Sailing Saoirse - PLEASE LET US GO SAILING (EP 23)

WINTER IS COMING AND WE JUST WANT TO GO SAILING❗️ We are dreaming of the day that we get to hoist the sails and head off into blue waters, but instead we are cooped up inside while the wind howls and the temperatures drop. We are still unsure of when we will be allowed to leave port and sail back to Durban/ Ballito. Winter is coming and we would prefer not to be in the Cape for it. Ballito is our home town and we would love to have the comfort of living onboard Saoirse in our familiar surroundings until we are allowed to leave (hopefully by October) for our Atlantic crossing. This is all a waiting game, we are waiting to hear from our president if we will be allowed out of here anytime soon. Ideally, we would have loved to be in the Caribbean by now but for obvious reasons that has not been possible. We have been stuck with 3 weeks of a complete economic lockdown and another 3 weeks of level four lockdown (allowing only essential goods to be sold i.e. winter clothes, baby clothes and hardware store items, as well as the opening up of a small part of the economy) we have been able to get a few items here and there for Saoirse but most of the stuff has to come from Cape Town and with travel still not being allowed, we were not allowed to travel to the city without essential service permits. SO, we carried on. We are finishing all the little bits and bobs around the yacht that we can. We finished fitting our Dometic air-conditioning unit in the saloon while fitting a T piece fitting that allows some of the air to run behind our seating and is released under our stairs into the lower hulls of Saoirse - this will definitely come in handy when we do eventually get to hotter climates. BUT in the meantime we are using the heater on the air-conditioning unit to stay warm as the horrible Cape winter looms. Colben fits our crash locker hatches and wires up our light switches in our cabin - there was lots of swearing and cuss words flying around so we spead up the video and slapped some music over it so you can just enjoy the quick version of the process 😂 We are very happy to finally have lights that we can switch off in our cabin instead of having to switch them off on the main switch board in the saloon. Denver goes diving for some lost clamps and tools that fell off the dock while we were working - this was not an easy task considering the water was 15 degrees C / 59 degrees F. We found a beautiful bush covered in bees - we found it very therapeutic to watch while we take a little break. With no one allowed in the marina Sally the seal takes each day as it comes, often swimming and giving us all a show to watch through our escape hatches as she swims between our hulls. Stay tuned for next weeks episode - our first winter storm hits!