In Preparation for the crossing

I think that this second Atlantic crossing is going to be a lot more organised. The vessel, 'Moonbeam'is equipped with every gadget imaginable and has luxuries like the ice-maker, coffee machine and geyser.

I have been shadowing the current au pair and spending ample time with the two kiddies that I will be tutoring and looking after on the crossing.

It looks like we  will be doing almost the exact same route as the previous crossing I did so I cant wait to see the amazing friends I made :)

The New Venture

It has been an extremely past few weeks. I have been back and forth between Jbay and St Francis which has involved skateboarding along the highway and hitch hiking.

I have been working at the backpackers while at the same time helping Rich with his exams and invidulating for him. I have also been doing a bit of admin for my friend's historical surf film.

But I am finaly back in my hometown after a quick detour to Kenton on the way home to see two special ladies. I am preparing myself for the next sailing adventure which is sure to provide some new and exciting stories :)

Jbay :)

After a wonderful, comfortable stay at home, it was time to head to Jbay.

Richard had bought me a rabbit. It was so adorable but we had no idea what to do with it, so it came with us for the drive to P.E. We decided to give it to my cousin, Warren, an aspiring vet. It was really good to see the rest of my family after over a year !

Jbay has been really mellow, I am enjoying my job at African Ubuntu Backpackers. In my spare time I do plenty of skating and surfing and hanging out on the beach. I get to meet a lot of very interesting people from all over the world, I am getting so inspired to travel again.

Richard visited me this weekend and we cooked a meal for 16 people at the backpackers. I wonder if they knew that a 16 year old cooked their dinner .

Rich and I also made a video to enter in the Coushurfers contest to win around the world plane tickets, its a little rough but if you dont enter you will never win. It should be up soon :)

It has been raining for the past 11 days and I am getting an intense case of cabin fever. Sun Please come out.

the Home Post

My cousin and I

In East London, South Africa, nothing really changes. Its a wonderful place to grow up and good place to go back to, every now and then. My house seemed sickingly luxorious in comparison to life on the yacht. I appreciated everything so much more, the electricity, the running water, the flushing toilet and the huge kitchen and the food! Cooking was going to be so much easier. With Florence (our maid) 3 times a week, a washing machine and dishwasher, me and Richard didnt have many chores. I couldn't believe how much my family ate, their meals seemed enourmous and I noticed all the food , water, and electricity that was going to waste. I was seeing my surroundings with new eyes. My home, which had always seemed fairly average to me growing up, now looked to me like a magnificent castle.


How we get around

It was so nice to see my family and there was plenty to catch up on. In the 6 months we hadn't seen each other, I had had limited internet access so there were plently stories to share! My dog went crazy when he saw me for the first time and didnt leave my side while I was at home. I turned 19 while I was out at sea so my parents bought me an hibiscus tree as a present, I was thrilled to see it when I got home, and it flowered for the first time the following day.


My birthday gift

Richard and I have been spending our time skating, surfing, missioning around on the motorbike and studying for his tests (which are now finished). We have been partying a bit and I am sure he feels pretty cool being surrounded by 19 year old girls all the time. My cousin, Castyn, drove down from P.E to visit and it has been so lovely having her here. She is my age and we get along really well.





Dad teaching Rich to kite

Rich and I have also been working at Jonginenge for a bit of spending money. In a week I will go to Jbay to help out in a backpackers and Rich will go home to St Francis. I can't wait for the next adventure :D

Part 6- Nearly Home ( the airport fiasco)

Bye Boat !

I quickly climbed up the ladder , onto the boat and down my hatch. I looked around for anything I may have forgotton. The simple, wooden cabin looked bare without mine and Richard's mess scattered everywhere. I became sad thinking about all the memories this tiny space held. It had kept us safe during storms out at sea, me and Richard had slept there , side by side for months. Goodbye cabin, goodbye boat...



The HOK

We got a lift to the airport with a very chatty tour guide who gave us so much interesting information about Trinidad, it made me want to stay there! Coen gave us each a hug goodbye and we were on our own. We encountered our first problem when we realised there was a R1000 fee on our surfboards, so I reluctantly drew the money from my almost depleted account ( I had invested all my cash in my parents business), knowing Coen would pay me back. We bought a few gifts and then hopped on our connecting flight to Panama. We flew with Copa airlines who we thought were very unproffessional. The plane made lots of funny noises and the air hostesses were rude.



Me with the surfboards that cost me a grand to get here

We arrived in Panama after a 5 hour flight and made our way to the gate. i got lots of funny looks, maybe it was because I was the only barefoot person in the entire airport? We got onto another horrid little Copa aeroplane and spent the 6 hour flight to Brazil, chatting and watching movies.

18 hours in Sau Paulo airport! what a long layover. We had a Big Mac meal for breakfast and then 'set up house' . We found a corner and then put our surfboards at right angles to form a 'hok' which we climbed inside and put our bags against the wall as pillows. The time was spent by watching series, singing very loudly ( I get silly on airport air), doing poi, making bangles and eating fast food. It was pretty enjoyable but by check in time I was keen for a hot bath and a normal bed.

We reach check in counter carrying a backpack, a surfboard and hand luggage bag each. The lady asks for our passports. We hand them over. She looks at Richard's Italian passport and asks if he has had a yellowfever injection. He says ...noo. She says...You may not board this flight but you can speak to the manager . She leads us to this little office and it feels like we are on Border Security!

This was such a nightmare! We got told that Richard was not allowed to board without South African identification or proof of a yellow fever injection, we had neither. His SA passport was in Trinidad with his dad, who didnt even have a phone. They suggested he stay in Brazil for another 2 weeks and have the yellowfever injection. 2 WEEKS!! Richards exams started in a few days time, we didnt have any money to stay in Brazil longer. We hadnt showered in 2 days and this was just too much. They let me call my mom to explain the situation and after balling my eyes out, I think the managers didnt want these two barefooted dirty hooligans in their country and by some miracle let us board the plane.They said we would have major problems at South African customs.

We were overjoyed! We could go back to the motherland! Running to the airport gate we screamed with ecitement and celebrated with alcoholic beverages aboard good old South African Airways. We had a wonderful 8 hour flight. Beautiful African airhostesses, delicous food and a wonderful sleep. Looking at the Atlantic from above the next morning, I grew sad thinking we just crossed the vast ocean in less than 8 hours when it had taken us 2 months in the yacht.

Travel buddies

South African Customs hardly lifted an eyelid at Richards non existing yellowfever certificate and I was so glad that for once something went smoothly. I loved being in South Africa. The Afrikaans accents, the black people, Wimpy, the airport was making me so nostalgic. The last little flight to East London went quickly and I became so excited as I saw the familiar city lights. I was excited to surf, to kitesurf, to see family, for Rich to meet my family, to see friends, to hug my dogs, for a real bed, a real shower. As the plane boomed down the little runway, I held Richard's hand, my 6 month companion, and sighed ' I'm Home ' .

Part 5- The last leg !



Watching dolphins

The sail from Salvador to Fernando de Noronha was horrendous! It was so rough and the wind kept changing so we had to continuously change and trim sails, it was a real test and i wished I was back home in a coffee shop chatting to my girlfriends. The last day however was wonderful and mild and we were escorted into the bay by a school of friendly dolphins.

Mount Pica



A Turtle I spotted

Fernando de Noronha was like nothing I had ever seen. it was an eco-friendly island that generated their own electricity and recycled almost everything. Most of it was a nature reserve so we couldnt dive without a qualified guide. The sealife was amazing and in one snorkeling session I saw a baby shark, a sting ray, a turtle and a squid, not to mention schools of colourful reef fish. We were now very close to the equator and the water was really warm. We also snorkled on a lovely old wreck where the boys swam in old tubes and through holes in the wreck. Everyone drove beach buggies and we rented one too, on the side of the road there were beautiful horses that I couldn't resist petting. The island was safe, lush, and filled with friendly locals and eco-tourists. It was 5 months since I had been home and I started getting homesick espescially being surrounded by boys all day everyday.


Beautiful Horse in Fernando

The only problem with the island was that the internet was down the entire 4 days we were there, and the boys needed to upload some schoolwork. Instead of staying there for our anticipated week long stay, we decided to head North to the Carribean.

Every night after we left Fernando was very stressful as the shipping lanes were really busy and saw a few ships every night. Everything else was going fine on our journey to the Carribean, when we encountered a major problem, we were still about a week away from Trinidad when we started running out of food and water. We were going to head to the closest country, French Guyana.

French Guyana. What a different place. We spent our first night in Cayenne, the capital. We went ashore to sign in, only to find that there wern't such procedures in French Guyana. The official at customs told us to be very careful and do a rotating night watch. That we did, armed with flairs, 2 tasers and 3 cans of pepper spray we each took a turn waiting for the pirates who never came.
The next morning we stocked up with food and fresh fruit and vegetables from the huge colourful market, there was a variety of strange exotic fruits as well as beautiful displays of fish. The population seemed to be mostly Chinese, the French speaking asians seemed a little out of place to me. Cayenne reminded me of Grahamstown a bit in the way it looked.

Isle de Salut

After we had stocked up, we did a 5 hour sail to Isle de Salut. It was really stunning and unhinhabited, we saw a child graveyard, huge spiders and the ruins of an old jail. It was quite an eerie place. We met a French man (who had a striking resemblance to Jack Sparrow ) on a little monohull. We invited him for supper. I cooked a chicken pie which was pretty stressful but turned out okay and it was a lovely evening.

It was back on the ocean and because of the doldrums it took another week to get to Trinidad. At one stage we were going so slowly we could jump off and easily out swim the boat, I think we were even going backwards for a while! One really spectacular thing happened one night. Daniel called us on deck and pointed at the water, there were dolphins that were glowing like ocean angels, dozens of them swimming around the boat like ghosts. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Movies! what a treat

We didnt have enough fuel to motor and again were running out of food and water, fish biltong(which I had previously hated) was now a treat. On the last day, we had a tin of baked beans for lunch and were using the emergency water. Its hard being a girl out on the ocean, I felt so dirty and ugly the day we finaly arrived in Chagaramus Bay, Trinidad.

Our Home for 6 months

There were plenty of Marinas to choose from but we chose Coral Cove because it was moderately priced and had a pool. We made friends with a lovely European couple, Tonya and Pascal, who had so many stories. We also saw Chad, who we had met in St Helena. Many yachties had heard about our robbery in Brazil and were all sympathetic. I loved Coral Cove mostly because of the dogs, everyone had a dog onboard and I missed my dogs so much. There were even puppies! I also enjoyed watching the pretty pelicans. We went to the mall and the movie house which was a real treat. The heat in Trinidad was unbearable and we made trips to the pool  very often. Daniel left a few days after we arrived and me and Rich left a week after, but first the yacht needed to be dry docked.

The dry docking was extremely stressfull because of the strong current. We got pushed into a huge wooden pillar and me and Rich were desperately trying to fend off as best we could. Luckily officials at Peak Marine hopped on and helped us out. We made sure everything was closed up and went ashore while a huge crane picked up the light 6 tonne, Grazia. She got a high pressure hose spray down and then got driven to our new home, in the dry docks. We got given ladder to climb up and I felt like I was living in a flat. We had a bit of a problem as we had forgotten to ask for a bathroom key and the office had closed. I dont think you want to know how we managed that night.The next day, we got the key, showered profusely, packed our bags, dressed nicely, showered again( as we had sweated so much already) and said our goodbyes. It was time to fly back to South Africa!

Very Happy Couple

 

Part 4- Brazil

Coen watching the Mink whale

The sail from Ascension to Brazil was lovely. It was great having the autopilot working , but it packed up after only 3 days. There was definitely something wrong with it. It was back to handsteering but we quickly got into the rythm of it again. The wind was mostly from behind and we used the spinaka a lot, probably too much, as one night the halyard snapped and the sail got dragged under the boat until we rescued it. It was torn so I stiched it up with good old dental floss but we were nervous to try use it again.

We were accompanied by a mink whale for a few days, who swam playfully inbetween the hulls, showing off with giant splashes, we also were graced with prescence of agile little spinner dolphins.

The last night of the 12 day journey, we saw the glow of the huge metropolitan Salvador, it took about 20 hours after first seeing the city lights, to be moored in Termino Nautica. We were exhausted and keen to get a full nights' sleep. But the night was the worst of my life.

At about 3am I woke up and heard voices on the deck, thinking they were offiials asking Coen for money for the mooring, I went back to sleep. A while later I woke up to someone jumping into my cabin, he was in his 20s ,wearing only boardshorts and had a huge knife in his hand. A PIRATE! I screeched, trying to wake up the boys (who were already tied up in their cabins). The Brazilian closed my window and my hatch as I continued to scream and then shoved the long knife at my throat, forcing me into silence. He ransacked my cabin, throwing all my belongings on the floor, putting my netbook , cellphone and some clothes in a bag. He was very surprised and disappointed I didnt have any gold jewellry or money, he laughed at my bangles made of string and shells. He took an interest in the pictures of South Africa I had stuck on my wall. His accomplice came into my cabin and he looked a lot scarier!!! He was definitely on drugs and was very rough with me, annoyed at my lack of possesions, I wanted my old pirate back. Pirate2 tyed me up with one of our sail ropes ( I thought he was going to rape me or tye me to the anchor and throw me overboard), when I screeched in pain , Pirate 1 loosened the knots a bit , smiled at me, stuck the knife in my face one last time and disappeared like a thief in the night.

I was in tears when Coen and Richard came to untie me. I was so traumatised from the experience and would jump at the smallest noises for weeks after. We walked around the yacht and saw that they had taken labtops, the TV, speakers, the Ipod, the GoPro, wetsuits, headtorches, sailing gloves and US$20000 ( the whole year's spending money). We stayed awake until daybreak  then launched the dinghy and spent the whole day going from office to office trying to sign in and then report the incident to the tourist police. Salvador was absalutely hideous, huge high rise buildings, people trying to sell you crap at every corner, dead dogs and prostitutes scattered on the streets. This was a huge change from the peace and quiet of the Atlantic.

Fire hooping in Itaparika

We slept one more night in Salvador, but alongside. The robbery was huge news and we had instant fame in the yachting community, the security guard sat right outside our yacht to help us feel safe and the marina apologised profusely for the incident. The next day we had a leisurely 30mile sail to the island of Itaparika.

Skating with Gean

Itaparika was lovely, it was quiet and there so many yachties there. We met a rasta, Gean , who took us skateboarding in the town square. We met a yacht who had a very lively crew of young South Africans. I did a fire show for our new friends which made for a great evening of drinking and telling sailing stories. After a week we decided to head to a more lively town called 'Morro de Sau Paulo'.

Morro holds some of my dearest memories. The town doesnt have any cars, the only vechiles are 2 police motorbikes and all the supplies are delivered to shops by donkies. There is a fun little point break which me and Richard surfed almost everyday. The town is a hub for tourists so there were more english speaking people, although our Portuguese was improving rapidly.

Fish and beer with Gilson and Raul

Doing Poi in Max and Christinas garden

One day a man swam up to the yacht ( which was anchored about 600m from the shore), his name was Max and invited us to his home that evening for a meal. He turned into a dear friend and Rich and I befriended his two teenage children, Fabio and Sofia. Max always offered for us to shower and do washing at his house as well as sleep there after parties, it was our home on land. His beautiful wife , Christinha,  was very sweet and me and her taught each other our native tongues. Fabio was such a great host and would always buy us pizza at his mothers pizzaria. We stayed in Morro for 2 months, we just couldn't bring ourselves to leave. The locals treated us like travellers and not tourists, we often got invited to people's homes for traditional meals. I got a free canoe tour from our friend , Raul and had free access to SUPs. The men in Brazil are extremely forward and all seem obssessed with me and my different features. I had marriage proposals and wolf whistles every time I walked around on my own. Our craziest friend was Gilsonio. He was hilarious, he loved food and women and was always planning a party. The food was always delicous in Morro, Gilsonio treated us to Moceca ( a seafood dish) and he also took me to a non commercial little pub in the jungle where we only got one option, fried fish and beer! The fruit juice was only servede freshly squeezed, my favourite was 'laranja com limao' (orange with lime). A fond memory is of me and Rich waking up in the middle of the night at Max's house, both with unquenchable thirsts. We ran down to the closest bar ( Me in a night gown I had found in the room), and ordered a fresh orange juice while drunk men and women drank beer and cocktails, we slept peacefully . :)

Richard was however very sick for a week or two during our stay there. I remember taking a ferry to Valentia ( the nearest town witha hospital), to get Richards blood tests. It was very ditry and I was the only barefoot person besides a hobo. The nurses spoke very fast and we didnt understand a thing, upon presenting Richards Italian passport, they rushed to find the Italian doctor, who was highly annoyed when he found neither of us could speak Italian. We finaly received the blood tests and everything looked fine, thank Goodness.

During rough weather, we would moor Grazia in Gamboa. Gamboa was not as touristy as it was on the river, there were these huge pink cliffs there were therapeutic clay was in abundance. More than once me and Rich rubbed ourselves in the mud and waited for it to dry before rubbing it off, leaving our skin soft and smooth. We also went for a really fun hobie catting lesson with an German man who owned the mooring we were on.

We left Morro briefly to sail to Salvador to pick up Richards' friend , Daniel, from the airport. We stayed in a safer, fancier marina but I was still very nervous at night. We saw some of Salvadors better side when we took a taxi to the beach and mall while Coen did some repairs on the yacht.

It was back to Morro for a few more days of surfing and partying with our friends. We could finaly start doing school again as Daniel brought a labtop up from South Africa, so it was time to work hard to get all of tasks completed.

Christina and I

We planned a day sail to Barra Grande, we invited Max and Christinha to join us and they gladly accepted. The day sail was going well, Max loved being at the wheel, so we decided to have some fun. We put some lines down inbetween the hulls and would jump off and grab onto them while the boat was undersail. You would have to angle your body to get to the side and then pull yourself up. The first time I tried this it went smoothly , but the second time we had increased the speed by a few knots and I didnt have the body strength to get back on, I was getting weaker and started to panic, there were fishing lines behind me. Eventually, a very annoyed Coen lowered the boarding ramp so I get on, by which time my bikini was around my ankles from the strong force of the water.

We had supper in Barra Grande that night at a nice seafood restaurant. The next morning Max and Christinha took a bus back to Morro and we explored Barra Grande. It was breath-takingly beautiful. There was a white sandy beach that went on for kilometres, framed by tall cocnut trees and rolling waves. The place had very few people and only saw one other surfer. The  locals were friendly and a young boy offered us a ride on his bicycle. The waves were small and mellow, just my type of wave , and there were dozens of breaks along the beach.
I was chuffed when a young English couple asked me to help them translate when looking for accomadtion, I later invited them to the yacht for lunch where I made them bread, we drank beer and had a diving contest off the bow .
The anchorage was huge so we decided to try skurfing in Barra Grande, this made for lots of fun. I enjoyed driving the dinghy with its 15horsepower engine, just as much as I liked surfing behind it with the longboard.

It was time to move on again. After a quick stop in Morro, where we said our goodbyes to our lovely friends, it was back to Salvador to sign out and see the police. The Police had found the pirates who we had given detailed descriptions of. They were in jail but unfortunately, the police only recovered a watch and a wetsuit from them, it looked like we would never see our stuff again. I was just glad the criminals were in jail, in a way I was even glad we had lost all our gizmos and gadgets, I had completely lost my idenfication waith posssessions. Without TV and cellphones, me and Rich had grown really close and I knew him better than anyone.

Bye Salvador!

It was a bitter-sweet moment leaving the coast of Brazil. What a diverse place! I had never imagined myself going there, and now it was such a special place to me. Adeus Brazil! It was time for Fernando de Noronha.

Part 3- To Ascension!

We left St Helena well rested and we were excited to receive our new autopilot part  that would be flown to Ascension from the UK.

We expected the trip to take about 5 days but it took 7 as there was hardly any wind the first few days. It was like sailing through a desert, the ocean was flat and we didn't see any signs of life, the most frustrating thing was the lack of wind. Although we knew what to expect, the steering was just as boring and tiring as the previous leg. I would bribe Richard to stay and chat to me on my watches with the promise of making him snacks on his watch. (he could also be bribed into doing his school work with the promise of snacks). On the last night, we had huge cups of iced coffee and both stayed awake for each of our watches to keep each other company, I dont know how I found so much in common with this 15 year old boy, but we could literally stay up all night talking.

Me taking a swim with the black fish

We arrived in Ascension at dawn.The first thing we noticed as we dropped anchor were the black fish that we had heard so much about. There were thousands of the little black pirhana-like fish, we threw some old bread in the water and they went CRAZY, they were flapping and fighting their way to the old mouldy bread, some fish had chunks out of their faces where their relatives had bitten them.

After signing in at the very friendly customs office, Richard and I went wave hunting. We had noticed a left rolling off the rocks just down the beach, and paddled ashore in search of it. We found the wave and it looked like good fun except we had no idea how to paddle out, there were rocks everywhere. After much argument we decided to paddle out in this little gulley but our timing had to be perfect, as soon as the set ended I paddled as fast as I could to the backline with Richard close behind. The black fish were here too and we shooed them away with our hands. Rich took the first few waves which were pretty gnarly, I was really scared to take a wave as it was so shallow. I got encouraged when a car stopped at the surf spot and started hooting and cheering for Rich, I took a wave and realised they werent as acary as they seemed.

Beautiful landscape of Ascension

Walking back along the beach, we saw Michael and Tansy, 2 kids that we had met in St Helena, they were traveling on a yacht called Baltic Sun with their parents. We all body surfed at another beach and got nailed by the heavy shorebreak. When we got back to the yacht, we noticed 'Sister Moon' had anchored near us and we called them on the VHF, they invited us to go eat on the beach with  them that night. We took the dinghy ashore but it was hard to get onto the wharf as the swell had picked up a lot.

We went to a different beach a bit further than the others , we all went swimming. I swam to the backline to avoid being smashed by the shorebreak, Kyle swam out to me and gave me a bangle he had made. Just then we saw a huge shape swimming towards us, Ascension was infamous for sharks and I panicked, swimming quickly towards shore, no longer worried about the huge waves. It was nice to chat to people my age and we all had lots to talk about. As it grew dark we witnessed a truly amazing occurance, baby turtles crawling towards the ocean, at first there were just a few but soon the whole beach was covered by the adorable green reptiles making their way to the sea. I was in awe.

Tansy and I, nice to have some female company

 
On our way back we broke into the public pool for a quick dip and a shower, the fresh water felt so good. Climbing out over the wall, we saw the police who didnt seem to notice our juvenille activity. We thanked Kyle, Alex and Matt for the evening and took the dinghy back to Grazia, onboard we saw chicken wraps in the kitchen that Coen had left for us. We followed the meal with chocolate biscuits and milk, what a perfect day :)



Ascension really was a week of bliss. We went hiking through bamboo forrests, caught a huge yellowfin tuna off the side of the boat, hang out with our friends from Baltic Sun and Sister Moon, went snorkeling, swimming and surfing, We made a friend who worked at the American base and gave us an Amberjack in echange for some whisky. The autopilot part arrived and we were happy that our handsteering days were over. Kyle, who was meant to sail with us to Salvador, pulled out, saying he couldnt leave his crew. We were disappointed but understood.

After a wonderful time at this treasure of the South Atlantic, we were ready for a 1400 mile crossing. To Salvador, Brazil!!
 

photos to go with text-St helena

Napoleon's grave

The Iconic image of St Helena's cliffs

Rich and I at the top of Jacob's ladder

Part 2, Leaving Africa

It was a frightening thought that the next time I would see land or other people besides Richard and Coen would be in about 2 weeks time. As the Namibian coast disappeared behind me, I hoped I hadn't made a mistake.

I tried to do some teaching but my student suffered severe sea sickness the first day. Richard and I took the first night watch from 7pm-10pm, we were wrapped in blankets and wore beanies and tracksuits. The weather was rough and waves were crashing noisily against the side of the boat, cautious I put a safety harness on and attached myself to a line. The autopilot hummed. We looked above us and about 100nm away from Luderitz, the stars were the brightest I have ever seen. We chatted cheerfully about the trip and the time passed quickly.I fell into a deep sleep in the warmth of my cabin while Coen took the next 3 hour a shift. A 3 hour sleep wasn't nearly enough and was exhausted and confused when I got woken up for my second shift.

A very creepy occurance happened on that second night shift. I was telling Richard an old sailing legend of how it was bad luck to whistle on a boat ,as it is 'calling strong winds', in the olden days it would often cause confusion and ships to run aground as whistling was used by the captain to give orders to crew and if crew started whistling it caused chaos. As I finished up I noticed the scared look on Richard's face and I whistled playfully as a joke. Just then the VHF radio crackled and the sound of another person whistling gave us a jolting fright, there were no other ships to be seen. We looked around us and suddenly a huge wave crashed against the boat causing a enourmous 'CRACK' sound , then the most dramatic event occured, the autopilot made a few weird slipping and squeking sounds and just stopped turning the wheel. Richard took the helm while I woke up Coen.

Coen had a look at it and said it should be easy to fix in daylight and we should just handsteer the rest of the night. Me and Rich took turns handsteering the rest of our shift but we both found it very difficult to stay on course because of the rough weather and the compass was hard to see. Daylight finaly came but after stripping the wheel , Coen couldnt find a solution to the broken autohelm, we would be handsteering until St Helena! OH NO! We worked out a system where each person would steer for two hours as anything more than that was unbearable. The 4 hours you got off at a time went by very fast as there was always something to do: cook, clean, eat, shower, trim sails and most importantly : CATCH UP ON SLEEP.

I found living on the boat very challenging but I enjoyed those challenges. I loved cooking on the quick and easy gas stove and becoming creative with meal ideas as our fresh food started running low. I experimented with making bread and the Galley Guide onboard was a huge help. The guys were always highly aprreciative. We ate well, Coen was a great cook and Richard could make uh..eggs. Most importantly we caught a huge dorado which fed us for over a week with sushimi, fish pie, fishcakes, boiled fish and fried fish.
 Showering aboard was something I didn't enjoy quite as much , it basically involved me and Richard throwing buckets of water over each other in our underwear, I craved a hot bath.

There is an on-deck toilet that I swore I would never use as everyone can see you doing your business, but I soon warmed up to the idea of it after I grew tired of pumping the bowl of the small, cramped toilet downstairs.


The 12 days we spent at sea were exhausting, the night watches took seemed to take an eternity and I felt like I never got enough sleep, but giving up is not an option when you are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We grew strong as a crew and all knew the boat so well. Seeing St Helena come into view at first light on that 12th day was incredible , and even though I was sunburnt and exhausted I was overwhelmed with excitement and me and Richard couldnt stop running around the yacht and taking photos of St Helena's magestic cliffs. It looked like something out of Jarrasic Park and seemed so unexplored, beckoning us for adventures. We couldnt wait to anchor and head ashore.

St Helena was like something out of a storybook with its old Colonial buildings, beautiful gardens filled with hibiscus trees, and their jolly friendly people who were all neatly dressed and incredibly polite. Our week long stay there was incredibly enjoyable.
 We noticed that our friends , Matt , Kyle , Alex and Aussie skipper, Shaun, on 'Sister Moon' were anchored nearby. The young crew invited us snorkeling where we saw lots of colurful reef fish and crayfish in the clear water along the cliffs. It was warm and mild and was so nice to walk around in Tshirts and shorts. Matt taught Rich to spearfish and the boys from 'Sister Moon', invited us over for a delicous fish and crayfish feast. Richard, clumsy as always, tipped his cup of juice over the Captains meal.

We went on a tour of the island and saw the house Napoleon lived in, his grave , the 'oldest' tortoise in the world, whose name was Jonathon, and the beautiful diverse scenery of St Helena.Our tour guide, a very young looking 80 year old ,was bemused by mine and Richards sibling like antics and was shocked to find out I was his teacher. In our spare time we climbed Jacob's ladder, a steep 699 flight of stairs which, Richard quickly clambered up, I ascended steadily and Coen completed with a lot of effort. We also visited the museum and were surprised to find Zulu chiefs and Boers had been sent into exile on the island, a beautiful place to be imprisoned, I must say.

 Coen took a last look at the autopilot but looked irrepairable. We knew how hard the sail another sail would be without it. Knowing our prediciment, Kyle from Sister Moon, offered to sail with us from Ascension to Salvador to ease the load, if Coen would fly him to Paris afterward. After dicussing it with us, Coen agreed and we slept our last night on the waters of St Helena.

Beautiful Hibiscus tree my parents got for my birthday while I was at sea.

The Trip- Part One

I really didn't know how I ended up on the 46ft, Grazia , but I was happy. I gelled well with the captain, Coen, and his son, Richard. Chelsea stayed for a few days to help me settle in then left to pursue other adventures. I enjoyed Cape Town and went to the Jazz Fest with some young sailors from a neighbouring yacht.

The matter of crew was a complicated one. Gary, an experienced sailor who had crossed the Atlantic an amazing 32 times, would be joining us to Namibia but after that we would be on our own. We needed another crew member, Coen found a young guy who seemed enthusiastic enough but didnt have the experience. The problem of crew was delaying our departure from Cape Royal Yacht club in Cape Town. I even tempted my dad by asking him to join us but he was busy with work and had the Ironman coming up. Coen eventually found JP a plumber in his 30s who had cruising experience to join us on the trip. On March 22 we had a huge farewell dinner and the next day we set sail for Luderitz, Namibia, with friends and family waving us goodbye. It was a truly exhilirating moment for me.

The trip was 4 days and went quickly with so many hands to help with sailing, cooking and cleaning. The weather was a little chilly but the wind was mild and sea was calm. I did my 3 hour night watch with JP and he seemed pretty nice. The tutoring was going well and me and Richard were getting a long really well, like brother and sister. I already had such a soft spot for him.

Arriving in misty Namibia was so exciting. After anchoring and launching the dinghy , we went ashore for some lunch and drinks. Coen received a hero's welcome , he is a sort of a local celebrity because of his diamond diving company in the area. Everyone was so excited to hear about his around the world trip. Gary left the next day and I found I had grown attached to the kind man who had given us so much advice on sailing and the places we were to visit.

We stayed in Luderitz about 3 weeks , I got treated to so much seafood as Coen's friend owned a Oyster bar and we were there during the legendary crayfish festival. I tasted oyster and crayfish for the first time. Rich and I went exploring in the desert , and Coen took us the fjord, and a few surf spots where the boys braved the kelp and cold water and I took pictures. We made friends with a yachty couple, Linda and Andy, and went for dinner on their lovely 'Corrimandel'.

We had stocked up on plenty of food and were all ready to leave the following morning, when JP hit us with the news, HE WASNT COMING. After spending 3 weeks with us in Namibia, everything seemed perfectly normal, Coen had even paid for his travel insurance not to mention all his other expenses. We were all shocked and pretty annoyed. He seemed to blame me and told me I spent more time with Richard than with him and that I didnt care about him, I was bewildered. He had turned into someone so insecure and strange I was glad he wouldnt be spending the next 6 months with us.

Now we would have to sail the 46ft cat with just the 3 of us and me and Rich probably wouldnt have enough time for school and chores, It was going to be a lot harder without JP but we didnt have enough time to look for anyone else. We got the boat ship shape , I wrote a very irratated diary entry and had a very restless last sleep in Namibia.

Part 2 will be about the trip to St Helena and Ascension. :)

The First Post

So, I wanted to start a blog a long time ago but I was pretty much technology illiterate. Finaly after about a year of thinking about it, this is my first blog post and every word of what you are about to read is as true as I see it. I will have to fill you in on quite a bit. Enjoy :)

I hated school, I really did. I bunked a lot and when I was at school my head was up in the clouds, thinking about surfing and traveling to wonderful exciting places where I could walk around barefoot in the sun. I faked stupidity but my marks were always really good. I nearly dropped out mid-way through matric , I went on a solo self-funded kitesurfing trip to Greece and while I was there I found a job in a circus-themed bar. I was convinced I could just travel illegaly through Europe with an expired visa, working in bars until I got deported with a free flight home. Luckily I caught a hideous viral infection ,from some or other Greasy Greek, and after long and painful hours in a Greek clinic I decided to take my original flights home. I had left it to the last second though and had to find my way to Athens airport, having lost about 6kgs from the illness and lack of food while carrying a huge backpack and kiting equipment, the best part was that the Greek transport system was striking.

This was my first taste of freedom, real freedom, and it was highly addictive. The last 6 montths of High School were hellish, the routine was unbearable, and it took about two months for me to recover from the viral infection. The day I wrote my last exam, school hadnt even officialy ended, I flew to Durban and caught a shuttle to Mozambique. I had been offered a job working for a company called ' Extreme Adventures' which was based in Ponta do Ouro , Mozambique, and had gone up to meet them. I had never met the owners in person , but had spoken to them plenty times on the phone and they seemed really legit. They told me that they had been operating for 8 years and they offered activities such as surfing, snorkeling, diving, tubing, sunset boat rides and quadbiking, to the public. I had no idea what I was in for. The owners were such frauds, they had only just got the business running and the only thing they were licensed to do was quadbiking! I spent my days fixing and riding quads and looking after their baby. Jake, the owner, was extremely rude to me and we (me and Lindy) were not allowed out of his site. One night the police raided his house and it turned out he didnt have the correct licenses for the quadbikes either. That was way too much for me. The next day I went to the beach and asked perfect strangers if they knew a place I could stay. I went up to a lodge/bar and asked about their rates, the young surfer manager said I could stay in his room at the backpackers he was staying at for free for a couple of nights.

So I stayed in Mozambique for a month. The lady that owned the backpackers, Sara, was absalutely lovely and let me stay for a ridiculously low price. I worked in her surf shops a couple of times and also helped out with stock take and the backapckers, she even took me to a business meeting in Maputo. I was so glad to free from ' Extreme Adventures' and its crazy owners , I spent my days surfing,Kitesurfing, painting, partying and hanging out with Saras two adorable kids. I got another job at a health bar, waitressing and barladying, but after I had trained up the owners' friends' kids, she fired me, on Christmas. After losing my main source of income and having my camera stolen by a kleptomaniac backpacker it was time to move on.

I caught a ride with one of Sara's friends accross the border to Durban, he let me sleep a night at his house and dropped me at Durban airport the next morning where I got picked up by Sugar Bay. I worked 2 months as a camp counsellor at Sugar Bay, a kids luxury holiday resort, in Zinkwazi. I got a new name 'Takkies' and had  friends with names like"Superga', 'Marble' and 'Falcon'. With a new name I thought it was a good time to give up old habits and quit drinking for a month. I really enjoyed working with the kids, I always have, and particularly liked teaching skating and surfing. I became more and more confident and got given more responsibility. Unfortunately my iPod, cash, some clothes, and blackberry charger all went missing from the staff cabin. I decided to go work at a kids Adventure Programme which was more enviromental than luxury based, in my hometown ,East London. I booked my flight.

I found working at Jonginenge very relaxing as I had worked there many times before and they didnt have the strict regulations of Sugar Bay. The weather was wonderful and Dean, the owner, was an old friend. After about 3 weeks of teaching kids about dune plants and how to bodyboard I got a lifechanging oppurtunity.

Chelsea, a stranger, had got my number from Sugar Bay. She had been looking for someone to replace her in her current job and had called Sugar Bay asking if they had any counselors who knew how to sail and would be prepared to cross the Atlantic. She found me. She asked if I wanted to take her job, tutoring a 16 year old boy on a yacht crossing the Atlantic. I said Yes. She said you need to be here tomorrow. I booked a flight.

The story of the trip will be in my next post, there is just so much to write about. Please let me know what you think about my first post and if there is anything you would like to know more about. This is a very summarised version and I have tons more stories from Greece, Mozam and Sugar Bay. Thanks :)