Once a cruiser, always a cruiser…
After a decade or more of conventional lifestyle, work, earn, spend, panic, work, children in high school, then young adults, escalating living expenses, vehicles, more vehicles, phones, cellphones, more cellphones, insurance, people who don’t pay you, and so on… Something starts to itch, rather like a grain of sand caught in an oyster shell, and it just won’t go away. You become an armchair sailor, constantly surfing the internet and dreaming of the freedom of cruising. You forget the hard times, remember only the good times and so it was one day as I sat at my computer ‘working’, that I become distracted and ended up on gumtree (I have been called a gumtree addict). I was helping Kate to find a casual weekend job, using the search word ‘yacht’ as she was keen to do any yachtie type job, and this is what I see…
Then known as Papagena.
Something about her prompted me to send the link to Doug’s email address with the simple caption “nice???” The rest is history, within a few weeks we were the proud, if not shell shocked, new owners of a sleek and beautiful 44ft St Francis cat. Dearly loved, cared for and lived on by Heinz and Patricia from Greece, from the day she was launched in 1997 til the day we bought her in 2012, they sadly had come to the end of their cruising days with Heinz suffering ill health at the age of 72.
It is a misinterpretation that people who can afford to cruise must be wealthy. To the contrary, the opposite often applies. There really needs to be a mindset change, a MASSIVE mindset change, and that is what creates the financial freedom and opportunity to do it. We immediately put our house on the market, in fact the very day we flew to Richards Bay to fetch our new home we gave Seeff a sole mandate and left for a month. To be truly committed, one needs to cut the bonds (no pun intended) that hold one beholden, besides which, we needed the house funds to pay for our boat. Once the commitment has been made to simplify life, so the associated paraphernalia and inevitable costs start to decrease. The house sold quickly, the first and major hurdle accomplished, necessary but not so quick and easy was the disentanglement from all the belongings. How does one decide what to keep? Where to keep it, why to keep it, why did we have it in the first place? It plays havoc with the emotions, causes dissension amongst the ranks and inhibits sleep at night. But once done, how liberating it is, clutter and baggage disposed of equates to a freeing up of the mind, a commitment to the project and a clearer definition of the reason to go cruising…and with the disinvestment of possessions, so a decrease in monthly costs. Our lifetime belongings reduced to a few kists and boxes kindly accepted into my brother Vin’s attic and Jacques and Elmaries’ garage.
First Day we were all her.
Celebrations in Richards Bay.
So back to leaving for Richards Bay to fetch our boat, along with Dylan and Kate for the first leg to Durban so that they could bond with their new mobile home. Then Rob Walker joined us to East London, so great to catch up with him, and in Port Elizabeth a trusting Jacques and Elmarie undertook their first ever coastal passage in through the Knysna Heads, round the southern most tip of Africa (Cape Agulhas) and so to the False Bay Yacht Club in Simon’s Town.
Arriving at Simon’s Town on a beautiful day.
We moved onto “Katlyn” four months after we got her, on the 1st Sept 2012 with totally edited possessions. From here started the really hard work, REALLY hard work, punctuated by some delicious fish braais, trivial pursuit, walks in the quaint seaside town, home visits to friends and family, boat visits from friends and family, yoga with Anita, yes, and Jeremy. Whilst Doug started maintenance and overhauling of all the systems on the boat, I got stuck into scraping, sanding and repainting and redecoration of the interior. One starts this sort of project with great gusto, but truth be told, 6 months later we were both exhausted from the toil of groveling in small spaces, hard physical work, and endless troubleshooting, all along still living a ‘landbased’ life in a sense.
Along the way we have been fortunate to have had the input and knowledge of so many people, Dylan has spent hours on computers and Nav systems, and our fabulous yacht club friends have been great sounding boards for a myriad of ideas and queries. We are certainly chuffed with the outcome. The engines have had extensive TLC, we have modernized all electronics, Nav systems, electric and plumbing systems and décor – of which there are several pics to compare to see what we have done.
This included a trip up to Saldanha in order to haul to boat and continue the interior and exterior work.
It has finally culminated in us being ready to leave our shores, in every sense but one…how does one ever say goodbye to one’s closest and dearest? I can rationally understand and accept that Dylan is keen and completely capable to live his own life now, that our impulsive gumtree purchase has meant that he has moved off on his own, and that we will undoubtedly miss him way more than he will miss us. No rational thinking can compensate for the separation anxiety that wells up within as departure becomes imminent. It makes a mockery of the value we place on material possessions, they are just things, easy to sell, easy to replace. So Dylan, we will see you at Christmas, it is not so far away, on your new floating fishing home. We will stay in touch.
I console myself with the knowledge that we will have Kate on board with us across the Atlantic, and further if she wishes, with her energy and ‘joie de vivre’. Dave, this is your holiday home too, regain your strength, regain your vitality, it is our greatest wish to welcome you aboard for a fabulous fishing vacation. Mom, new horizons for you too, a fabulous opportunity to travel, not goodbye, just a different venue for your visits. To all our family and friends, thank you for all the effort you made in trekking out to see us during our preparations, you cannot imagine how much it means. However lives are so busy, time so fleeting, that we will see you all through facebook, blog or back home before you realize we were gone, or better still a visit to Katlyn.
It is Thursday, 23rd May, it is Mom’s birthday, and the day we are leaving the Royal Cape Yacht Club headed to Luderitz, Namibia. We were going to leave tomorrow, but it will be Friday and no sane minded yachtie leaves port on a Friday, so today it will be. It is 6am, Dylan slept over after a family meal at Panama Jacks. He needs to leave early for Stellenbosch and work or he will get snarled in the traffic, it’s a bleary eyed cup of coffee and a rusk in the saloon, a wordless group hug in the cockpit as the first signs of day start to show, his tall silhouette with overnight bag slung over his shoulder walks purposefully down the jetty, my heart aches and my resolve to stay calm starts to falter as we start the motors, loosen mooring ropes and head off across the harbour towards the bay. There is no traffic in the bay.
-Val
The plaque Kate gave Doug for his 55 Birthday, exactly 15 year after I gave him the one for Finesse.
Sailing Katlyn 