Archives by: JML Rotary Scout

Day 9-10 - Heading out again After rising fairly bright and early after a late night, boat maintenance was seen to. The sail was stitched up by Tyla, Wendy, Josh and Ewan, while the rest of the crew sent Kyle up the mast to take down the forestay for repair. While returning from errands, Kyle and Ewan traversed through Luderitz on foot, and 10 meters from the house where the sail work was taking place they turned to walk in a circle, ... Read more

Day 8 - Laundry day After the battle to surface because of chattering into the night and making Pro-Nutro in Ewan's mouth, the Rotary Scout crew decided that a round of laundry was in order. Lines were strung and threaded through our freshly dripping garments which dried pretty fast in the strong wind. A consequence of this activity was that one of Tyla’s favourite left socks was whipped up and flung into the sea- lost forever. That’s what you get when you make ... Read more

Days 7: partying in the desert On the evening of the 31st, we all went and had amazing showers at the yacht club - and got into our fancy clothes in light of the new year approaching. (For some reason we were uninvited to the yacht club New Year’s party - it’s as if they thought we were too young to drink or irresponsible or something, I mean really! But we didn’t mind, we had plans of our own). We had a hearty ... Read more

Days 4-6 Our spirits were high as the swell became smaller on the morning of day 4, and we were able to fly the spinnaker. This was very satisfying for everyone and we sped along in good cheer. This same cheer was amplified by cheese and jam sandwiches at lunch time. The jam was finished, but Kyle was determined to have a PB&J, so a hangry teenager spent a good few minutes scraping a jam tin. We took the spinnaker down and poled ... Read more

Day 3: Life Skills Today we learned many things, being out at sea. Ewan now knows how to peel an orange, and Kyle has had personal experience with disposing of toilet paper and blowbacks. Rory decided to share the remainder of his porridge… with Tyla’s pants. For supper we ate the last of our prepared pasta with butter beans, followed by peaches and ultra-mel. We’ve been eating a lot of fruit, and if you wanted to follow us you would only need ... Read more

Day 2 - The awakening After oranges and apples for lunch yesterday, the crew more or less found their feet. We reached the trade winds, but the swells were still reaching up 4 - 5 meters and all over the place. The sea is becoming progressively bluer as we head into the trade winds, and occasional sightings of pertrels, gulls, albatrosses, gannets, dolphins and flying fish. A few fishing and shipping boats have been sighted. We finished the pasta bolognaise for ... Read more

St Helena 2018 Bog – Day 1 After a good start and heading towards Robben Island and go round it, so that we could head West, the wind started playing games. It fell as low as 4 knots at times and the heavier boats like ours could only reach thus going one way or the other and not going anywhere. Eventually the wind filled in enough for us to get past Robben Island and on course of the waypoint we had selected. ... Read more

Cape Town to St Helena - Race Start Some pics from the start of the race. Read more