>>>>>  First read about Gambit  <<<<<

Gambit was bought through a connection of Jeremy Bagshaw’s, and sailed up from Cape Town with him, Dad and Ian Cunningham. Mom joined from Port Elizabeth and so our first cruising boat arrived on Buffalo River. Here she was pulled out on the hard and given a new layer of paint, fresh coats of anti-fouling and a full reupholstering; changing her from a ‘boat for sale’ to our new home.

A special day in my life. Unsolicited and unannounced, my dad arrived at the slip way one day as we were hard at work, he apologized for being so uninvolved in our venture and proceeded to sand the teak work on deck with the vigour and passion of a man half his age. He clearly felt the need to be involved. Not a few months later i would be flying home from Madagascar, to watch him slip away after a massive brain hemorrhage. – Val

Over the next few months she was put through her paces and formed the first serious sailing experience for Mom. At the time we were still living at 16 Norwood Avenue where the normal routines of schools and birthdays, formed the main part of Dylan and my life.

On the 30^th of March 1995, weighed down with far more boxes than physically possible, we officially moved onto Gambit. I’ll never forget the first night on her with tinned sausages in tomato sauce and spaghetti, which forms part of my earliest memories. As kids we spent hours adventuring around the harbour, playing, getting splinters in our feet and testing out the new equipment on the yacht which would come to be part of our ‘toys’.

Day trips were slowly introduced to get us used to the idea of sailing and the rules that would have to be followed at sea. For the most part these were made to be extremely fun and positive, so that when the time came to say goodbye, we were excited to start our new adventure. Mom and Dad, equipped with great resolve and enthusiasm, set off with equally high spirits but somewhat more responsibility with the two of us barreling around in a few square metres.

The day we left, mom collected Dylan from Selborne Primary and happened to bump into Gugs Waterson, now one of her long term friends, who managed to coax out that we were leaving that day, something that had been kept from everyone else. True to our word we left not an hour later, during which time Gugs had seen Trish Sturrock (another close family friend) at school and passed on the news. Sailing out past the Yacht Club on the way out of port, were 3 figures frantically waving goodbye, Trish and her two boys, Bruce and Neil, had raced over to be the only crafty ones to see us off, that image is ingrained in my mind.

1995 Rugby World Cup was on in SA, we simply couldn’t leave as we progressed towards the final and World Cup Fever escalated. Who can ever forget that year, that victory and that Boeing doing a beat up over the stadium.

The Fishing Book Dad and Dylan started…

On the way to Mitsio, along Northern Madagascar, we somehow hooked at Sailfish on Dylan’s small rod with only 40kg breaking strength line. We saw a tail walk and that was the last of it. – Doug

>>>>> Travel to the East Coast of Africa <<<<<