SV Coromandel

David arrived at 0930 on Sunday morning and whisked us away.  It was lovely seeing Ashley again, but it was even more of a surprise to see Marcia - an old friend of David's whom I had last seen about 30 years ago and who hasn't changed a bit, except her hair is now blond when it used to be a light brown. The craic was fantastic, with talk, laughter, reminiscences, good food and wine - what an evening!  Then on Tuesday we went up Sun Mountain, from where one gets a superb view of the Western Cape and St Helena Bay.  On the way up we were lucky enough to see a Puff Adder, one of the cape's more venomous snakes, plus some lovely aloes and the remains of the proteas that had bloomed earlier in the year.  I love the muted colours of the fynbos, the sage and moss greens, fawns and ochres, all complemented by the pale blue of the sky.  It was hot, too, which was something we weren't used to.  We had lunch at L'Aurore, a small restaurant in Aurora which has the most delicious food - this time is was Swiss Sautéed Pork with Rosti; pork cooked in a mushroom and cream sauce with a pancake of grated fried potatoes.  I can see that my weight is going to increase while I'm here - as usual!

On 23 November we went back into Cape Town to take Marcia back to the airport and to get an extension to our visas - a successful day, even if we did get soaked by a shower of rain, despite this being the "dry season".  Unfortunately we didn't have time to take a closer look at Cape Town, but we will take a couple of days to see the city once we have Coromandel settled in Port Owen.

The view from Sun Mountain

The Church at Aurora

The next couple of days were a bit nebulous, both in terms of cloud cover and sailing, as the big swell kept knocking what little wind there was out of the sails and we were forced to motor to ensure that we made it to Cape Town within our weather window.  It was somewhat frustrating.  However, a good wind usually arrives eventually and the morning of 18 November found us with nice flat seas and the wind off the starboard quarter, so that we were zipping along at about 6 knots, with a couple of knots of current on top of that.  By 1100 hrs the sky had clouded over, we’d put a reef in the main and Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of the African continent, was off the starboard bow looking rather grey.  However by 1354 the sky had cleared, the sun was shining, the sea was a sparkling green and I was able to note in the log that we had left the Indian Ocean and were back in the Atlantic doing 8.6 knots over the ground.

The blue skies lasted for the rest of the day and made such a pleasant change from the uniform grey cloud cover to which we had become accustomed on our passages down the South African coast.  We saw a number of seabirds, notably gannets, and also realised that the “branches” we’d been seeing were seals, who seemed to lie on the surface and wave one of their flippers in the air.  However the wind increased as the day progressed until by 1800 we had reefed the genoa and handed the main, given that the angle we had on the wind was just to starboard of dead astern and we couldn’t keep the genoa asleep. As the night progressed the wind became stronger, until by Andy’s watch from 0100 to 0400 it was gusting up to  45 knots, albeit from astern, with a lumpy and uncomfortable sea.  When I came back on watch at 0400, the worst of the wind had died down and the most I saw was 35 knots.  The sea however was giving us a fascinating display of bioluminescence which seemed to light up the whole of the area around the boat with an unearthly greenish hue.  I hadn’t seen anything quite as bright since our passage down to New Zealand, which gave me the idea for the Ocean Effervescence Journal Quilt.

Sunrise over the Cape of Good Hope

Table Mountain and The Sentinel

North West Cape Town

Table Mountain and Cape Town

Durban to East London to Port Elizabeth  Our passage down the South African coast is turning into dashes between ports, in which we wait for the next weather window to materialise.  Everyone says that the weather this year is unusual: days of cold, wet, south west winds, the odd burst of sunshine, temperatures in the lower 20s, not at all like the usual South African spring.  Even David, over on the west coast and watching the drizzle on the windowpanes, has said that “we never get rain at this time of year”.  Ha!  Sitting here in Port Elizabeth with a howling westerly wind, warps snatching on the pontoon, hatches closed, it’s rather like being at home in Blyth in the summer, hoping for a bit of a sail before the weekend’s out.

The passage from Durban to East London was unproblematic, given that this stretch of coast is notorious.  The continental shelf here is very narrow, only about five miles wide, and the combination of a strong south-west flowing Agulhas Current coupled with the waves generated by a south-westerly gale can make for very uncomfortable, even dangerous, sailing conditions.  Indeed large ships, most notable of which was the Warratah,  have been lost without trace, and in 1986 the yacht Rubicon, with its crew of five, disappeared during the race from East London to Durban, a race in which many yachts were damaged, several dismasted, in the appalling seas generated by a south westerly gale.

On our first attempt we turned back after three hours, given the lack of wind, lumpy seas and a north-going current which combined to give us a speed over the ground of about 3 knots, not enough to reach East London in the available window, a big back eddy had set up along the coast due to the earlier south wester, we then discovered that the inshore currents around south africa follow about 24 hours after the wind, also the agulhas current meanders off shore occasionally.  It was a week before we had more favourable conditions this time we had current with us about a mile off shore, and although we motored for a time, we made East London in 48 hours.  We discovered for ourselves the truth of the lumpy seas beyond the 100 metre submarine contour, an abnormal wave warning came over the VHF about a sea area ahead off us, when we got there it was not possible to make way into the waves so we sailed inshore until the seas calmed down and tacked between the 100m and 20m contour finding the seas much easier here. One of our friends tried hoving too, round the 200m contour for a couple of hours in the heavy seas, before he decided to come in shore and tack down the coast in calmer waters. East London has a straight forward entrance, and we went to anchor in the Buffalo River, Latimer’s Landing being – in the words of the port official – “buggered”.  Indeed it was in something of a mess, and I gather it is being refurbished.  Both the visitors’ pontoon at the Buffalo River Yacht Club and the one just east of Latimer’s Landing were filled with local boats, so we stayed at anchor, going alongside only to complete the formalities and to get a couple of jerrycans of diesel.  Later in the day the catamaran Murunguru with Nigel, Caroline and their two children came in, followed later in the evening by Ruth and Angus on Do It.  Ruth and Angus had a bit of a nerve-wracking time when two tugs were required to move a small Chinese freighter into the graving dock, coming rather close to Do It in the process.

Two days later we got our weather window for Port Elizabeth, and set off full of hopes for a pleasant passage.  Ha!  These were scuppered by a change in the forecast weather but we managed to reach the harbour before the onset of the south westerly which kept Ruth and Angus out for a big longer.  At Port Elizabeth, we found the pontoons of the Algoa Bay Yacht Club to be rather ramshackle, but the other option was to tie up alongside one of the fishing boats.  The Club itself has friendly locals, with a small shopping centre about 20 minutes’ walk away, so we were set for a pleasant few days waiting for our next weather window while we explored the town.  However, I managed to squash my big toe between two boats which put paid to any ideas of visiting the museums or art galleries.

One of the highlights of these passages down the coast has been the sightings of humpback whales, often in very close proximity to the boat: smacking the water with their flippers, forming elegant arches as their flukes slip beneath the waves, occasionally broaching and hurling spray in all directions as they flop down into the water.

One of the downsides has been the completion of the Flight Plans – Flight Plans? – which one has to submit before leaving port.  These ask for full details of the yacht and crew, including sketches of the underwater profile (so that the boat can be identified if you capsize?), details of your next of kin and little charts showing your proposed route.  They are faxed to gthe port captain, I understand.  However it seems unlikely that these would generate any form of search and rescue if you didn’t turn up in your appointed port when you said you would.  Having returned to Durban on the first occasion, I asked who we should tell that our Flight Plan had been changed.  “No one,” was the reply, “but you’ll have to complete another one when you go again”. It seems to be an exercise in paperwork and it would be interesting to see what use is made of this documentation.  In these days of computers and internet access, why can’t they be submitted online if it is deemed necessary to have such things.  And why can’t they at least be seamanlike and call it a Passage Plan?  I suppose, though, that all of my queries about them will be filed into a Pending tray, should I decide to pursue my questioning.

Amaryllis in Durban's Botanic Gardens

Coromandel Leaving Durban

Photo courtesy of Ruth and Angus of Do It

Do It and the Tugs

The Pontoon at the Algoa Bay Yacht Club, Port Elizabeth

The Pontoons

So on Saturday we all went to the uShaka leisure park on Durban's famous Marine Parade where there is a most splendid aquarium and marine centre.  The aquarium is housed in what looks like an old ship - actually made of something like fibreglass, but very realistic.  The tanks where the fish are kept are huge, with plexiglass about 4 inches thick, so that one can get a side view of the fish and watch their behaviour.  We were in time to see two divers enter the tank to feed the several different species of rays, watching as the other fish seemed to hoover up the bits that escaped the rays' mouths.  There were sharks, cod, lionfish, angelfish, rays, groupers and a host of other, large and small, bright and dull; lobsters, prawns, anemones, seahorses, soft corals, eels and seasnakes.  On seeing one of the large cod species, Andy remarked that it would go nicely with some chips and peas.

The highlight of the visit was seeing the dolphin show, with their twists and turns, balancing of balls, jumps and splashes.  Of course we've seen loads of dolphins and whales while at sea, but seldom quite as close as we got to the bottlenose dolphins here.  The Aquarium also takes part in research and educational programmes, and provides a place where birds and turtles can be taken for rehabilitation and rest.   All in all it was a really nice day out - although I would rather have been well on the way to East London.

Having done a bit more research on the internet with regards to winds and currents, Peter decided that he would return to Johannesburg on Sunday.  His one consolation was that his rugby team, the Golden Lions, beat the Sharks 44-16 in the final of the Currie Cup which we watched in the bar of the Point Yacht Club.

We cannot see another weather window opening until the end of the week and even then it looks slightly dodgy, so we'll spend our enforced stay here doing some of the jobs we'd allocated for later in the season - painting the food lockers, varnishing the washboards etc.  They're things that have to be done so we may as well make good use of our time.

Peter on the Helm

The Bluff at 0430

Feeding Rays

Our trip started with the drive to Mbabane in Swaziland, some 500 km through some very desolate country - flat, arid and with thorny vegetation - until we arrived at the escarpment up onto the plateau where Swaziland's capital lies, beautiful countryside which reminds me very much of the Welsh borders around Llandrindod Wells, with softly rounded hills with the occasional rocky outcrop.  That evening we had supper with Simon, Theo and Janine, all long-standing friends (NOTE: I didn't say OLD friends!), shocking the other more decorous diners with our laughter, and the evening passed all too quickly.  The next day we drove on to Simunye for lunch with another old friend, Carlos, then on to Komatipoort to see Sue and Martin of the B&B Trees Too and Terry - more old friends, more laughter.  I was pleased that Andy fitted in so well with all of these people that he'd heard me rattle on about but had never met.

Our four days at Lower Sabie in the KNP were perhaps the most peaceful we'd had for a long time, especially as we were away from Coromandel and therefore not faced with the myriad jobs living on board brings.  Before we got there we decided that we would not be driving around all day looking for things to watch.  Rather we'd settle on one or two places and wait for the things to come to us.  At Sunset Dam near Lower Sabie we saw a host of storks and herons, hippo and crocodile, and our tasks became to identify those birds which we didn't know: Yellow Billed Stork, African Jacana, etc.  We also saw a lenguaan, a monitor lizard about a metre long.  One day we just stayed in the camp, trying to identify trees, watching lizards, listening to the hippos in the river and watching the antics of the weaver birds.

David had booked us accommodation in a rather luxurious tent, with cooking facilities, a fridge and a braai.  We had some excitement early one morning when the tent next to ours burst into flames, the result of which was that the staff relocated us into one of the little thatched chalets next to the river.  We have no idea what started the fire, but the tent was engulfed in flames in a very short space of time.  Luckily the people had left early, but I think many of their possessions were still in the tent.

Despite staying close to Lower Sabie, driving no further north than Tshokwane, we saw a large number of animals and birds: giraffe, zebra - which crossed the road in front of us - impala, kudu, bushbuck, steenbok, warthog, bush pig, rhinoceros, buffalo, elephant, hippo, wildebeest (I began to wish I'd never heard Flanders and Swann sing "I'm a Gnu!" because every time I saw one, the refrain went through my head), hyena and crocodile, and I reflected that the most interesting thing about the Park is that you never know just what you'll see.  This time I saw more rhino than I've ever seen before, but fewer giraffe and zebra.  We also spent more time looking at the Park's smaller things - a leopard tortoise, three leguaans, a blue-headed agama lizard, plus a flap-necked chameleon.  Among the birds we noted were ground hornbills, yellow hornbills, glossy starlings, weaver birds, a hammerkop, several lilac-breasted rollers, a scarlet-chested sunbird, woodland kingfishers, francolins, a Burchell's Coucal, bulbuls, hadeda ibises, goliath herons, grey herons, egrets etc.

Then I bought a book on the trees of Southern Africa and that started us off on a whole new quest, using the charts and pictures in the book to try and identify the trees around the camp.  The one I was 100% sure of was the Fever Tree, with its distinctive yellow bark, but the process of learning about the others was fascinating, and the book will keep us entralled in the months to come whenever we're at a loose end (Ha!).

Dave and Andy having breakfast at Buckler's Africa

A Fine Kudu

Fever Tree

Landscape near Crocodile Bridge

Zebra Crossing

There are a number of man-made islands around the Zululand Yacht Club, including Pelican Island and Naval Island.  From the well-made roads around them it appears that there was some plan for building on the islands, perhaps a free port like Colón 2000, but nothing has come of it.  At least there were very few structures on the islands, unlike the abandoned resorts we saw in Malaysia.  From Naval Island we had a very pleasant view of the pontoons, and the photograph gives a good impression of the rural nature of the surrounding area. 

I couldn't help noticing all the very gneiss rocks around the islands, but it was really not the time to go fossicking, especially as most of the boulders were quite large.  However we also saw this lizard, about 25 cms long and with a brilliant blue head and orange tail.  Apart from that there were monkeys, raptors, hornbills, mynahs and a variety of other birds.

We also went onto Pelican Island and all along the north breakwater of the port.  Rennell told us that although the beach to the south of the south breakwater went on for miles, that to the north of the  north breakwater suffers from coastal erosion, thanks to the south-going Agulhas Current.  we could see huge swells marching in from the south east, but because of the shallow gradient of the shoreline it did not have the same effect as the houle australe in St Pierre.

We had a super day with Rennell and Ann, talking about such a wide variety of subjects - like which Queen of England never actually set foot in the British Isles (Berengaria of Navarre, wife of Richard the Lionheart), and just how guilty Richard III was (not guilty, as far as I'm concerned).

Rennell, Me, Ann and Andy

The Pontoons at the Zululand Yacht Club

A View of the Port of Richard's Bay just before a thunderstorm

No sooner had we got to the turn-off for the main entrance than we saw a huge herd of elephant crossing the bush about half a kilometre away.  There must have been at least 100 animals in the herd, maybe 50 in the first group followed by another 50 with small calves in the next group.  Along with several other people, we watched them for a long time as they trooped along.  Yet despite the size of the herd, they had disappeared by the time we got to the main gate.

Having checked in, we continued with our drive, Andy, Anne and I keeping a lookout whilst Rennell drove, stopping obligingly whenever one or other of us squeaked that we'd seen something.  Graceful and delicate impala, a zebra with an injured hind foot - "not long for this world", remarked Anne - a giraffe plucking shoots from the top of an acacia tree, funny little warthogs running along with their tails in the air, some iridescent blue Glossy Starlings, nyala, kudu, wildebeest, rhinoceros - we stopped and watched, took photographs and chatted about this and that as we went along.  It was amazing how the animals seemed to disappear so quickly behind the bushes, even though many of the shrubs were bare of leaves.  We remarked that there seemed to be small groups of male impala, often with about half a dozen in the group, but that the groups of females were much larger, usually accompanied by only one or two bucks.  At one point a small herd of wildebeest crossed the road in front of us, one of them kicking up his heels as he went past.

In an area overlooking the Umfolozi River we got out of the car - this was one of the points where getting out of the car was permitted - but although we saw a troop of baboons on the opposite bank of the river, there were no crocodiles or hippos, so after having a drink we climbed back into the car.  No more than half a minute later a huge, thickly-maned lion appeared just in front of the car, perhaps a couple of hundred metres from where we'd been admiring the view.  It took no notice of us whatsoever, not even a glance, and loped on down the road.  We followed at a discreet distance until it disappeared into the bush.  Anne remarked that it looked to be quite tired, and was obviously an old lion; it was probable that it had been defeated in a battle for leadership of the pride and was now alone.  Its sudden appearance gave us much food for thought, and I commented that if it had arrived a little earlier we should all have run in different directions, on the basis that it could chase only one of us at a time.  Anne wondered aloud if the animals knew that they should avoid these areas where the two-legs walked about.

We went to a picnic spot at one of the camps for lunch, which Anne and Rennell had brought with them: breaded chicken, sausages, pork pies, salad, followed by a dessert of kooksisters - a sweet dough which is first cooked in hot oil, then dipped in cold syrup: very more-ish but I was good and had only one.

On our drive back towards the gate, Rennell took us to where he promised a close up of a rhinoceros but when we got there, we saw something far more fascinating in the form of two large elephants, one of which was sniffing away at the bronze statue of a rhino.  As we watched, another came out of the bush behind him, so we watched them for some time before they wandered off to the other side of the thatched buildings before we got out of the car to take a closer look at the rhino.  Then as we were driving away from there, we saw another elephant pulling the leaves from a small thorn tree, plus some more zebras, giraffes and warthogs.

Impala

Lion

Warthog

Elephant

Zebra

For the next 7 days we made our way down towards South Africa, skirting the south of Madagascar in distinctly lumpy seas, even though the wind was a pleasant 10-15 knots on the beam.  We had been concerned about the contrary current which our friends Reinhart and Marlene of the SV Adio had encountered -  they drifted backwards 42 miles in 12 hours - but after checking the www.oscar.noaa.gov web site about the currents south of Madagascar we set some waypoints 50 miles further north than Adio had and the current with us all the way.  On a couple of days, with the wind astern, we were able to fly the spinnaker, although on taking it down it got torn on one of the cockpit sockets, so my needlework skills came into good use as I patched it with some old spinnaker fabric - gleaned from the rubbish bin at Marsden Cove Marina in New Zealand: I knew it would come in useful one day.

We feasted on coleslaw in the hope that we would lose some of the weight we'd gained in La Réunion, but I think the feasts were a bit too generous, especially when I'd laced the coleslaw with Bleu d'Auvergne cheese.

We experienced one very dramatic change of wind.  We'd been going along nicely at about 5 knots with a NW breeze and an azure blue sky, but watching a band of cloud ahead.  As we passed under the cloud the 10 knot NW breeze switched off - literally! - to be followed about 15 minutes later by a SW 16 knot breeze, so we reefed both main and genoa just to keep things comfortable.  The next couple of days were quite frustrating, the wind going up and down like a yoyo - 6 knots one minute, 18 knots the next, first in the SW, then in the N, then back again.  So it was tweak, tweak, tweak all the time.

However on 11 September, another nice little breeze came along which gradually backed and increased to 15-18 knots.  At 2100 hrs, just to be on the safe side, Andy reefed both main and genoa.  We managed 42 miles in 6 hours - an average of 7 knots - then between 0600 on 12 September and 0600 on 13 September we made 182 miles on the GPS, our longest run, helped by the current which was sometimes running at 3 knots.  I have to say that for the last 36 hours of the passage I felt like a cat in a washing machine!  It was damp, and little bits of spray kept on coming into the cockpit; for the first time since the passage to Vanuatu in May 2010 I had to put on my waterproofs, only to find that they weren't as waterproof as I thought they were (here I can hear those of you in England thinking, What a wimp that girl is!).  Finally Andy handed the main altogether, so that we would arrive when it was light, yet we were still doing over 7 knots most of the time, and over 8 now and again.  However, the wind seldom got above 28 knots, and the seas were flatter than we expected.

At 0300 on 13 September as we changed watches, we identified the Gp Fl (2) light ahead as that of Cape St Lucia, some 20 miles north of Richard's Bay.  We'd aimed a little further north along the coast in case we ran into a southerly-going current, so the last few hours were a gentle ride downwind as both wind and seas diminished.  As we approached the entrance to Richard's Bay - between two long stone piers - we were hailed by what looked like a small drilling platform who requested that we keep clear of the buoys around him; no problem.  We started the engine, handed the main and chugged gently up the harbour towards the international arrivals wall at Tuzi Gazi, tying up at 0800, exactly 10 days since leaving St Pierre.  Several helpful people took our lines, then moved us into the corner.  We were told it could take "two to three days" to clear in, but in the event the Immigration chappie came at about 1000 (giving us a 3 months' stay) and Customs at about 1600  - after I'd called a couple of times to find out where they were.  Thereafter we felt free to fully explore our new environment.

Tuzi Gazi has a small marina, plus the harbour where one can tie alongside.  There are several restaurants, where we found that South African portions are considerably larger than anything we'd experienced in south east Asia, and I can see that it's going to be an effort to kept trim.  However, nice as Tuzi Gazi was, we wanted to go to the Zululand Yacht Club, where Adio and Tanoa were waiting for us, so the following morning we set off.

Well!  Since the violent thunderstorms we'd experienced in Indonesia and Malaysia, we'd really seen no electrical storms at all, but on the way to the Zululand Yacht Club a real humdinger developed.  It wasn't just one flash of lightning followed by some thunder, it was half a dozen flashes all at one go, with continuous crashes and bangs, sizzles and pops.  EEEK!  then we found that we had only 0.4m under the keel, so we anchored for a bit, then decided to return to Tuzi Gazi and wait for high water - or at least a rising tide.  We later realised that we were too far to starboard and were close to a drying sandbank.

Looking Dopey in Andy's Hat

One of the many Seabirds we saw

Flying "The Beast" . . .

. . . and Mending It!

Sunrise as we Approach Cape St Lucia

Drying out the Spinnaker

Zululand Yacht Club Pontoons