Our Very First Sail!!!!!

Since Our Rose was launched, she has been crawling with Contractors, we have been wondering if we would ever go for the "First" sail?

Yesterday, Mark, (the Captain who has agreed to join us for our crossing from South Africa to the Caribbean) offered to come and sail with us for the first time - what a wonderful day we had...

We still have no helm seat (who needs a seat to sail!), we still have no pots, no bbq, finishing inside yet to be completed, watermaker yet to be installed, systems yet to be learned and tested, BUT, that still didn't stop us from taking Our Rose for the "First" sail... and she performed beautifully for us.  We only had about 12 knots of wind and we were getting along at 7 to 8.5 knots (not bad for her first run out!).  She was also pointing higher than the mono-hulls out there (we didn't tell her that was unusual)...

Shacks...

We have been asked a few times if there is poverty in New Zealand...

You can imagine our answer to this when you think of what it is like here in South Africa - the unemployment rate here is over 50%, there are no social benefits and these photos show how many people live.  These "shacks" as they are known here, go on for miles and miles, as far as the eye can see...

These photos I took as we were driving on a freeway here in Cape Town

A Lovely Afternoon...

Last Sunday our friend Claire asked if we would like to go to Hout Bay and listen to a band, we decided to make the most of the afternoon and went wine tasting at two vineyards on our way there...

We had a really lovely afternoon, ending up at "The Lookout" at Hout Bay the view straight out the window is lovely...

The band were great, playing all the oldies that we know - and danced to - yes, a few wines were had by all!

Our Rose - Journey to the Water...

Thursday 31 January we were at the factory when the truck turned up for Our Rose, ready for her journey very early the next morning to the water...  You can imagine our speechlessness when we received the phone call from the Royal Cape Yacht Club - the crane had broken and we would not be launching Friday.

Monday morning, we got up at 2am and drove down to Cape Town, and followed Our Rose from the factory to the Port - "What an Emotional Experience!"

We waited for everyone to arrive, to find that the crane had not passed the tests and we would not be launching that day - back up to our course (Ocean Yachtmaster Coastal).  So, the next morning we were up early again and back to Cape Town - we had decided to hire another crane and launch at a different location.  Then the wind blew - up to 45km.  We couldn't believe it - however after a very tense wait, the wind dropped long enough for Our Rose to be lifted in...

We motored around for an hour, while they launched another two boats, then went back in for our mast

 An old tradition when a mast is stepped is that you place a coin underneath it.  We placed under the mast 2 coins.  A New Zealand coin and a South African coin, which had been given to us by Luca and Gia, the children of Adrian and Hayley Atlantic Sailing.  They had presented us the coin one morning, in a lovely bag with hearts on it - they were just gorgeous!  We then motored Our Rose to her 1st berth, where we left her to be commissioned knowing we were moving onto her by the end of the weekend.

These seals are right beside our boat

Strandloper

A couple of weeks ago we went to Strandloper (www.strandloper.com) - a very different Restaurant... it is located on the beach and all of the food is cooked over fires or in fire ovens - there is no kitchen  - it is very rustic.  The lunch was over a 3 1/2 hour period - all seafood (except the bread baked in the fire oven, with the homemade jams)  These photos are just a few examples, Curried Mussels and Steamed Mussels, Crayfish, Fish... in total there were 10 different courses.

 The tables are bench tables and bench seats, set in the sand.  We met a lovely couple who were from London (South Africans living in London)... we had quite a few wines with them over the course of the afternoon and enjoyed their stories and the wonderful food and gorgeous setting