Boats, planes, heli's and swells...

I woke up this morning feeling my age and every sore joint in my body, after having spent 12hrs on a bouncing boat on the NSRI exercise at Hout Bay yesterday.

I was up at 03h00, off to the Kommetjie base to meet up with the guys and then to cruise around from Simonstown to HB in a Butt Cat, from about 04h30, courtesy of my StatCom who was going to use it as the Press Boat for the day and he needed crew. Let me tell you, gusts up to 40knots at Cape Point, head-on sea and driving spray, it was not pleasant. In fact, we broke a part of the boat called the Bow Flair on the nose which deflects water at the bow. A huge wave crashed into us and decided it didn't like the flair and tried to break it off.

The rest of that leg of the trip was relatively uneventful thanks to a following swell once we got around the Point, and the dawn made it all that more pleasant.

Hout Bay and the exercise was great. Calm seas, light winds and warm weather.

The exercise went off reasonably well involving the NSRI from bases between Kommetjie and Melkbos, SAAF helicopters, Metro and other medical agencies and a bunch of other folks. I got some great photos which I have uploaded a few here. Our boat was full of photographers snapping multiple shots of everything from heli's, to seals and even the NSRI logo on the back of my jacket. One doos from the Beeld got seasick and didn't even apologise when I fished his cap from the water after it got blown off when he went up to sit on the flying bridge...what a knob.

After the debriefing, my StatCom decided to take a few of the landlubbers out to Seal Island on a jolly and, not wanting to sit around doing bugger-all, I went with them. That is probably the last time I go there. I knew seals are smelly critters, but the stink from that island would peel chrome off a pole. Sheesh...

After dropping the folks back at HB, we decided to refuel and head back to Simonstown as the weather was still nice. Little did we know it was only nice on that side of the peninsula. As we got to Scarborough, the wind picked up again and the swell came in hard and fast, again kicking up spray so that we could hardly see out of the windows.

At Cape Point, we went through some swell that made the night before feel like ripples on a pond. Without clear visibility, I was watching through the starboard side screen for waves that would curl and break just before they got to us so that we could ease off on the throttles and let the swell move under us. If we hadn't done that, the swells were steep enough to surf and we could have ploughed the nose into a wave in front of us, probably causing us to submarine and potentially broaching us to the swell which wold have just flipped us over. We were taking no chances, especially as the StatCom had his 9yr old son on board.

Anyway, the last leg from inside the point to Simonstown went off pretty quick thanks to the following swell and we eventually tied up at just after 16h30. I enjoy the ocean and being on it, but I don't think I have ever been as happy to set foot on a floating quay...

After cleaning up, I still had to go back to the base and pick up the Mazda-rati and head home for a shower before friends came around for dinner.

Needless to say, I am sore all over this morning, having held on for dear life for most of the round trip, so....once again, apologies for not coming to have fun with you at Sparks Bay. I hope everyone had a great time and won some kewl prizes...and enjoyed a few cold ones with some new mates...

Speak to you all soon again, though perhaps not for the next three weeks as we are off in a week's time for a two week stay in the Kgalagadi Park on holiday...