Talking Heads

Our time in Maputo is nearly up. As I write, Neil is out on the boat with our Mozambican students, putting them through some final paces before their exam this afternoon. As the weather forecast looks good for a North-Easter, we will probably leave tomorrow morning.

Our last few days have been, as usual, a bit mixed. We got out of the marina at High Water on Thursday without much trouble, which was a relief. We anchored in front of the Clube Naval, which is also beset by silt and cannot accomodate large keelboats. It is not an ideal anchorage, being exposed to both the common wind directions here, but we had little choice as we had to be able to easily transfer the students on by tender.

The first hiccup was that John had to leave us abruptly, due to a personal problem back in Durban. We were sorry to see him go. He is a remarkable man, who has created a life where by rights none should be possible. His attackers placed a nine-millimetre pistol directly to his head and still he survived. His injuries were so severe, he even has a death certificate. I was brought up to pay proper respects to the deceased, and I am very happy to accord John more reverence than normal.

Friday was perhaps our most succesful day. We took the students out for their first real day of sailing. Conditions were perfect - strong enough to get the boat moving convincingly yet not strong enough to cause too much stress. They all enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

Saturday was a smidgin less enjoyable. The day progressed as follows.

• 4:30 am - awake on the boat with growling tummy, and definite signs of imminent African scoots syndrome.
• 5:00 am - wind picks up from south-west. Boat starts to pitch violently at anchor.
• 6:00 am - visit heads to dispose of contents of African tummy.
• 6:05 am - flush heads.
• 6:06 am - block heads.
• 6:10am - strip, don foulies, get bucket, sponge and toolbox.
• 6:20am - boat touches bottom on falling tide. Abandon heads to move anchorage.
• 6:30am - resume heads maintenance.
• 7:30am - boat touches bottom again. Repeat previous two steps.
• 8:30am - admit defeat. Seal heads unit, wipe up shit.
• 9:00am - go ashore.
• 9:05am - discover water off and showers inoperative. Cry, and want my mummy.
• 9:10am - torrential rain starts.

It goes on, but I shan't bore you any more. That, of course, is a fairly bare outline of what happened. I don´t think you want me to wax too poetical about the exact feeling of being wedged into a tiny heads compartment, on a pitching boat in 25 knots of breeze with copious quantities of African diarrhoea swilling around the compartment and more making its presence felt in my gut.

I finally fixed it this morning. The problem was with a component called (honestly) the joker valve. Why is it called that? If I told you what I had to do to fix it, you´d say "You must be f...ing joking!"

It hasn´t all been awful. We had a great meal out with our hosts last night. More of those amazing prawns. But the bad stuff is tending to dominate my thoughts at the moment.

Never mind. Off tomorrow, and hopefully a good downhill run to Durban. En route, I have to take some celestial sights to qualify for my Ocean Yachtmaster exam. Should be interesting.