Safe from the bed bugs

Until recently, my life has been consumed by tying up work work stuff and preparation for the Cape to Rio race. In the process I have realised that I still need to get my Yellow fever inoculation, which is a legal requirement to enter Brazil. So I went to get my Yellow fever inoculation today.

While at the Travel Clinic, I asked about the recommended inoculations as my adventure will most likely be taking me into some dodgy places. The inoculations that were recommended include: Hepatitis A & B, Cholera, Typhoid and Adesol Quadra (a combination of Polio, Tetanus, Diphtheria and Petasis vaccines). Usually these inoculations are administered over a period of time and I have left it a bit late. I seem to be following a pattern with my planning :) I asked a lot of questions while at the travel clinic, so I’ll put down the information about each inoculation:

• Yellow Fever:   This is a once-off shot. It needs to be taken at least 2 weeks before entering the area. A longer time is better, as side effects include head-aches and nausea for 7-10 days.
• Hepatitis A & B:   Unfortunately the Hep A & B inoculation can’t be completed in one appointment. So once I get back to Cape Town I’ll have to have to complete the three part course (I’m currently in East-London visiting family for Christmas). Usually the three shots are spaced about a month apart, which gives a much more potent inoculation. In my case I will be doing a 0-7-21 day accelerated schedule. This will give me decent protection for about 3 years.
• Cholera:   Two shots to complete the vaccination.
• Typhoid:   One shot
• The Adesol Quadra combines the vaccines mentioned above. This is only one shot.

I asked about anti-malaria medication. Apparently there are three variations (including cost).

• Doxycyclin (Doxymal):   Taken daily, affordable
• Mephliam:   Taken weekly, affordable, but not allowed to dive while taking it.
• Malenol:   Taken daily, expensive!

Since the strain of Malaria might be different from South Africa, I have to do some more research before I commit to one. I was actually thinking of getting the medication in South America.

For more reading, go to the Centre of Disease Control’s website.

Cape to Rio is GO!

I have made little mention of participation the Cape to Rio Yacht race, party because it was a bit of a shot in the dark like the Dakar. It came up as an option for my adventure a while ago while talking to Sarel, a friend from VYC. The yacht he sails on, Ocean Cruiser (OC), is taking part in the race. I went to sail with him on this yacht in the hope of getting a spot on either OC or another. Unfortunately this particular yacht’s crew had been finalised. For me to be able to get a spot on a team I knew that any skipper would at least want to know about me. The best way was to continue sailing on OC. A couple of weeks passed, during which I submitted my sailing CV to the Cape to Rio organisers and asked around the club, in the hope of finding a crew to sail with. By this time I wasn’t very hopeful as most teams had been finalised. As with the Dakar, this too I had left this to late.

In order to keep my options open, I contacted Sarel (who works for a boat building company in Cape Town) to as about the option to deliver a yacht to the Caribbean. Once again sent my sailing CV. Time ticked away and I was thinking that I would end up flying to Buenos Aires, as originally planned.

Out of the blue one morning, I got a call from Dale (the owner & skipper of OC). One of his crew had to pull out of the race at the last minute…”are you still interested in doing the Rio race?” Keeping calm was my main priority at this point. That afternoon we had a chat, just to suss each other out. We were both happy that we would be able to sail together and so my position on the crew was secured!

Since then we have been preparing the boat. For the most part she is ready to sail, but some minor maintenance/repairs were needed. This includes servicing winches, measuring sails, getting the gas working, fine tuning of the rig and cleaning the boat out.

As we have received some sponsorship, a promotional brochure was put together. We have been sponsored a satellite communication and a blog has been set up for OC during the race. Unfortunately I will not be updating my blog during this time, as the satellite bandwidth is INCREDIBLY expensive. But go have a look at www.xtra-linkcapetoriorace.blogspot.com to keep up to date with what is happening on OC. There will be a link on the official race website to show the position of each boat during the race. I’ll post this link just before the race starts.

Good bye Tikkie

As I have mentioned before, I have been systematically selling my vehicles. I happy to report that I have managed to sell my KLR 650, after having to do some work to the engine (which I was not happy about). The upside is, I got a better price and Sean (a guy I know from VYC who bought it) now has a bike with all the problems sorted out. At least someone is getting a good deal.

I have been very hesitant about selling Tikkie (my 1966 Fiat 850). The main reason for this, is that for me there is a lot of sentimental value to the car. Tikkie has been around for quite a while, starting off as a post-school project of mine. I wanted to rebuild my first car, and that is exactly what I did. At some point my mother’s car was giving issues, so she drove Tikkie. And while overseas, my dad drove Tikkie and later used Tikkie as his wedding car. So you can see that this car made quite an impression on our family. For this reason, I wanted Tikkie to go to a family that will appreciate the car they have and is willing & able to properly take care of it.

Johan, a colleague at Stellenbosch University has been eying Tikkie for about 4 years and lately has been asking to buy Tikkie. For obvious reasons I gave my dad first option, as he had expressed the desire to rebuild Tikkie. Unfortunately the deck is stacked against my dad as work and family commitments made it clear that he won’t have the time to complete this project. So yesterday, Johan became the new owner of Tikkie.

Letting go of an old companion was difficult, but it is something that I have to learn. Selling of my Daihatsu and KLR prepared me in a weird sort of way.