November 13, 2011-Drive Across the High Veld

Drive Across the High Veld

Our red Merc thundered down the mountain at 145km with the silver VW right on our tail. Out of the Great Karoo we came, headed for the coast, and we could smell the barn, Port Elizabeth, where Wings was moored just four hundred klicks to the South, and we pressed on to make it by dinner time.

We’d flown back to Durban to pick up the car and after a wonderful curry dinner with the warm friends from Nepenthe and Windancer Thursday night we headed out Friday morning, climbing NW out of Durban up onto the Central Plateau of South Africa.

Up here on the High Veld the road flies straight and true and we watched out the car’s windows as mile after mile of low hills and waving grass reminding us of Eastern Washington or Nebraska, or Iowa, rolled by and we easily maintained a high speed and cut the huge arc around Lesotho and through the Free State towards Bloemfontein, arriving by late afternoon.

Religion in the Morning

A hotel, called the City Lodge, and a steak dinner at the Mexican Restaurant which has no Mexican food but does have excellent beef, and we slept well after our drive. Saturday morning found us up at dawn and atop the local viewpoint, Naval Hill, at sunrise, surrounded by religious Afrikaners standing on the rock wall holding bibles or replicas of Gabriel’s horn shouting at God over Bloemfontein’s rooftops in a language which sounded a lot like Hebrew to me but I guess it wasn’t.

Back on the turnpike, headed towards Cape Town, we upped the speed. Straight roads and few cars made us feel we could cruise at any speed the Merc was happy at and it seemed to like 140.

The road to Port Elizabeth branched off at Colesberg and we turned left and started our descent. From the five thousand feet of the Central Pleateau, where it was cool dry and we were glad for the heater, we dropped to 1500ft and rolled out of the hills which looked like Arizona or New Mexico, onto the flat and dry Karoo desert where we needed bit more cool air and we switched on the air conditioning.

Church in Cradock

We had lunch in Cradock, which is where we picked up the VW, and he stayed with us as the road took its final drop out of the Karoo and down to the green coastal hills where the sweeping curves encouraged the Merc to stretch its legs before slowing for the traffic on the coast highway into Port Elizabeth.

The VW turned off at Alicedale and we came on into town on our own by 17:30.

A good run for a couple of days.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Port Elizabeth, SA

October 29, 2011-More Durban Projects

Autopilot

wingssail imagesOur track


It should have been a 2 hour job but it turned out to be a week of work; par for the course for boat projects.

When we decided to put in the new Raymarine X5 Autopilot (after carrying it as a spare for several years) we found that one thing led to another: open up the autopilot hood and we found that we had to remove the instrument cluster. Remove the instrument cluster and we had to get into the main hatch. Once into the hatch we should sand and paint it.

So we did.

One week later the hatch is done and the autopilot is installed.

Time for sea trials,or... calibrate the new autopilot.

So we went out, did a few circles, discovered that due to a miss-wiring, right is left and left is right, (fixed that) and almost ran aground during the “Learn” phase where the auto pilot takes over for a few minutes, and got past that too. But you can see from our track that we went every which way.

And finally success! The old Autohelm 4000ST-GP was good, and was still working, but after 15 years, we felt we could risk the upgrade, and now we have it.

The "Bose" is Back!

Speaker work

Pierre noticed it first; one day off the Sumatran coast when the sailing was good and we thought we needed a little loud music we turned up volume on the outdoor Bose speakers (the Bose 251’s that the crew bought for us in Singapore).

Pierre said, “Hey, what is that?” They sounded like crap; very weak and totally muddy. We were shocked. I used to think they were pretty good. I guess the deterioration had been gradual and I hadn’t really noticed it or maybe I just hadn’t tried them much for a few months.

On the Indian Ocean crossing we couldn’t do much except fiddle with the equalizer settings, cranking up the treble and turning down the bass, so the speaker fix waited. After the autopilot upgrade was done this week I decided on a speaker upgrade too. A new amplifier helped but the sound was still weak and muddy so we took a closer look at the Bose speakers themselves. Once the covers were off it was obvious: they needed new drivers (sorry team).

Off to A-1 Radio I went to buy some new drivers.

The Bose is Back!

It took all day to rebuild the Bose speakers with the new “twiddler” drivers and another day to re-wire the nav station for the amplifier and the new switches but in the end it was successful. The Bose speakers are again good, clean, and loud; the ”Bose" sound is back and louder than ever!

Mercedes Benz Heater fun

Mercedes Benz

Boat work is constant but if you have a car, car work is constant too. The ’94 Merc W124 is a great ride but while most of the other things work fine the heater has never worked since we bought the beast. A few false starts on fixing it later and I finally got under the covers pretty good. Hoses off, wires ripped out, parts on the sidewalk and some new ones, heater solenoid valves (used) installed, a bucket of water added and a short hose, and finally today I rebuilt the heater water pump. I’m not sure what it was but now the heater will burn your toes. Finally I got heat.
That is good, however it is now late spring here and heaters are not much in demand. Air con is more likely the feature that will sell the Merc when we head out in January. Well that works too, like a dream.

Now that everything is fixed, we just need to get to Cape Town

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Durban