Calypso's Journal: Progress?

Two weeks have gone by and we've done a lot of talking and research but, so far, very little has been accomplished.

We've received a couple of quotations for a new sail; one well over five times the price of the one we had made in South Africa and shipped to New Zealand five years ago! The rigger has spent some time going over all that needs to be done but the size of cabling we require is currently unavailable in Mauritius so that would have to be imported from France (think £$€¥)!

On the positive side, there is a chap here who has a spare second-hand Profurl exactly like the one we had (who the hell carries a spare furling system around with them??) and he will sell it for a reasonable figure. We'd still have to get a few extra tube extrusions as our forestay is four metres longer. In addition, we need some things called link plates made of stainless steel which are no longer available and too thick to be made up here so we have to rethink how that's going to work. The immediate option seems to be to straighten and reinforce our existing ones. Not the perfect solution but.........

Before we can do any final measurements though, Paul had to remove the bow roller plate, the huge stainless fitting right on the pointy end that holds the forestay and feeds the anchors. It got bashed badly from the tow vessel. He worked at that for well over two days with a lot of blood, sweat and foul language, trying to wedge his body into the tiny cavity up front to get to the nuts underneath. I chose to steer clear lest I copped it too.

Nevertheless, he got it off and lugged it all the way to the boatyard a couple of kilometres away. It must weight at least 30 kilos so not an enviable task. A day later, it had been straightened and polished, he lugged it back again and is now busy fitting it back into place; the blood, sweat and foul language is back in place too.

This picture shows the bow roller waiting to be fitted back into position as well as the temporarily repaired hole where our Sampson post was ripped out. Not pretty but an amazing job when you realise that we really were in the middle of nowhere at the time.

In the meantime, I've been running around with paperwork trying to organise something acceptable in order to open a new bank account in the UK. Ha! The new banking rules and regulations do not cater for the likes of us liveaboards. Proof of passports? no problem. Proof of residence eg utility bill? not a chance! Proof of property ownership doesn't cut the mustard either, they want proof of where you are resident NOW! Let me see, "err hum well today, coordinates 20° 09,621' S, 57° 29,826' E, tomorrow, who knows. There's a certain level of frustration creeping in here. The bank suggested we get a letter from the Port Captain to say that we were here living aboard but we had the misfortune of having to deal with the Assistant Port Captain at first. We had hree highly aggravating and unrewarding trips back and forth until we finally got to meet the real Port Captain who was an absolute pleasure and couldn't have been more helpful. Voilá, letter done!

The friend who originally got us interested in the idea of sailing so many years ago, Clive, just happened to be here on holiday so he, his wife and daughter travelled down from their resort to spend the day with us. It was great to meet up again and it was an opportunity to ask a few of the thousand or so questions we have of life in South Africa since we departed. They obviously still enjoy life there which is encouraging.

The rigger is hoping to come again tomorrow morning to take the final measurements and we will be off to rob a bank to pay for all of this. If we don't make it to Madagascar, please send goody packages to Port Louis prison.

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