Last night was the night for my parents’ 50th anniversary party with their friends and family. About 25 of us were pulled together at a private home called Table Too which hosts informal meals once a month. For us youngsters, there is hope yet as my parents and their friends were full of energy and noise. We had a British menu and lots of wine. My sister and father made great speeches. Much fun was had.
Helen and I are off to my sister Sue’s place in Port Alfred today which is on the coast. Beyond that, we’re not sure what we’re doing.
Tomorrow is Helen’s birthday so, surprise, surprise, we’re thinking of curry.
September the 3rd is my parents’ wedding anniversary and this year it was their 50th. For some time we have collaborated with my sister to make a surprise visit to them on their anniversary. These days they live in South Africa which is not a small hop from Grenada. All the practical flight routes to South Africa go via Europe so we decided to build in a trip to the Uk while we were at it.
Briefly (detail will be added to earlier blogs) we left Grenada on Thursday 27th of August arriving the following morning. We stayed with Helen’s sister Betty for a few days before flying to South Africa with a stop over in Paris. In fact, it was three flights: London to Paris, Paris to Johannesburg and Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth. From there we took a taxi to Kichaka Game Lodge, a private lodge/game reserve where my parents were soon to arrive on what they thought was their main surprise for the day.
We managed to arrive just over an hour before them. We were able to settle in, wash and get ourselves ready before they arrived. We decided to wait by the pool pretending to be guest lying by the pool. When my parents, my sister and her two children (Max and Sarah) arrived, they were shown around the facilities. Quite hilariously they walked right past us twice without recognizing us (perhaps it was the tan). When they did notice the peace was shattered.
The surprise worked well as they had no idea we would be there. We didn’t have long before were off on a three hour game drive. The weather started off quite fabulous but, as is the case, it got quite cold as night fell. Things were well organized as we all had ponchos to put on to keep warm.
We saw plenty of animals and birds including giraffe, hippos, many types of antelope, ostrich, warthogs. The elephants seemed to be hiding although we came across a few in the dark including one large male in musk. We saw lion footprints in a few places but never the lions themselves.
Back at the lodge we had drinks and then time to wash and change before a very tasty and well presented three course meal. Helen and I both had crocodile appetizers which were not to miss.
We all had the option to take a morning game drive at 6:30. Only Sarah, Max and I went for this. This time we started off cold and warmed up as the sun rose. The dawn light made for a different show. We spent a lot of time searching for a family of elephants and the lions. We were treated to sights of lots of different type of dung but the larger animals eluded us entirely. We did catch sight of some monkeys unseen the previous day.
Before the morning was out we were on our way back to Grahamstown so we could stay with my parents. They have a wonderful home in Grahamstown and we love staying there. As they didn’t know we were coming there was a little sorting out to do but fortunately not much.
After a brief rest, Helen and I took a walk around Grahamstown to exercise off all the fine food we’ve been eating recently (and not so fine).
Dignity won’t be going back into the water until early October. We’re staying here in South Africa for two weeks then heading back to the Uk for another couple of weeks. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of Helen’s family while there.
Back in Grenada we won’t have too long to finish our boat projects. This highlights the frustration we had with our delayed parts order. We really wanted to get everything done before leaving Grenada so things wouldn’t be rushed when we return. Now we’ll have to squeeze things in and maybe delay a couple of projects until later in the year.
I’ve also added red text to previous blog entries to fill in the missing gaps. Click this link for all the recently changed entrues. For now, pics.
While my recent blogs have been, to the letter, accurate, they have also been misleading through omission. Over a week ago we flew to England followed by a trip to South Africa arriving yesterday to surprise my parents on their 50th wedding anniversary. All went well. We’re a bit tired so updating the blog may have to wait. I’ll be going back and adding the missing bits to all the previous blogs too.
Helen’s son John came to visit on Saturday staying the night. Not to miss out on the good food at our old local Indian restaurant we ordered takeaway to make it two nights in a row.
Monday was a bank/public holiday here in the Uk. Usually this means poor weather and long queues on the motorway for folks returning from a long weekend away. For us this meant a visit to our friends Erin and Robin for a BBQ where we were joined by our old karate instructor Ashley. We had great fun catching up and the weather was great for us.
We finally got quotes together for all the remaining bits and pieces we need sent to Grenada so at least that seems to be moving on now.
We went for a walk yesterday before it got too hot. Pleasant trails through woods and saw some old churches. Had fish n chips in the evening. The British influence in this place is evident. Being in England this is hardly surprising. Remember – when writing this we were pretending to still be in Grenada. We had fun writing these things into the blog.
I recently got my hands on a couple of cruising/information books for islands in the Pacific “Landfalls of Paradise” by Earl R Hinz and “South Pacific” by David Stanley. They were FedExd to us here in the Uk by Jess, Ben’s girlfriend. They should have been sent down to Grenada with all our other stuff but that all fell apart when our main order was not shipped. I have got back into reading and planning mode. The overall plan, as I think I’ve mentioned before, is essentially what’s called the Coconut Milk Run. The timing for this trip revolves around avoiding the December to March cyclone season in the South Pacific.
We finally have a rough timetable from Grenada through to New Zealand. The timetable has about three weeks spare time in the back pocket which we can add where we feel we want to stay longer. Passage times are estimated on covering 110nm per day, hopefully too conservative.
I have done all my calcs on a spreadsheet so the timetable comes down to specific dates. The chances that these dates will be stuck to are close to zero but the overall plan shouldn’t be too far off. After all, it’s not as though we can go back or divert a few thousand miles. There are also a few key dates we need to hit. In the spirit of not being held too closely to a calendar (for safety reasons) we need to arrive at certain places early to avoid complication or disappointment. It looks very much like Sam and his girlfriend will join us for Xmas in Panama. John will join us for six months at the same time and leave from somewhere near Tahiti the following June. We still want to be in the Southern Cooks for the July 11th eclipse.
So here’s the timetable as we currently have it :
Region/Location
Passage to (days)
Time in region
(days)
Arrival Date
Departure Date
Grenada
Oct 15, 2009
Los Testigos
1
3
Oct 16, 2009
Oct 19, 2009
Margarita
1
5
Oct 20, 2009
Oct 25, 2009
Tortuga
1
4
Oct 26, 2009
Oct 30, 2009
Los Roques
2
11
Nov 1, 2009
Nov 12, 2009
ABCs
1
15
Nov 13, 2009
Nov 28, 2009
Cartegena
4
15
Dec 2, 2009
Dec 17, 2009
Panama / Costa Rica (E)
3
43
Dec 20, 2009
Feb 1, 2010
Panama / Costa Rica (W)
2
53
Feb 3, 2010
Mar 28, 2010
Galapagos
8
5
Apr 5, 2010
Apr 10, 2010
Marquesas
28
17
May 8, 2010
May 25, 2010
Tuamotus
4
15
May 29, 2010
Jun 13, 2010
Society Islands
3
22
Jun 16, 2010
Jul 8, 2010
Southern Cooks
4
22
Jul 12, 2010
Aug 3, 2010
Nuie
4
5
Aug 7, 2010
Aug 12, 2010
Tonga
3
37
Aug 15, 2010
Sep 21, 2010
Fiji
4
37
Sep 25, 2010
Nov 1, 2010
New Zealand
11
0
Nov 12, 2010
We seem to have caught colds, would you believe, so it’s good to be sitting around reading. Still no luck on the internet order.
Last night was the night for my parents’ 50th anniversary party with their friends and family. About 25 of us were pulled together at a private home called Table Too which hosts informal meals once a month. For us youngsters, there is hope yet as my parents and their friends were full of energy and noise. We had a British menu and lots of wine. My sister and father made great speeches. Much fun was had.
