of this, that and t’other.

It’s Saturday and just like the last one, the sun has shone at full blaze. It tickles me, here we are in the depths of African winter and it’s hotter and fairer than a perfect English summer’s day. And such a nice heat too. And unlike an English summer’s day, there’s a pretty good chance its tomorrow will be just as fine. And its tomorrow’s tomorrow, too. Just as well, for this Saturday’s tomorrow is the date for the Durban to Pietermaritzburg Comrades Association marathon. A Marathon with a capital M that is – all 54 miles of it! Fifty-four miles made all the more gruelling because the route embraces a long, mean, (and meaningful) hill that goes on for- well, for absolute ever. And that hill is not near the beginning of the race, but is encountered only after the runners have already put in a huge amount of effort. The entrants are quite mad of course. But impressively mad. And the least we can do is offer a little moral support for their heroic insanity. So providing we can kick ourselves out of bed in time, we’ll mosey on down to the BP station where the runners will pass, to cheer them on. The main road beyond the BP station here in Gillitts/Winston Park will be closed to all traffic for many hours because of the race, so we’re sort of a captive audience anyway. All the same, the race, which starts at 6.00 am, is a huge event here, and captive or not, it would be a shame not to witness some of the sweat and drama (she says sadistically), since by the time the poor devils arrive at the BP station ( the middles and ends of races are always more interesting than the beginnings, after all) they will already have done a huge chunk of the course – including that wretched hill – so they’ll need every ounce of encouragement.

Moving on …

Bits of paper, red tape, rules and regulations … Well, again, phooey to ‘em all. Discovered this week that not only must we have a South African Day Skipper ticket to sail our boat in the marina and local waters, but also a DOC : Durban Operator’s Certificate. To get that, you must have completed an approved First Aid Course amongst other requirements. No problemo. We both did one of those back in Blighty. And a Sea Survival Course. But looking for the paperwork to prove it, we drive out to the factory and must rifle through our boxes sent over on the container. Now these boxes – ten of them, plus two large suitcases – we packed chocka with all sorts of goodies for our new life aboard. And to ensure we knew what was packed where, we wrote lists for each box’s contents. All very efficient. All very shipshape. Only somewhere, somehow, despite such bristling efficiency, we can’t find our collection of sailing certificates. Buggeroo. So back to the apartment and more scrapping around in the boxes stored there. No joy. Big sigh and sign on to Skype to get dearly beloved Heir (the equally beloved Spare is still in darkest Wales) – to check through all our files at home. Nada. Zilch. Buggeroo with knobs on. The hope, however, is that those much needed certificates are tucked away inside Dick’s Sailing Record Book – which is in Box no 3 in the container which we’ve already checked but obviously not thoroughly enough – which is in Gideon’s old factory. But we won’t get a chance to go there until next Saturday, so if those certs aren’t there, and we can’t find them anywhere else in the meantime, then … more courses must be booked and more time wasted. Not the end of the world but awfully inconvenient, soooo - if you wouldn’t mind omming us a little luck so we find them snucked away in Box 3 after all – well, we’d be mighty darn grateful, and to prove it, the next round is definitely on us. Cheers!

(NB: Lest anyone should object to our apparent scorn for all these bits of paper – I must declare in forthright, vigorous tone that we both subscribe to the firm belief that anything – even a dog-eared little squit of paper – that ensures more people go to sea with some idea of what they’re doing is, of course, A Jolly Good Thing.)

Moving on a little further …

Had to laugh. When we were deciding on the name of our boat, and came up with Butterfly (see here for our reasons why) – neither of our lads were very enthusiastic. Not zazzy or ballsy enough for them. There then ensued a lot of joshing about livelier alternatives. And that was that and we forgot all about it. But last night, checking out this blog’s dashboard section (where the blogee – me – can check out his/her – my – statistics and other admin info), I note that someone, somewhere has arrived at our blog by putting the following into Google’s search engine:

“Butterfly and Barnacle and gun running”

Honestly. I kid you notteth.

Falling foul of the law before we even leave port is definitely not part of the game plan. Running anything – other than before a fair wind with the spinny flying – is certainly not on the agenda. “Who are these guys?” we asked, “what manner of weirdos and miscreants have we attracted to our blog’s gentle shores?” Then a halfpenny dropped. Wasn’t Gunrunner one of those crazy, zazzy names that the kids had suggested in half-jest. And checking with BJ tonight, he came clean – that Google search was indeed son- the-elder’s little joke. Ha! Gunrunner indeed: imagine the difficulties of trying to clear entry with the police and port authorities with that loaded little moniker …

Oh how we laughed.