1 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
It was launch day and we were a little late arriving at the boat yard because we had to clear out of the apartment. We arrived to find that the travel lift was already being trundled into position to lift Alba. I rushed on deck and removed both forestays, which is very scary because the mast is not supported very well.
An hour later, we were lifted in the slings and they were able to knock away the props supporting the boat. One of the yard guys then finished off the antifouling, so we were ready to go into the water.
Yannie, who runs the boat yard is a little chaotic and I had to ask for the bill. When he produced his figures, it was roughly what I expected, but he’d not charged us for 4 tins of antifoul paint and the work on the new cutlass bearing. I was an honest Indian and pointed out his error, which added an extra £450 onto my bill, but he gave me a £50 discount for being honest.
Yannie has a policy of “No Cash, No Splash” and wanted the bill paid before he would launch us. To make matters worse, he doesn’t take credit cards and wants cash. It was a bit unreasonable, especially because he only gave me the bill one hour before we went into the water and, with a bill of £1,000, there was no way that we could get our hands on that much cash without getting our credit cards blocked. We came to a compromise that I’d pay him 50% now and 50% tomorrow.
The launch went very smoothly and we motored into our marina berth, happy to be afloat. It was boiling hot in the afternoon, so we only managed to replace the forestays and do a bit of tidying up, before we collapsed in the heat. We went to the Friday Braai evening with “Full Circle” and treated ourselves to a huge T-bone steak and a bottle of wine.
2 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
After breakfast, before the wind picked up too much, we fitted the genoa and staysail. I then poured three jerry cans of diesel into the tanks while Glenys continued to tidy up the boat and put the carpets back down - it feels like home again.
We’re hoping to get a weather window to leave Richards Bay in the middle of the week, so Glenys wanted to re-provision with enough food to last us for a month until we get to Cape Town. While she was wandering around the supermarket, I did a couple of runs to the garage to get more diesel and we now have a full fuel tank and full cupboards.
In the evening, we went to the bar for dinner and met Svein and Irene from “LovindaToo”. Svein plays guitar, so we ended up on their boat playing guitar until midnight.
3 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
We had a slow start to the day being slightly worse for wear after drinking too much red wine last night. I worked on my blog while Glenys quietly browsed the internet. The weather here is amazing. At 09:00, it was blue skies with a gentle north-east wind. At 10:00, the wind suddenly switched to 25 knots from the south-west causing us to jump up and sort out our mooring lines.
Des Cason came for a visit, so a lot of cruisers turned up at lunch time to say hello and thank him for his weather forecasting. We had a Sunday lunch and couple of beers and then chilled out for the rest of the day. In the evening, the strong south-west winds were accompanied by a terrific thunderstorm with huge bolts of lightning - I'm glad we're not out at sea.
4 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
The weather looks good for us to leave Richards Bay on Thursday 7th. The south-west winds should weaken overnight, but Tues/Wed will be raining and unsettled with thunderstorms (yuk), whereas Thursday looks like pleasant weather. It’s 340 miles to East London, but with the 2-3 knots of current from Durban onward, we should be there on Saturday midday, at least 24 hours before the next southerly rolls through.
Some boats are keen to try to get to Cape Town in one passage, but it’s 1,000 miles and we're not in any hurry. We’re planning to do smaller, two day sails and stop in various ports to have a look around.
We went to do a booze run in the morning and stocked up with enough wine to sink a small ship. The rest of the day was spent doing admin - I had to do our Tax Returns and Glenys read up on future destinations. It threw it down in the late afternoon and in the evening, we had a terrific thunderstorm, so we didn’t bother to go for a barbecue and stayed in to watch a movie.
5 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
It was a miserable rainy morning, but the weather still looks good for departure on the 7th. The next southerly is due to arrive a bit earlier on Saturday night, but it will be light winds until Sunday morning, so fingers crossed.
Before we leave Richards Bay, we have to get a domestic clearance, which is called a “Flight Plan”. There’s quite a bit of paperwork and we have to get stamps from the Yacht Club, Immigration, Customs and Port Police before the documents are sent to Port Control to give us permission to leave.
The coast from here to Cape Town is notorious for violent storms and one of the main purposes of the Flight Plan is to monitor the progress of yachts to ensure that they are safe. We put Cape Town as our destination with East London, Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay and Simons Town as intermediate destinations.
They want expected dates as well, so I invented some rough dates just to get the paperwork finished. Whenever we depart a port, I believe that the port control officer will issue a modified expected time of arrival to the next port.
We started at the Yacht Club, where we paid our bill up to date. They stamped the paperwork stating that we have no outstanding debts and sent us off to Immigration, which is in town. Thankfully we still had a car and found Immigration at the end of a small alley to the left of the Home Affairs office near the Boardwalk Shopping Mall.
Immigration quickly gave us the necessary clearance, but wanted to know why we were clearing out today when we weren’t going to leave until the 7th. I told them that we might go tomorrow and they seemed happy with that. I’m told that the clearance only lasts for 36 hours after the first stamp, so I started to tell the other officials that we were leaving tomorrow.
The Customs office is also in town, so we were soon finsihed with them and on our way to the Port Police, who are based in the main building of Tuzi Gazi on the second floor. They took copies of our paperwork and stamped various pages, so we’re good to go. The whole process only took a couple of hours.
While we were in Tuzi Gazi, we stopped by and chatted to a few friends on other boats - there are about a dozen international yachts moored alongside the concrete docks.
In the afternoon, we pottered about doing a few jobs - I fixed the remote handset for our VHF radio and finished off the holding tank job. I also checked the steering cables because I’ve had them undone a few times over the past three weeks.
After going to the bar for a few beers, Glenys made Bobotie for dinner - this is a traditional South African meal made from minced meat with an egg custard topping. It was nice, but it was a little bit too sweet - apparently it has apricot jam, fruit chutney and raisins in the recipe, which is a little odd to our European palate.
6 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
It threw it down during the night and only stopped raining in the afternoon. The early morning forecast showed that the weather window to East London has closed up even more and the wind is now forecast to be W10 on Saturday at 06:00 and SW20 by Saturday 12:00. The south-west winds are caused by a small low that is forming off the coast. If we leave at 05:00 tomorrow, then we will have 54 hours to get to East London, which is 330 miles at an average of 6.1 knots.
We’re hoping to catch a strong 2-3 knot current after Durban, so on the last 250 miles, we should be able to average 8 knots, but the first 80 miles will be at 6 knots. So if all goes well, it should take us 13.3 hours to Durban and 31.2 hours from Durban to East London, arriving at 02:30 early on Saturday morning. However, if something goes wrong or the weather window closes, we’ll get a battering.
We took the hire car back in the morning and finished off our clearance documentation, which the Yacht Club emailed to the Port Captain. I pottered around doing a few last minute jobs, replacing the preventer ropes, and checking the deck equipment. I also checked the engine and found that some coolant is leaking from around the radiator cap spigot. It’s only a very slight leak, so I cleaned it all up and applied a fillet of JB Weld Epoxy to seal it.
When we were hauled out of the water, I realigned the engine. I was a little concerned that the hull might have flexed when going back into the water, so I undid the coupling bolts and checked the engine alignment - thankfully it all looks good. The only thing to worry about now is that I have a slight leak on the sea water pump, which I want to get fixed in Cape Town - I’ll have to keep an eye on it.
Everything was going to plan until I downloaded a new weather forecast in the afternoon. This showed that the low pressure area is forecast to be stronger and the southerlies will hit East London five hours earlier at 07:00. This reduces our weather window to 50 hours, which is very tight. We’re also concerned that the trend that the low pressure area is intensifying, so we decided to stay in Richards Bay until next week.
We went out to the Yacht Club bar in the evening, with a great load off our minds.
7 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
It was a dull morning with light rain, so we pottered about tidying up. In the afternoon, it brightened up and we had a pleasant 10 knot wind from the ESE, so we took the boat out for a sea trial.
We’ve done a lot of work on the stern gear and the rudder - I’ve filed anti-singing edges on the propeller; we have a new bearing at the bottom of the rudder; we have a new cutlass bearing; I’ve had the steering cables on and off several times; I’ve had the steering wheel bearing assembly in pieces; and I’ve realigned the engine. Not to mention that we’ve had both forestays off and have the sails repaired.
After calling Port Control to inform them we were doing sea trials, we went out to the main ship channel through the port and motored up and down. Glenys ran the engine at a whole range of revs, from tick-over up to the maximum of 3,500, while I watched the engine and stern gland for any sign of vibrations.
The engine ran very smooth at all revs and there was no sound of cavitation or singing from the propeller, so the propeller appears to be in balance and the engine looks to be well aligned. We pulled all of the sails out to check them and then returned to the marina, happy that everything works - we’ll have more confidence in the boat when we finally venture out of port.
In the evening, “Red Herring” came around and helped us to eat the huge pork stew that Glenys had cooked up for our meals for the first two days at sea.
8 December 2017 St Lucia, South Africa
It was a lovely sunny day and we regret not being at sea, but the southerly is going to hit East London at 06:00 tomorrow, so we’d have only just made it and if something had gone wrong…
The next opening seems to be on Monday 11th, but there are lots of little lows popping off the coast at Port Elizabeth, so we’re not sure how far we could get. We think that we’ll at least head down to Durban.
To allay the boredom, we hired a little car again and drove to St Lucia, where we checked into a lovely Bed & Breakfast place called “Lodge Afrique”. We then went for a drive around the western coast of the St Lucia Game Park. There weren’t many animals in the southern part, despite going down a couple of gravel road loops, but things improved when we got to the most northern loop road, where we saw WhiteRhino, Giraffe, Cape Buffalo, BlueWildebeest, Impala, Nyala, Warthogs, etc.
In the evening, we walked to one of restaurants on the main road and had two enormous meals. Glenys had Bobotie, so she now knows what it tastes like and has modified her recipe - the minced meat needs to be courser and she's reducing the much sweetness.
9 December 2017 St Lucia, South Africa
We were up fairly early to go horse riding at 08:00. Again we had a fabulous time, riding in the Game Park amongst Zebra, Wildebeest, Warthogs and Impala. It’s amazing how close you can get to these wild animals when sat on a horse.
It was only a two hour ride, so we went into the eastern side of the St Lucia Game Park and drove around for a couple of hours, spotting the usual plains animals. By midday, it was getting very hot and the animals were getting scarce, so we retired to a restaurant in town and had some salmon sushi for lunch - very decadent.
By three o’clock, we were back on Alba, where it was blisteringly hot under a cloudless sky with strong north-east winds. At 17:00, the wind suddenly switched to SW20 as the next front came through and by dark, it was raining and blustery.
10 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
It was a grey day with strong south-west winds, so we pottered about after breakfast and went to the cinema later in the morning to watch Justice League in 3D. It only cost 89 Rands (£4.50) each including a new pair of 3D glasses, which is a bargain compared to paying £12 each in the UK.
The weather forecast for the next week is terrible with small lows coming through causing the wind to switch to the south and back to the north every 24 hours. There’s no chance of getting to East London, so Glenys spent the afternoon looking to see if we can arranged to go horse riding for a few days next week.
In the late afternoon, I went to “Frieda” and played guitar with Frank, Karen from “Red Herring” and Swien from “LovindaToo”.
11 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
With no hope of departing for the next four days, we decided to renew the hire car. They refused to do it over the phone, so we drove to the airport. We had to pay a more expensive “local” rate, but it was still only £15 per day. On the way back, we ran a few errands at the Boardwalk Shopping Mall. It's a nice time of year to drive around South Africa because the flame-red Flambouyant Trees are blooming alongside the roads.
Back at the boat, Glenys finished off investigating horse-riding centres and managed to book us a couple of days later in the week. In the evening, we went to the usual Monday night Bring-Your-Own Braai at the yacht club and had a natter with “Red Herring”.
12 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
Not much to do waiting to go horse riding tomorrow, so we pottered about on the boat. I managed to sort out our satellite phone contract. We still have 184 minutes left on our phone, but the contract terminates on the 17th December.
To keep the existing minutes, I had two choices - buy another block of minutes or pay £50 per month to extend the current contract. A six month contract gives me 200 minutes for £460 whereas a 12 month contract gives me 500 minutes for £640. Confused yet? I decided to extend for 3 months, which costs £150, but will get us to St Helena.
I had a problem with paying the satellite company, who are based in Malaysia. Our UK bank takes up to 7 days to transfer international funds and if the funds don’t arrive before the 15th then I will lose my minutes. Fortunately, our friends Carlos and Sarah on “Sea Monkey” are in Penang and Carlos has paid the money directly into the satellite company’s bank account.
I then had to transfer funds to Carlos’s Australian bank account. Carlos told me about a really good money transfer service called “TransferWise.com”. You go on-line, type in the recipient’s bank details, enter your credit card details and the money is put into the recipient’s bank account within 2-3 days. It’s so quick and easy.
Another plus to the TransferWise service is that they guarantee that a fixed amount will go into the Recipient’s Bank account - funds from our UK bank often arrive with some deductions for “local fees and currency exchange rates”, which causes massive problems when a supplier is waiting for a payment for goods or services. I’ll be using them again.
13 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
We were up early to drive 70 miles to the Redwoods Riding Centre, just south of Durban. They took us on a 2 hour “out-ride”, which was mostly walking along muddy trails in between sugar cane fields. We did a few trots and a couple of canters, but the other people in the group were total beginners, so there was a lot of waiting about because they had to walk. However, it was a pleasant ride and only cost £20 each.
We popped into Ballito, a nearby seaside town, to have a very filling Fish and Chip lunch, sat in a restaurant over looking the beach. In the afternoon, we had a one hour lesson as part of a small group, which really showed how bad our riding skills are. My horse was very bloody-minded and refused to do anything unless I gave it the correct signals – I had no chance when trying to canter.
We drove back to the marina and had dinner in the bar. We shared an Eisbein, which was the special of the day and it was much better than the first one we had a few weeks ago – this time the outside was nice and crispy. We were knackered after our long day and were in bed just after eight o'clock.
14 December 2017 Richards Bay, South Africa
It was another early start to get to the Horse Riding Centre by 08:30. They took us on a slightly different route today, which was even more muddy than yesterday. The guide was a young lady who obviously hadn’t taken out many groups. Again, we had inexperienced people in the group and I virtually had to plead to get one short trot and a short canter – I was a grumpy bear.
We had another long lunch at Ballito this time in an Italian restaurant overlooking the beach – I could get used to doing this every day. In the afternoon, we had another hour-long group lesson. My horse today was a little more tolerant and gave me some nice canters, whereas Glenys’ wouldn’t canter at all for her. We obviously need more lessons.
Towards the end of the lesson, we did some jumping. The instructor put up cross poles which were all of 1 foot high. The rest of the class (mostly little girls) had no problems in getting their horse to trot over the poles. My horse loved jumping and was very excited, wanting to break into a canter and “go for it”. I’ve never done any jumping and never been told what to do... It was inevitable.
I carefully controlled the horse in a trot until we were 10 metres from the jump. The horse broke into a canter, in a blind panic I tried to slow the horse, pulled too hard on the reins and the horse skidded to a halt in front of the jump - I flew over it’s neck onto the ground. It was the first time that I’ve fallen from a horse, but fortunately 15 years of skydiving has taught me how to land on the ground and I didn’t injure myself. I got back on the horse and survived the next two jumps. We definitely need more tuition.
15 December 2017 Richards Bay to Durban (Day 1)
The weather forecast doesn’t show any long patches of NE winds for the next 14 days, just a set of short 48 hour windows. There’s a window today, so we made a snap decision to head off to Durban, which is only 80 miles away. We’ll just have to spend the next few weeks hopping from port to port along the coast. Who knows where we’ll be for Christmas Day.
I jumped in the car at 09:00 and drove around to get a new Flight Plan stamped by Immigration, Customs and the Port Police. It all went smoothly and I was back at the boat an hour later. We zipped to the supermarket to buy some last minute fresh provisions and then dropped the car off at the airport.
A taxi dropped us back at marina just before 12:00; we finished off paying our marina bill, tidied the boat and filled up with water. After saying goodbye to a few friends, we left Richards Bay at 14:00. We’d emailed the marina in Durban and were pleased to get an email back allocating us a berth there.
When we motored out of the harbour, there was a 3 metre swell coming from the south. It was a gentle swell, but steep at the harbour entrance. Once clear of the shipping channel, we bore away and headed south-west on a beam reach. The wind gradually increased and backed, so I poled the genoa out to port and we rolled off down wind.
By nightfall, we had 20-25 knots from the North-east, which confused the swell from the south and made it a horrible corkscrew motion. I tried to read a book on my 7-10 watch, but the horrible motion was making me queasy - the seven weeks away from sailing has affected my sea legs. Unfortunately the wind continued to increase giving us gusts of 35 knots making the roiling sea worse. I could only pop down below for 30 seconds to check the AIS for ships before having to bolt back into the cockpit to nibble a Ginger Biscuit.
Glenys extended her 10-1 watch and gave me an extra hour in bed, which was long enough for me to recover and I felt okay when I got up at 02:00. By this time, the wind had dropped to 20-25 knots from the north and the seas were much calmer. During my 2-5 watch, I threaded us through a large anchoring area with scores of large ships waiting to go into Durban port - one of the largest in South Africa.
We made good time with 1 knot of favourable current for most of the way, so we were only five miles away from the harbour entrance as the first glimmer of dawn lit the horizon at 04:30. The Durban Port Control operates on VHF Ch09 and monitors AIS traffic. They called me up when we were five miles out and, without asking, gave me permission to enter the port.
The entrance was simple and we motored across to Durban Marina into a very tight berth, tucked in a corner. We were in bed at 05:30.
16 December 2017 Richards Bay to Durban (Day 2)
After a few hour’s sleep and breakfast, we went to the marina office to check in and get an access key to get through the security gates. Being a Saturday, the manager was the only person in the office and he (incorrectly) told us not to bother to clear in until Monday.
The marina doesn’t have any toilets or showers, but there are two yacht clubs next to the marina that have facilities and grant two weeks free membership to international visitors - we signed up as temporary members of both yacht clubs. The Royal Natal Yacht Club is oldest club in the southern hemisphere and is a very pleasant place. The Point Yacht Club is more modern.
We had a boozy lunch at the Royal Natal Yacht Club, where we bumped into Paul and Monique - they’d sailed down with “Looking For Dave” to have a break from working on “Full Circle” in Richards Bay. We met up with some of the other boats who had arrived today and most had cleared in, so we walked along the main road for a kilometre to the Customs & Immigration Building.
Immigration were friendly and filled in a load of forms for us. They hold onto our flight plan until we are going to leave. They told us that they will then come down to the marina to clear us out, after which we have 24 hours to leave Durban. We visited Customs who filled in another form, which they stamped and gave us a copy.
In the evening, we went to the Royal Natal Yacht Club and had dinner with “Full Circle” and Mark & Tina from “Thinking of Dave”. The food isn’t too bad and the drinks are cheap. As temporary members, we get discount on the menu prices.
17 December 2017 Durban, South Africa
A few of the members at both yacht clubs have told us that it’s not advisable to walk around Durban town. Apparently, a French cruiser was mugged a few weeks ago and his rucksack seized. When we walked down to the customs building yesterday, we felt a bit apprehensive and didn’t see a single white person walking around even though there’s a pleasant little park along the road side.
Glenys did some research on places to visit in Durban - there’s an aquarium, a botanical garden, a couple of small museums and it’s relatively safe to walk along the beach front. The number 1 tourist attraction is a 3 hour bus tour that takes you around the city, but you never get off the bus. Hmmm, none of that seemed to be particularly inspiring, so we had a quiet day aboard.
There looks to be a weather window on Wednesday 20th, which should get us to East London, so we have another few days stuck in Durban. The marina is filthy with loads of rubbish in the water and with the security concerns, we’re not that keen to step out, so we’re feeling a bit trapped. It threw it down in the evening, so we stayed in and watched some TV.
18 December 2017 Durban, South Africa
As it was Monday, we went to the marina office and checked in properly with the office staff. We chatted to a few other cruisers who are also waiting for the next weather window on the 20th and they haven’t done much in Durban either. It started to rain during the morning, so we couldn’t even be bothered to go to the cinema.
In the evening, we dashed through the howling South-west wind and driving rain to have a quiet dinner by ourselves in the Royal Natal Yacht Club
19 December 2017 Durban, South Africa
It still looks good to leave for East London tomorrow, so we paid our marina bill, filled in our new Flight Plan and walked down to get our stamps. The first stop was at the Port Authority, which is in an office just past the Customs building. They checked and stamped our forms and gave us a slip of paper stating that we had fully paid our harbour fees (free for the first month for international visitors).
Immigration filled in more forms and gave us a stamp. We filled in another form at Customs, then took our stamped Flight Plan back to the Port Authority, who send it to Port Control, who we have to call before we can exit the port. We have 24 hours to leave the harbour before the Flight Plan expires. What a palaver.
Fear is a funny thing. The 1 kilometre walk between the marina and the customs building is along a wide pavement, next to a grassy park, alongside a busy, modern dual lane road, with shops on the other side. We met several cruisers who wouldn’t walk along this road even in the middle of the day – we did, but we were very vigilant.
The authorities are obviously trying to smarten the place up and improve security. There was a huge sign in the park next to the marina, forbidding about everything bad that you could think of...
On the way back from the Customs, we stopped in a Spar supermarket and were surprised to see a guard with an automatic machine gun at the ready, guarding two security guys loading an ATM machine. Perhaps we’ll not go out at night.
20 December 2017 Durban to East London (Day 1)
The alarm went off at 04:30. We checked the weather forecast to confirm no change and then eased our way carefully out of the tight corner of the marina. There were dozens of small sports fishing boats calling up Durban Port Control, all heading out to take advantage of the blue skies and settled conditions. After getting a terse, monosyllabic approval to our request to leave the port, we motored out of the port entrance at 05:00 into a gentle 1 metre swell coming from the south.
The wind settled down to 5-10 knots from the south-west and we motored south looking for the Agulhas Current, which sets south at up to 3 knots. For the first hour, we had a favourable 0.5 knot current, but then encountered an adverse 1-2 knot current for the next two hours. We had no current for the next hour or so, but as we continued into deeper water, the current increased and by 11:00, around 13 miles offshore, we were being pushed along by a 2 knot current. Later in the afternoon, we had over 3 knots, so at times we were doing 8.5 knots over the ground.
I put out two fishing lines and rigged up the new set of birds that I bought in Richards Bay. In the afternoon, we had two strikes, but didn’t land either – one on the rod whizzed out and eventually snapped the line and the other was taken by a bigger fish/shark, leaving us only scraps on the hook.
The wind remained light all day. It backed to south allowing us to motor-sail on port tack, but refused to increase enough allow us to sail. The swell from the south gradually built to 3 metres with confused waves on top presumably caused by the wind against current. These waves made us pitch and slowed down our boat speed, so when we tried to sail, we didn’t have enough power to cut through the waves.
By 20:00, the wind had backed to the south-east at 8 knots and we had 4.5 knots of current, so despite only being able to motor at 4.5 to 5 knots, we were doing 9.5 knots over the ground. Unfortunately, the change in the wind confused the seas even more so it was a horrible crashing ride. I tried to hold the mainsail out with a preventer to try to gain some boat speed from the wind, but gave up as the boom flogged around in the waves. Eventually, we rolled the main away and motor-sailed all night with just the genoa.
By midnight, the wind had backed further to north-east and thankfully, the seas had calmed down – I guess that this was a result of the wind being in the same direction as the current. It’s a nasty bit of sea along here. We’re travelling in very benign wind conditions with 5-12 knot winds, but it looks like even light winds with a southerly component kick up a boat-stopping choppy sea. I’ve been told that they commonly get 8 metre high breaking waves in a south westerly gale – something to avoid...
At our 01:00 watch change, we’d lost the 4 knot current and only had 1 knot. There’s a plateau in the sea bed sticking out from the shore at 32°00.6S 29°29.1E, so I steered us south, heading back out towards the 1,000 metre contour, where I picked up a 3 knot current again. I don’t know if it was the best thing to do – perhaps the current would have come back if I’d stayed further in. Who knows? At least we had a 3 knot current with us again.
21 December 2017 Durban to East London (Day 2)
Just after dawn, the elusive current disappeared on us again and despite heading out to 1000 metres and then back in again to 300 metres, we couldn’t find it. However, the skies cleared to a stunning solid blue and the wind settled down to ENE 20, which allowed us to finally turn off the engine and run downwind, wing-on-wing in relatively calm seas averaging 6.5 to 7.5 knots. At 09:00, we had 60 miles to go, so we were hoping to get into East London before dark.
It continued to be a lovely day and we found the current again at the 300 metre contour when we were 45 miles from our destination and then we had a couple of knots with us most of the way to the breakwater – a fabulous day’s sailing after last night’s unpleasantness.
A couple of miles from the harbour entrance we called Port Control (on VHF16, working channel 12) and after a couple of questions, they granted us entry to the port. We motored to the end of the port where there is a bridge blocking the river and about twenty fore-aft trot moorings belonging to the Buffalo River Yacht Club.
There used to be a jetty on the north shore against which visiting yachts could moor, called Latimer’s Landing, but it is now derelict. There were two choices - anchor in 12 metres of water or pick up a mooring. As it was getting dark, we decided to anchor and sort it out tomorrow. Fortunately, one of the yacht club members, Graham shouted that there's a single visitor’s berth alongside their floating pontoon, so we pulled up the anchor and moored alongside.
Graham helped us with our lines and we invited him on-board for a few cold beers to get the low down on the area. The club is only open on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and they normally do a Braai on Christmas Day for the visiting Yachts. It’s not advisable to walk around the port area, so we’ll need to get a taxi wherever we go.
22 December 2017 East London, South Africa
When we dragged ourselves out of bed, there about a dozen yachts anchored - a horde of international yachts taking advantage of the weather window. I’m guessing that they will all be staying for Christmas, so we shouldn’t be “Lonely This Christmas”.
The Yacht Club is all closed up, but the toilets and showers are open. I rang the club secretary, Ilsa, who confirmed that we’re okay to stay on the visitors berth for as long as we want. We’re really pleased that we’re alongside for the Christmas period. There’s a strong south-west gale forecast to hit East London on Christmas Day and it’s nice to know that we’ll be tucked up nice and secure instead of worrying about dragging our anchor. (Although we’ve been told that the holding is good.)
We rang Eagle Taxis, who took us to the Hemingway shopping mall, which is on the north side of town. East London is a large city, but once again, there’s no real town centre, just a lot of sprawling suburbs. There’s a small shopping mall about a mile away from the yacht club, but it looked really dodgy and the taxi driver told us not to walk around by ourselves.
The shopping mall is another huge place packed with the same shops as in Richards Bay (and I guess every South African shopping mall.) The place was heaving with people panic-buying for Christmas - just the same as the UK. We’d come to do our Christmas shopping. As usual, we made it into a game - we had 1½ hours and a budget of 200 Rands (£10) to buy presents for each other. Not surprising, we bumped into each other in the only Dollar Store in the mall…
After a nice lunch of pasta and provisioning at the supermarket, we tried to get a cab back to the Yacht Club. Eagle Taxis said that it would be at least ½ hour before they could get there, so we decided to get one from a taxi rank. After asking around, we were directed down the road to the “Taxis”, which turned out to be the local minibuses - I don’t think so. We tried asking again for the taxi rank, but it seems that there is none.
One of the security guards said that he’d get a cab for us and stopped a dodgy looking black guy in a dodgy looking car, who didn’t have a clue where we wanted to go and wanted to charge us more than Eagle Taxis - I don’t think so… We lugged our heavy shopping bags back to the mall entrance, called Eagle Taxis and only had to wait 20 minutes.
The yacht club was open when we arrived back and we were astonished to be given a Christmas Bouquet that had been sent from the UK by our son Brett and his wife Tasha. Glenys was so overwhelmed that she shed a few tears. It put us in the Christmas spirit, so back at the boat, Glenys dug out the Christmas decorations and plugged Christmas songs into the stereo.
The yacht club bar was open in the evening and they lit a braai, so all the yachties turned up and we had a good evening making new friends. We met a few boats briefly in Durban, but most are new to us. There’s a huge mixture of nationalities - German, French, Spanish, Dutch, USA & Israel. Each country celebrates Christmas in a slightly different way, so it will be interesting time.
23 December 2017 East London, South Africa
Graham from the yacht club organised a fuel run. Eight or so people took him up on the offer and we all jammed into 2 pickup trucks with our 30+ jerry cans. We were taken to a truck refuelling station, where the pump attendants were totally unfazed by us all piling out of the pickups - they’ve obviously seen it before. We were back at the marina within an hour - a great service from the yacht club.
The yacht club is very friendly and eager to help their international visitors. They have plenty of fore-aft trot moorings, which most of the fleet have picked up. After the fuel run, they took two separate groups of cruisers off to the nearby supermarket and had eight huge sacks of wood delivered to make sure that we would be able to Braai over the Christmas period when they are closed.
A spring had broken in our aft heads door lock, so I brushed up on my Metallurgy and made a new one. I used a spring from a clothes peg, first heating it up to glowing red and letting it cool down slowly - this tempers the steel and makes it very malleable. I was then able to bend the steel wire into the shape that I wanted.
The next stage was to re-harden the steel, which is done by heating the spring up to cherry red and plunging it into water. This makes it hard, but also very brittle, so I needed to temper it back to be slightly more malleable. I cleaned up the surface of the metal, so that I could see shiny steel and then reheated the spring slowly until the surface went a straw colour and then blue. I then let it cool naturally which gave me a strong spring. It took a couple of attempts, but I soon had a working lock again.
It rained in the afternoon, so everyone hunkered down and the planned Braai was cancelled.
24 December 2017 East London, South Africa
Most of the Cruisers here are European - French, German and Dutch. In Britain, we open our presents on Christmas Day morning, but Christmas Eve is the big day for most Europeans, so a party has been organised for the evening, with tomorrow being a family day.
We chilled out for most of the day and, in the afternoon, we got together with Dirk from “Peregrine” and Antoine from “Toomai” to play a little guitar music, which was fun.
The party was good, chatting to people and slowly getting drunk. We lit a barbecue and had the inevitable Braai. Glenys took along a bottle of Rhum Arrangé, which she had made from 70 proof sugar cane rum bought in La Reunion. Several other cruisers also brought Rhum Arrangé, so there was plenty to drink…
25 December 2017 East London, South Africa
Unsurprisingly, we were nursing slight hangovers this morning. After breakfast, we opened our presents. Both of us had bought the other some Biltong – South Africans love this dried meat, but after trying it again, we’re not too keen. The rest of the presents were fun little toys and gimmicks - ever tried a Finger Fidget? I bought Glenys a “Growing Egg”, which you put in water and it hatches after 24 hours - goodness knows what’s in it… Glenys broke her 200 Rands (£10) budget by buying me a pair of stretchy jeans for the next time that we go horse riding.
Apart from being away from our family, it was a perfect Christmas Day – Roast Lamb with all the trimmings for our Christmas Dinner; a nice bottle of wine; an afternoon nap and then a James Bond movie with mince pies and port.
26 December 2017 East London, South Africa
We chilled out on Boxing Day. Glenys’s “growing egg” hatched a yellow and green Chicken. It’s made from some strange rubbery plastic which carries on expanding if you leave it soaking in water – it’s weird, would probably give a child nightmares and I suspect is highly toxic.
Some of the yachts left to go down to Port Elizabeth – 120 miles away. There’s a short patch of strong south-west wind coming in tomorrow evening and the fleet hope to beat it to Port Elizabeth. We don’t particularly want to go to Port Elizabeth, because it’s reputed to be a dirty commercial port, so we’re waiting until the 28th. This should definitely get us to Mossel Bay and there’s a chance that we might be able to carry onto Cape Town.
This coast is proving to be very tough to sail. We’re told that the weather windows this year are unusually small, so perhaps we should have taken every opportunity to gain a few miles instead of waiting for a longer window.
We were ready to leave Richards Bay on the 4th December and 22 days later, we’re still only half way to Cape Town. However, to put it in perspective, the distance from Richards Bay to Cape Town is 950 miles – which is the distance from the UK to Gibraltar.
27 December 2017 East London, South Africa
Glenys was suffering from Cabin Fever, so we went to the East London Museum, which was surprisingly good. Their star attraction is the first Coelacanth to be discovered, which is stuffed and on display.
The primitive-looking coelacanth (pronounced SEEL-uh-kanth) was thought to have gone extinct with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But its discovery in 1938 by an East London Museum curator on a local fishing trawler fascinated the world and ignited a debate about how this bizarre lobe-finned fish fits into the evolution of land animals.
There are only two known species of coelacanths: one that lives off the south-east coast Africa, and one found in the waters off Sulawesi, Indonesia. Many scientists believe that the unique characteristics of the coelacanth represent an early step in the evolution of fish to terrestrial four-legged animals like amphibians.
Coelacanths are elusive, deep-sea creatures, living in depths up to 2,300 feet below the surface. They can be huge, reaching 6.5 feet or more and weighing 198 pounds. Scientists estimate they can live up to 60 years or more.
The most striking feature of this "living fossil" is its paired lobe fins that extend away from its body like legs and move in an alternating pattern, like a trotting horse. Other unique characteristics include a hinged joint in the skull which allows the fish to widen its mouth for large prey; an oil-filled tube, called a notochord, which serves as a backbone; thick scales common only to extinct fish; and an electro-sensory rostral organ in its snout likely used to detect prey.
The museum also houses the world’s only intact Dodo egg; a huge shell collection; a maritime section with photos and models documenting two hundred years of the East London port; a large collection of stuffed animals, birds and fish; and a large collection of Xhosa beadwork. There was so much to look at that we spent four hours there – not bad for 15 Rands (£0.75) each (pensioner’s rates, of course). They even have a pleasant little cafe where we had a nice toasted sandwich.
We called a cab to take us to a supermarket to do our last minute provisioning before we leave tomorrow. In the evening, the remaining cruisers organised a Braai at the Yacht Club - we all leave for Mossel Bay tomorrow.
28 December 2017 East London to Mossel Bay (Day 1)
We had a last check of the weather forecast and there’s still a large window, which will get us to Mossel Bay, but it’s (once again) closed up and isn’t big enough for us to sail around Cape Agulhas. The next strong SW hits Mossel Bay on the night of Sunday 31st. It’s 320 miles and even if we only average 5 knots, it will take us 64 hours, so there’s plenty of time.
We struggled with a dilemma about precisely when to leave East London. The wind in the morning was forecast to be SW 10-15 knots, which will give horrible choppy on-the-nose conditions, but as the day progresses, it should gradually back, so that by 05:00 tomorrow morning it will be ENE15 – much better for sailing.
However, if we leave early tomorrow morning, we’ll have a great start to the passage, but we’ll have less of a safety margin if the south-wester comes in early. We decided to hedge our bets and head out at 17:00, aiming to arrive at 05:00 on Sunday morning, which is an average of 5.3 knots and still gives us a 20 hour safety margin.
I had a major panic this morning. The display on my laptop started to judder, indicating a hardware problem with the lead or the display itself. I don’t think that there’s any problem with the display driver circuit because it works fine when I plugged the laptop into our TV projector. My laptop is now totally unusable, which is a major problem because it’s our main navigation system, interfacing with our AIS and satellite phone.
Fortunately, Glenys has a small netbook, so I spent the morning backing up the data from my laptop and transferring our navigation programs to the netbook. Once again, the fiddliest part was setting up the email and satellite phone, so that we can get weather forecasts while on passage, but by lunch time I had a working system. I’ll have to get the laptop repaired in Cape Town.
Clearing out was very easy. The yacht club gave us a single form to fill in, which we took to the Port Police. We walked up some steep steps just outside the yacht club security barrier and then over the railway bridge. The police station is just under the bridge on the right, but you have to walk 100 metres up the hill and right into the port. A nice policewoman took a copy of our form, faxed it to Port Control and we were finished.
After a nap for a couple of hours, we dropped our mooring lines at 16:00 and called Port Control, who asked us to wait around for 15 minutes because a huge oil tanker was moving out of port with another ship waiting to come in.
Outside the harbour, the rolling 1 metre swell coming from the south-west was topped by irritating wind waves coming from the south kicked up by a South 8-10 knot wind blowing against the one knot current coming from the north-east. We motored SSW keeping the wind and wind waves at 30 degrees off our port bow, trying to head out to find a stronger current - it was unpleasant.
At the 100 metre contour, we hit a counter current, so I headed more south, out to sea, aiming for the 200m contour. Our SOG dropped to 3.5 knots for an hour, but miraculously, at the 200 metre contour, we picked up a 3 knot favourable current and off we went. During my 7-10 watch, the wind remained at 8-10 knots slowly backing, but not enough to sail.
By midnight, the wind had picked up to 15 knots from our port quarter, but the waves became even more confused and we had to wait another hour until the wind had picked up some more, causing the waves to come from behind us and allowing us to sail. Gradually over my 1-4 watch, the wind picked up to 25 knots, so we were surfing along at 7.5 knots boat speed – 11.5 knots over the ground aided by a 4 knot push from the Agulhas current. It was a little too exciting, so after an hour, I rolled away the mainsail and we continued with only the genoa, still making 5.5 to 6.5 knots boat speed.
29 December 2017 East London to Mossel Bay (Day 2)
At 08:00, we were 25 miles SSE of Port Elizabeth, having sailed 128 miles in 15 hours – for us a record average speed of 8.5 knots. By this time, the wind had backed so that it was directly behind us and the sea was very confused, making it very, very rolly.
I suspect that the sea was chaotic because we were going over a deep ocean trough, which drops down to 2000 metres. I think that it’s a place where the colder waters are brought up to the surface causing the water to be turbulent. These rising waters also bring up plankton and nutrients attracting fish, evident by the thousands of gannets in the area, at times aggregating into flocks of hundreds dive-bombing shoals of fish. I’ve not seen so much birdlife since New Zealand.
As we passed Port Elizabeth, we turned west and moved out of the Agulhas Current into 100 metre deep water, where the current dropped to 1 knot. The weather forecast is still for the south-west winds to hit Mossel Bay on the evening of Sunday 31st, so we had loads of time and just continued without a main sail despite the wind dropping slightly.
After lunch, the wind picked up to ESE 25 and the waves increased to 3 metres, so we surfed and rolled downwind all afternoon. However, we made very good time and at 19:00, we only had 125 miles to go, so we’ll arrive tomorrow afternoon.
As we gradually head south, the sun is setting later - tonight it was still light at 20:00. Another thing that is very noticeable is that it’s damn cold - long trousers, socks and a jacket are needed when in the cockpit, especially at night.
Using our satellite phone, I emailed Mossel Bay Marina who told us that there are still no berths or moorings available, mostly because it’s the middle of the Christmas holidays. Mossel Bay is a very popular holiday resort – the moorings are all in use by locals until February. We’ll have to anchor outside the harbour in a place which is only barely protected from the SE, so we might have a bouncy 24 hours until the wind switches to the south-west. I spent most of the night worrying about it.
At our 04:00 watch change, the wind started to decrease and back to the east, so we pulled out the mainsail to port and switched the spinnaker pole out to starboard. By the time that we’d finished this 20 minute operation, the wind had died completely, so we started motoring.
30 December 2017 East London to Mossel Bay (Day 3)
By dawn, the wind had picked up to 8 knots from the north-west - dead on the nose and no good for sailing. I downloaded a GRIB file via our sat phone and discovered that a small low pressure area has developed off the coast at Mossel Bay. It’s going to head east and the wind should be about 10 knots backing to the East by this evening. The strong south-westerly system will still arrive tomorrow afternoon.
While I was receiving our weather emails, I also received an email from Mossel Bay Marina, who tell me that they now have a berth available for us until the 2nd January. This is great news and I emailed them back immediately confirming the berth, which is a walk-on pontoon inside the harbour. I love being able to send and receive emails while at sea.
Glenys had two sightings of whales. She only saw the blow, so we have no idea what species they were. A little later, just south of Dalglish Bank, we had several sightings of Cape Fur Seals, which were drifting about on the surface, having a rest. We weren’t sure what they were at first because all that we saw were a few fins sticking up out of the water, but as we got closer they raised their heads, before disappearing below the waves.
The wind was a little fickle, but allowed us to do a few hours sailing. We sailed close to “Peregrine” and took some photos of Dirk and Gretchen while under canvas. At the entrance to Mossel Bay Harbour, we called Port Control on Ch12 and they gave us permission to go to the Yacht Club walk-on moorings.
We were soon tied up on the rather rickety pontoons. There’s an information box on the jetty, which has maps and information about Mossel Bay and also a temporary Membership card to get us in and out of the port gates.
Other boats who arrived called up Port Control, asked for a berth alongside and were directed to a concrete quay used by fishing boats at 34°10.723S 022°08.832E. After a shower and tidy up, we went for a walk. There’s some pretty heavy security at the gate out of the port, but once out, you are in Tourist Land with small restaurants and bars along the sea front quay – they were all packed with holidaymakers.
The Yacht Club is at the end of the quay and again has some heavy security. It was very busy with club members enjoying a Saturday Braai. We had a beer at the bar and discovered that there’s a party on New Year’s Eve with the inevitable Braai, so we’ll probably do that. By this time, we were feeling a little tired, so we retired back to the boat for a quiet meal and an early night.
31 December 2017 Mossel Bay, South Africa
We walked around the port around to see the Port Captain and other boats on fishing boat quay. Despite being inside the port, there’s another security gate at the end of the quay, where we had to breathe into a breathalyser before being allowed onto the dock. The fishing boat crewmen are not allowed onto the dock if they fail the breathalyser test. The guard lady told us that if yachties fail the test, they get escorted to their boats by a guard, but I suspect that’s discretionary. Being New Year’s Eve, I’m glad that we’re in the marina, where we’re not breathalysed…
The Port Controller told us to come back on the 2nd January and gave us a blank “Flight Plan” document to complete. Nothing else was done – it’s obviously a lot more relaxed once you get away from Richards Bay and Durban.
After doing some food shopping and lugging it back to the boat, we went for a walk along Marsh Street, which is the town’s main street. This is the first town that we’ve visited that has some kind of town centre – although it’s quite open and spread out.
We walked a couple of kilometres to the Cape St Blaize, which is very touristy with hotels, guest houses and restaurants. There are several campsites which were heaving with people all jammed in together – we’ve been told that it’s an annual pilgrimage down from Johannesburg. There are rock pools with hundreds of people swimming in the cold water and the smell of chips and fried food was overwhelming.
On the headland, underneath the lighthouse, we found a large cave, which was used as shelter by prehistoric man. I found this information:
The Portuguese Bartholomew Diaz was the very first European that set foot on (South) African soil – in 1488 at Munro beach Mossel Bay. Afterwards, the Cape was named in 1497 by Vasco da Gama, another explorer. He arrived in Mossel Bay on the day of St Blaize. The well known Cave at the Point in Mossel Bay was then named the St Blaize Cave.
In 1810 there was evidence found that the Cave had been inhabited by hunter-gatherers who ate mostly shellfish. It was only in 1888 that Sir George Leith excavated and found conclusively that the shell middens had been left by pre-colonial inhabitants. There was evidence of Middle Stone Age occupation below the middens. Recent excavations at other sites in the vicinity by Prof Marean of the Institute of Human Origins at the University of Arizona, found evidence going back 160,000 years.
After a quick look at the cave, we followed the path which becomes the St. Blaize Trail, which is a 13.5 km trail that follows the 30 metre contour along the cliffs westwards. We didn’t have the motivation to do the whole trail, but walked a few kilometres along the impressive cliffs and then back.
All restaurants at the Point were very busy, so we wombled back to the port and had fish & chips on a red London bus – well, we’re on holiday. The locals in the Yacht Club say that these are the best fish & chips in South Africa - very tasty.
We went back to the boat and chilled out before stepping out for the New Year’s celebrations. We ate at a beach-side Braai restaurant, which produced a huge plate of spare ribs – we shared one after our excesses at lunchtime. We then went to the Yacht club, but most people had set up their own Braais and appeared to be huddled in family groups, so we didn’t intrude. Instead, we had a leisurely beer and retired back to the boat to watch a movie. There were a few fireworks at midnight, but nothing to write home about.
There are more photos in our Photo Album section.