Day 309: Richards Bay, South Africa – 11/11/10

I wake up at just gone 4.15 am, again because it is so light and this is fooling me.  Mike is also awake and gets up to make the tea.  This is getting ridiculous.

While Mike uses the internet to sort out the whereabouts of our generator part, I try to go back to sleep but after an hour or so I give up.  Mike is no further forward with the generator – the parts have been despatched but we can’t find out the tracking number as no one is the US company has replied to his e-mails.  I am so fed up that I stomp off the boat with my camera to go for a walk.  I get no further than Crazy Horse where I join Matt, Bev and Moe for tea and a piece of carrot cake.  By the time Mike comes looking for me, I have decided to join them tomorrow on a game drive to cheer myself up.  Whether Mike can come as well depends on whether we get any news today.  We decide to go into town, or at least the large mall, to buy a SIM card for his mobile phone.  We are going to be in South Africa long enough for it to be worthwhile.

We arrange a lift, but have a while to kill before it arrives so we go for a walk around the marina.  We are surprised to see warnings about crocodiles, completely forgetting that we are in Africa.  I keep thinking we have left all the crocs behind in Australia.

Photo:  Crocodile warnings

Looking out to sea near the breakwater, it’s difficult to believe that this calm stretch of water was absolutely heaving when we came in.  The roar of the waves against the breakwater was incredible then.

Photo:  If only it had been this calm when we came in

Photo:  Zululand Yacht Club – our hosts in Richards Bay

At the entrance to the yacht club is a tree which is absolutely full of birds’ nests, with beautiful yellow birds flying in and out all the time.  You have to be careful not to walk under it otherwise you get pooped on as I found out yesterday.  Luckily the birds, and their poop, are small!

Photo:  Why all the birds choose this tree I don’t know

Photo:  There must be lots of mouths to feed

Ben, one of the waiters who is running a shuttle service for the rally crews while we are here, takes us to the mall on the outskirts of Richards Bay.  It is huge and very civilised.  We eventually manage to buy a SIM card although it proves pretty difficult at first.  The girl says that the regulations here dictate that you need a letter from a utility company to prove an address in the country.  I explain that we are on a boat and make our own electricity (I wish – generator etc).  She seems very confused by this and asks for an ID number.  I explain that we don’t have them.  This confuses her further.  She then asks for Mike’s passport which he doesn’t have with him so he just writes down a number and she accepts it.  It could have been any old number.  How ridiculous.

We do some food shopping and think it’s very expensive, not realising that the shop we went to is probably the Richards Bay equivalent of Harrods Food Hall.  Ah well.  The stuff looks delicious and I even manage to buy a tiny bottle of my beloved truffle oil along with some wonderful looking garlic and chilli prawns and some other lovely foodie stuff.  We also, very importantly, find an ATM and get some cash.

On the way back Ben tells us about all the naughty (his description, not ours) monkeys that are around.  He says that one will appear by the road and unsuspecting tourists will feed it then loads more suddenly arrive and it can all turn very ugly.

After a light lunch I start to give the cockpit a clean, hosing it down and wiping all the salt away.  Mike takes an afternoon nap.  I then go over to Chessie to give them some photos of the night before and naturally end up staying for a drink.  They have invited Crazy Horse and Ocean Jasper over for a raclette and drink, as they have never tried raclette cheese before.  I go back to the boat to get Mike but he’s still half asleep and doesn’t feel like going out, so I go back for a couple of hours.  It’s many years since I’ve had raclette – that was on a skiing trip in the French Alps, somewhat different to sitting on a boat on the South African coast.