American Spirit II - Day 313; Work Day & Braai Dinner at the Yacht Club; Saturday, November 14, 2014

Jeremy gets up at 5:15 AM. I get up at 7:15 AM and Joel gets up at around 8:00 AM.

Breakfast at 8:20 AM consists of bacon, eggs, pineapple pieces and bread.

At 8:50 AM I go up to the management office to see if we have our laundry. We do! Actually, we have 80% of it. However, all the critical items are there: thermal underwear; my pants; and my jacket and Joel's. Still missing: all my Jockey underwear and some T-shirts. But I have plenty of extras, so no problem.

At 9:00 AM I start to host the Rally in port broadcast normally given by Rally control. Since Joel left last night, I decided to do the broadcast in his place. Except that after 30 seconds Joel comes on the radio. He hasn't left yet. Oops! Joel tells me to continue with my broadcast and that he'll continue on after I'm done.

At 9:15 AM I go to the Rally office and purchase the 'Cape to Caribbean' cruising guide for 320 Rand (the color edition). This booklet has departure information from Cape Town, and approach information for St. Helena and Brazil. A good buy.

Peter from Adela says that not all ports in South Africa along our route may require clearing in and out; and that the Richards Bay Zululand Yacht Club office is checking to see if that is correct.

From 10:00 AM to 11:45 AM we clean the boat; hosed off the foul weather jackets after dipping them in a 5 gallon bucket mixed with white vinegar and water; Joel fixed the latch (replaced it with a new one) in my closet in my aft cabin; then he re-strung the back up main halyard; and a few more items.

Lunch is at 12:30 PM at the 2nd floor restaurant in the yacht club. Hamburgers and chicken sandwiches.

After lunch I hauled Joel up the mast using the electric winch, so he can check the radar and Pro-Furling mechanism. The radar is not fixable by us; and the Pro-Furling mechanism looks fine. He also taped the spreaders; and Jeremy taped the stanchions at deck level. Jeremy and I then loaded his two suitcases, the one he brought with him, a small one; and the one I purchased so he could bring back stuff for me to Florida, like brochures, books, cruising guides and gifts for persons at home. Jeremy also hosed down and scrubbed the foredeck and cockpit area. Good job Jeremy!

I took a nap from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM; and then we headed off to the yacht club grill area to a 'Braai BBQ.' Dinner selections included chicken, T-bone steak and rump steak. 60 or 65 Rand per dinner, or $5.34 to $5.80. Joel and I chose the T-bone steaks while Jeremy chose the rump steak. We all had the steaks with a salad. Jeanine from Nexus; Jonathan, Jenny and Sigi from Merlyn of Poole and Irina and Jan from Adela, joined us at our table, along with Tommy from Alpheratz later on. The T-bone steaks were huge, taking up the whole plate. I headed back to the boat at 9:00 PM while Jeremy and Joel continued socializing until 11:15 PM. When they got back I heard them talking about how good the 'caramel' Vodka they had was.

Brian Fox