Thursday, 25th November 2010
08.00hrs Having secured everything, we had our breakfast and relaxed for a while, there are always things on board that need attention, even things like painting the bulbs of the compass with Aileens red nail varnish. Amazing how useful some of these ladies beautifiers can be in time of need...............
11.00hrs We (all three of us) piled into the rib, which we had lowered off the transome (back of the boat, as Fr Terry would say, ejitt) and headed around the sandbank (which we parked A Lady on top of earlier as we went to drop anchor)
and over to the Yacht club. A lovely timber building on the eastern side of the river estuary, by the town.
We were welcomed by Rodger, a member of the club, and we wad to go over all our trip with him once more. We will be great story tellers as well as great sailors by the time we finish this trip, plus our degrees in electronics, mechanics, navigation, sail repairs, computers, photography, and cooking in tight spaces, etc, etc .
We got in touch with Ian Mc Millan's friend Bryan Kearney from Belfast and skipper met him and had a pleasant coffee on the Water front. Bryan filled skipper in on Knysna and how he happens to be living here (well for 5 months of the year). All fascinating stuff, and what a beautiful place to spend a few months of each year, away from all the SH one T in Ireland ............ He looks good from it all and actually we met once before in Belfast many years ago .... The original Rib the we purchased started with Bryan, and skipper visited his house in Belfast with our friend Ian. gosh, small world!
We then visited a shop/restaurant/food market called "34 South" golly gosh, this place had every thing and what did we get, yes, chocolate cake and coco to die for. After that, skipper was ready for the scratcher, so got in the rib and did just that, Aileen and Neil did the town.......
18.00hrs We met up again, skipper having recovered, and went to dinner in the "Dry Dock" which overlooks the lagoon,
the food was great and inexpensive, we chatted with lots of people, all who found our travels a great topic.
22.30hrs We climbed back into the rib and headed out to A Lady for a good night's sleep.
That's all from a beautiful place.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)