Expeditions have a way of bringing out a side of people that we might not see otherwise, and which renew our faith in each other time and again.
They bring out the selfless actions that expect no reciprocation, people that are willing to go out of their way to lend a hand, often at their own expense, because they care.
This hit home for us when we arrived in the Zululand Yacht club. After being assisted into a safe mooring by the NSRI, we were given a very warm reception from a family friend of Justin’s who went out of her way to help us get stamped back into South Africa. As you might remember, we had tried in vain for four days to get to Mozambique via sail power because of a broken engine. Alas we were forced to turn back to Richards Bay to get repairs done. We all swung into action in the Yacht club to try and get our boat repaired.
The father of a crew member, sped up from his home in Durban to diagnose the problem with our engine. We all sat with fingers crossed that it would not be a massive technical issue but rather something that could be easily repaired. After an engine dissection it turned out it was a fairly easy problem to remedy. The catch was that the part would have to be shipped from the UK. Thanks to a bit of help from the army of friends we were collecting, we sourced the part and then had to sit and hang fire for a few days as it was shipped all the way down to us on the coast.
© EAMT
The plus side was that we gained an extra team member, Rich, our new cameraman and Mike arrived back from a Tanzanian work stint- completing our full team.
At the final minute, and with a bit of gentle persuasion, we managed to get the new engine part sent down before the start of the weekend; otherwise we would have been facing an agonizing five day wait.
Late into the night, the ships engine gave a satisfying growl back into life. Sails repaired, crew assembled and perfect weather at our back we launched out from the harbour, heading back up for Mozambique and the rest of our team.