Savage.org.za

The mweb rot sets in...

I don't know if it is just coincidence that my tiscali.co.za dial-up connection fails to find my username on a regular basis and the web mail on my.tiscali.co.za is really really slow since mweb.co.za acquired tiscali.co.za who acquired worldonline.co.za who acquired icon.co.za, or something like that.

Unusual Sighting

Nicky spotted this bird in the garden yesterday.

Never seen one before, the closest match I can find is Redbilled Woodhoopoe. Any ideas?

Weekend windsurf report

Saturday 7:30am wake up and realize that the wind is blowing. THE WIND IS BLOWING!!!! Sprint around house grabbing towel, suncream, and other bits, feed dogs, cancel the squash playing, throw everything into the car, strap my board to the roof, ready to go.
8:06am arrive at parents-in-law to help them move some boxes....aaarggh, the wind is blowing....quick!

9:00am get to Bronkhorstspruit dam to find Julian already there, happily planing around with his 12sq.m sail. After I rigged my 6.6 Infinity, Malcolm and Philip arrived:"Where's the wind?". The wind had already died a little, so I sailed out into the dam to get as much of it as I could. This was the first time I had sailed since October and the first time the 6.6 had seen the water, so I had rigged it a bit too flat to get any power. Slogged into the middle of the dam...slogged back.

Second time out on the water after some adjustments was far better, and there were some bigger gusts too, so I managed to get the board planing for a short distance with a bit of sail pumping. That was good enough for me: I came, I saw, I planed.

By about 12 o'clock the wind had mostly fizzled out. Gabi and Roberto had arrived in the meantime, rigged some big sails but it was too late. Consoling ourselves in the knowledge that windsurfers where there is wind probably never get to do this, we paddled out into the dam on the boards to do some "surfing". Take it from me, balancing on a board that is not moving is extremely difficult.

There is still no wind to speak of and it's about 30 degrees, but like true inland sailors, we hang around in hope that it will miraculously start blowing. Gabi arranged a small rubber duck so the 6 of us puttered across the dam to the resort on the other side of the dam to have a swim in their pool. One beer fight later the we returned on the floating jumping castle to our bank, still no wind.

The wind never came back (surprise), but it was a pleasant day. I'll hopefully be heading down to Sterkfontein Dam for the first weekend in March (5-6) and I really keen to join this year's Langebaan pilgrimage in November, so expect some looong blogs about those.