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| View out the back of Taipan to Table Mountain |
We are in The V&A Waterfront Marina in central Cape Town. Its a great location right in the heart of a busy tourist precinct, so plenty of restaurants, pubs and good shops. Unfortunately we have mostly been too busy fixing stuff to really see much.
The seals in the marina are a novelty. We had 6 in a heap beside Taipan a few days ago. Very cute.
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| Franschhoek. |
We did hire a car for 4 days over the weekend to take a drive into the wine areas. Started in Reibek Kasteel with a Wine and Olive Festival but there seemed to be thousands of people so we had a drink then headed south to Franschhoek. Its a gorgeous area with a lot of very lovely looking properties. There are over 400 vineyards in the vicinity. We stayed at Otters Bend, a great little back packers right near the town. The vineyard resorts are very expensive but the Otter was very nice and cheap.
On Sunday afternoon, in perfect weather we went horse riding round the orchards and vinyards to Backsberg Winery to do some tasting. Its an old established vineyard, 4th generation and has the most beautiful grounds and buildings. Wines are OK but hard to find big bold heavy Shiraz like we get in OZ and like so much.
We returned Sunday afternoon ready to get back on to the jobs on Moandy!
We've loaded the new charts for the next leg. Fixed the Water-Maker,. Pulled the Prop shaft out for replacement, which has turned into a major pain because we were told they had 1 and half inch shaft material here to do it but they have subsequently told us they don't so we have to go to 40mm which entails a lot more work to install. We had the main sail repaired and replaced the battens which have been breaking and damaging the sails in big weather. Have new anchor chain on the way. Fixed the Antenna for the satellite phone. Done some provisioning. Gen set water pump is being re built. Fuel tanks are all clean and awaiting fuel. Have a smart charger coming for the alternator so we can more efficiently make power when we have to motor. The Power Dive Hooker has been fixed.The toe rail has been re-sealed and re-painted on the starboard side.
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http://www.capetownhorseriding.com
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Still have engine to service, new chain to stow, new Furler for the stay sail to install. The little HP Netbook is having Linux installed for back up charting and we are awaiting a Digiital Yacht AIS Transponder to be delivered so it will need installing too. These devices enable us to be seen by shipping and as we are expecting to experience fog in the future we figured best to have one. We can also see the ships around us and we are able to predict their closest point to our route and the time elapsed to that point. It also has lots of other tricky functions.
Anyway suffice to say we are flat out.
We may also have to haul out to complete the shaft installation and if we have to do that we will also anti-foul the boat.
