing on - woolly hat and gloves included (it is almost winter here now and although it was a sunny day, the wind is cold, coming straight from the Antarctic). We motored out of the marina and into the bay following the curve of the beach. She was fascinated watching the activity on the sand - humans, dogs, horses all interacting infront of her. Saoirse was between JC’s knees and after a while JC asked me was she alright, as she was unusually quiet. We were worried that she might have my genes and be a little sea sick. I peered under her hat and saw that her face was very impassive. Not happy, but not unhappy I thought. Suddenly I cracked up laughing as I realised that she was, infact, fast asleep! There we were bouncing over waves and going fast enough to make me nervous and here she is, fast asleep!!! Guess we know whose genes she has inherited…

Sundays have been a bit of a ritual for Saoirse and I. We would head to the Catholic church to listen to the Malawian choir practise after mass and from there we would walk to the market and look at all the stalls. In the late afternoon, we would head up to a restaurant in the marina that has live music and I would have a drink and Saoirse would dance her little socks off with the other children. She dances like a hippy girl, spinning until she is dizzy, sometimes she just shakes her head from side to side and her 3rd dance technique is to simply jump up and down! 2 Sundays ago we met up with some friends, Eddie from Malawi, Nici, Greg and their daughter Kiara and Mark and his kids Airton and Lauren. We ended up all sharing pizzas and having a pleasant break from the boat.

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day here and our old neighbours Greg, Nici and their daughter Kiara took us out for the day. We headed south of Hout Bay to Nordhoek and had a lovely relaxed lunch in a laid back hippy type of restaurant, followed by a walk along a pristine white sandy beach. Greg had brought a kite so Saoirse, Nici and I watched while the boys and Kiara played with it. It was a warm and sunny day and JC was especially delighted to get off the boat. We had a braai (barbeque) in their house before being dropped back to the boat, feeling happy and fully recharged.

We are lucky that we have met a number of really good people who we consider friends here. Nici, Greg and fabulous 8 year old Kiara, as mentioned above were neighbours in a house we were renting. Other neighbours from another house are Mark, Karen and their 2 cool kids Airton and Lauren who we are also friendly with. Desiree and her family have been exceptionally kind to us - we rented from them for 6 weeks and they even allowed us to stay in their house when we had a few nights of nowhere to go! Now that we have no car and winter is setting in quickly, I have to mention some of the people who have been more than generous with their car, chaufeuring Saoirse and I around. Like Paula, Bellinda, Lucien, Athal, Jeremy, Penny, Roy and especially Rick, the hairy Canadian, who left a few days ago to go back to Vancouver and who we will especially miss. We had our boating neighbours over a few days ago for coffee and cake as most of them had not seen Taniwha for a long time and were very curious as to the changes we had made. We also had Peter and Nicole, the previous owners over for dinner and they were also amazed at the difference. As much as we love these people and all the good things about South Africa, it is definitely time for us to move on to the next paradise- now if we could only get out for that test sail…