Friday, 26th November 2010
08.00hrs We had a slow get up. It was a very dull day............ The Barometer was at 1012 (remember a high is 1022).
The police came and checked our passports, and vere a very pleasent bunch they even managed to run out of fuel as they traveled back across the harbour.
We had a leasurly porridge breakfast as we read over the emails, Over the last few days we had emails from :- Aileen's sisters Michelle & Anne, Ian Mc Millan (Belfast), Stefan H, Paul H.Jim Murphy, Kevin Dwyer, Fergus and Kay Quinlan (now in NZ), Rory Quirke (Cook Islands), Gillian O Connell, Louis Souls (C.T.), Robin Clapham (Kevin Dwyers cousin in S.A.)
Neil washed down the decks while skipper did the blog. Aileen did some washing in the Magic washing machine.
11.00 Skipper took his laptop ashore to the club where he met Mike and Jean from Jeannius. They were tied alongside the clubs pontoon. They helped skipper get the laptop topped up with credit for the wifi and then left, and skipper failed to get the thing to work, after 2 hours of fiddling, gave up and returned the laptop to the boat. Meanwhile, Aileen and Neil went on a walking tour of Thesen Island, This is a new waterside residential development and almost every residential unit has its own marina/pontoon, not to mention all the restaurants, a boutique hotel and a limited number of shops.
16.30 As skipper was about to leave the clubhouse, he got a tap on the shoulder. Ohhhh my gawd! Its Sham Riordan......... can you belive this. We knew he was living in S.A. but did we ever think it was here in Knysna. Well, well,
it seems that many others from Ireland have places here in Knysna, and it certainly looks like another Paradise.
17.00hrs The Barometer had fallen to 1007 (that's the lowest it has been since we arrived in S.A.). There was plenty of fog around the place by now, so Skipper put on a nice bit of "Gammon" to cook for dinner later, and then took the rib for a trip around the canals in "Theses Island". This used to be a huge timber sawmills and the family that owned the sawmill closed it down and raised the ground 1.5m and built this beautiful development a few years ago. The buildings are mostly timber and stone.with lots of steel bridges crossing all the different canals. Its like a modern day version of Venice and a more tasteful development than "Sotogrande" on the south coast of Spain. This is where Bryan Kearney also has his winter nest.
Skipper was impressed with the architecture, very impressed, so decided to head back to the club for a G&T. There he met Neil and many other sailors and club members and gaenerally had good fun and lots of stories. After a while, we were joined by Sham & Emily Riordan for a few more scoops, they generously offered us a loan of their jeep to go touring, which we graciously accepted.
19.50 We departed the swinging club and returned to the boat for dinner. This consisted of a slightly smoked gammon, cabbage done in the meat water, plus creamed potatoes, and a couple of carrotts.. yum yum. Much better than anything in a restaurant.
The weather looks dodgy for Sunday, so we decided that we will leave on Monday. That's if the window is open!
That's it,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)