The wind is howling here in Luderitz, (Namibia) and we're swinging on the mooring like finalists in Dancing with the Stars. The surprising thing is, the wind is really cold. It's November, nearly summer and we're surrounded by desert that just a little inland gets to 40C. But this cold Benguella Current sweeps up along the coast from the Antarctic and plays havoc.
It's been a long time between posts, I know, but my feeble excuse is that my old new tablet died as did the company producing them so there went the warrantee. My new old tablet, courtesy of the greatest son in law in the world who had upgraded (thanks again Craig), needed an idiot proof Word-type program so I could write away without resorting to throwing it against the wall.
This is Sandy's area of natural talent and she found half a dozen to try. It seems this Polaris Office thingy is the go.
We got back to Luderitz last Thursday, late afternoon after having been away for nearly 3 months. Heiko, an ex cruiser who sailed with his family for 11 years kept an eye on the boat for us and was quick to run us back out to Wind Wanderer with all our luggage.
Even though the boat was closed up fine gritty dust had worked it's way inside and covered everything.
Sandy hasn't lost a single syllable of her fluent piratese and as the blue air returned to normal she did what she always does, rolled up her sleeves, grabbed the cleaning gear and attacked the intruder with a vengeance.
It felt strange to be back on Wind Wanderer again after so long. With all the wind there was a lot of movement and all the old familiar sounds seemed louder than before. But we slept well.
The next day Sandy continued the big clean up and unpacked, sorted, organized etc while I got the dinghy launched, serviced the trusty Tohatsu.... we hadn't used it in nearly 6 months, and took a run into town to grab a few provisions.
We now have a phone and internet, even though it's slower than the guys who work in the M.T.C office. This is the main provider and all we needed to do was pop in to top up some data. We spent 30 minutes waiting in the queue of 2, and then 30 minutes while they attended to our purchase.
But the good news is that we are rapidly getting through the list of repairs and preparation for our trans Atlantic voyage back to the Caribbean. We hope the weather will have settled by next week and expect to be on our way around the 19th.
I've just checked to see when I last did a blog post so I'd know where to start from and it appears I've done nothing since we got to Simon's Town in June.
It appears I've got a bit to get through so I'd better get cracking!
Until next time....