|
South Africa, October-November 2011 |
||
|
25-26 November 2011 Cape Town to Port Owen We left Port Owen quite early this morning to drive down to Cape Town
to pick up coromandel and bring her here for the rest of the season. Alan and Frank came as crew, and after
having lunch at the Royal Cape Yacht Club we left the marina and motored out
of the harbour. The views of
Table Mountain disappearing astern were glorious, with a backdrop of
washed-out blue sky. It was a mixed passage, first a
little wind, then no wind, then a really good breeze which send us speeding
northwards towards Cape Columbine at more than 8 knots. Frank soon adopted his usual
watch-keeping position on the starboard berth, but with three others on board
it wasn’t a problem. Teas
and coffees were dispensed, followed by a supper of crudités with a
yoghurt dip, and estofado de carne
– one of my specialities and easy to cook in running sea with 20 knots
of wind astern. Sadly the breeze did not last,
and we ghosted along all night under just the genoa, with Andy and Frank
taking the first watch, then Alan and I taking the second. It seemed quite odd to have someone to
share the night watch. Perhaps
the high point of the passage came in the late afternoon when we found
ourselves in the middle of a pod of at least 20 humpback whales – they
were literally everywhere! By 0600, by now in St Helena Bay
and being headed by the light breeze, Andy started the engine and we motored
the last half hour into the Berg River.
David was on the harbour wall to greet us – and there was me not
wanting to telephone and wake him up! – and in no time at all we were
sipping a well-earned wee dram on the holding jetty. By this time the tide was falling, so
we waited until the afternoon to take Coromandel up the river and into the
marina. And so ends the 2011 cruising
season. I wonder where
we’ll be at the end of the next one? 20-24 November 2011 Port Owen
I telephoned David as soon as we arrived at the RCYC to let him know that we
were safely tucked up, and he surprised me by saying that he would be down
the next day to c ollect us as he was taking his god-daughter Ashley back to
the airport. So we quickly cleaned up Coromandel, went to the RCYC,
where we were made most welcome, and sorted out one or two things before
crashing out for a well-earned snooze. 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. Tomorrow (Friday 25 November) we
go back to Cape Town, with Frank and Alan to bring Coromandel up here. |
On the Hammerhead in Port Owen
Marina
The Holding Jetty in the Berg
River
Frank in his usual on-watch
position
Alan, Andy and Frank
The
view from Sun Mountain
The
Church at Aurora
Andy,
Me, David and Marcia |
|
|
16-19 November 2011 Port Elizabeth to Cape Town
Well, the Cape of Storms lived up to its reputation, giving us a nice little
Force 7 to Gale 8 to speed us on past the Cape of Good Hope. We left Port Elizabeth at about 1000
on 16 November, having to jill about for a time waiting for one of the huge
car carriers to enter the harbour.
Then having motored for an hour or so, we started a gentle beat
towards Cape Agulhas some 250 nm to the west, nice, easy sailing, and a pity
that the sky was overcast and the weather distinctly chilly. Andy got a bit of a fright when a
whale surfaced about 2 metres in front of the bow causing him to put the helm
hard over, then finding its mate diving right under the boat. "Oh
dear!" Andy exclaimed, "that was rather close" (that wasn't
what he actually said, but you get the drift!). We’d seen a
number of Humpback Whales but he thought that these may have been Southern
Right Whales. 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. Ironically by 0600 the winds had
died to a whisper and despite the glorious sunrise over the Cape Peninsula,
it was jolly cold. We finally
started the engine and motored up the coast past Hout Bay with me wondering
if the strange mist I could see on the horizon was one of the fog banks to
which this coast is prone. However
we didn’t’ get that and motored on past Llandudno, until finally
The Sentinel came into view and, a little later, Table Mountain itself, clear
of cloud set against a background of washed-out-blue sky. In a flat calm we rounded the point,
entered the enormous harbour and made our way to the marina of the Royal Cape
Yacht Club, tying up with a sigh of relief. We had done the 423 nm passage in 73
hours, an average of 5.8 knots. |
Sunrise
over the Cape of Good Hope
Table
Mountain and The Sentinel
North
West Cape Town
Table
Mountain and Cape Town
Motoring
Towards Cape Town Harbour |
|
|
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. So on this enforced day of staying on
board, thanks to my having toe-silitis according to Andy, he has made a
couple of loaves, using some of the dried fried onions we bought in Jakarta
– bawang goreng – and I
have been waited on hand and foot!
Bliss! All being well, we will leave for Cape Town on Wednesday
or Thursday, provided the weather window stays open. |
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
Memorial
to Bartholomew Diaz |
|
|
27-30 October 2011 Durban
Peter Magner, an old friend of David's, joined us for the passage to East
London, and we really thought that we would be able to make it before another
south wester blew through on Sunday afternoon. So we got Peter on board,
stowed away his things and got Coromandel ready for sea, checked out with the
Port Authority and Customs, had our Flight Plan faxed to somewhere and set
off at 0400 on Friday morning full of hopes, despite the lurking mist and
overcast skies. Ha! Not only was there very little wind, a feeble
5-8 knots from the north, but there was a huge and uncomfortable swell which
threw us from side to side, and despite going offshore until we were east of
the 200m contour, we then found ourselves in a north-east flowing current so
that our speed over the ground was about 2.5 knots - certainly not enough to
get us to East London before the south-wester came through. So we
reluctantly returned to port, hoping that another 24 hours would see more
favourable winds. It took 3.5 hours to get to the point where we turned
back, but only 2.5 hours to return. In the event it was a good
decision: I'm writing this on Sunday afternoon, the wind is blowing SW4-5,
visibility is poor, rain's threatening and as Ruth from SV Do It said, I'd
rather be in here wishing I was out there than out there wishing I was in
here! 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
A
Member of the Cod Family |
|
|
25 October 2011 Durban: Supper with Doreen and
Magda In December 1942 Daddy was on a troop ship docked in
Durban. The people of Durban turned out to take the troops home for
Christmas and Daddy was billetted with Mr and Mrs Orchard. Their
daughter, Doreen, started to correspond with Mum and I have kept up the
correspondence. So it was a real treat when David joined us and we all
had supper with Doreen and Magda, or The Girls as we have already called
them, despite the fact that they are now in their 80s. It was a smashing evening, and
we must have kept the neighbours awake with our laughter.
Reminiscences, stories and photographs kept me in a constant bubble of
laughter until it was time to go home again. |
Magda,
David, Doreen and Me |
|
|
21 October 2011 Richard's Bay to Durban
As we had a good forecast we left Richard's Bay at about 12 noon anticipating
that the passage would take about 18 hours. However, not only did we
have a good wind from the north east; we picked up the south west flowing
Agulhas current which gave us a speed over the ground of about 7 knots, so we
ended up reefing the main and running with just the genoa. We arrived
off Durban at 0300 in the morning, called up the Durban Port Authority and
were given permission to enter, although warned to keep out of the way of the
large container ship which was also on its way in. The lights were easy
to pick up, and we made our way towards the Durban Marina where we had
already been allocated a berth. The next morning we visited both
the marina office and the Point Yacht Club and soon made ourselves at home in
this new place. |
Durban
Marina |
|
|
5-14 October 2011 Swaziland and the Kruger National
Park We have just got back from a glorious break in both
Swaziland and the Kruger National Park, during which we've seen a wide
variety of mammals, birds, reptiles and trees, including the Big Five - Lion,
Leopard, Buffalo, Elephant and Rhinoceros. In fact having spent nearly
a whole day at Buckler's Africa, a B&B right on the edge of the park,
watching the behaviour of a leopard, and also seeing several elephants, two
buffalo and a rhinoceros, we saw two lions on our drive from Crocodile Bridge
to Lower Sabie, upon which Andy said, "Right, we've seen the Big Five,
we can go home now!" 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!). I've used some photographs to
try and gibe you and idea of what the landscape in the Park looks like,
although to be fair you really need dozens of pictures to show what it's like
in different seasons. At present it is very dry and the spring foliage
is only just coming into leaf. Fire has evidently swept through several
areas, leaving the earth bare and tree trunks blackened. Sadly we came
across the shells of a couple of tortoises who had not managed to escape the
fire. Photographs, in any case, do not do justice to the vastness of
the landscape as seen from the hills to the south of Tshokwane, one of the
places where one can get out of one's car. From here it's easy to trace
the line of watercourses from the green of the surrounding vegetation.
All in all, some wonderful memories. |
Dave
and Andy having breakfast at Buckler's Africa
A
Fine Kudu
Fever
Tree
Landscape
near Crocodile Bridge
Zebra
Crossing
Thick
Scrub near Lower Sabie |
|
|
October 2011 Today I set to
and made a new cover for the interior mast, the old one having become rather
dilapidated over the past four years. I bought the panels in a shop
called Waste near Boardwalk in Richard's Bay where they have some gorgeous
patchwork fabric, along with wadding and other sewing notions, although the
wadding is polyester and I prefer cotton. I thought the panels were 32 Rand
each, which is about £2.80. I reckoned that I would need six, and
found that the last piece on the roll had nine panels. I thought that
£16.80ish was not a bad price to pay for the fabric. However when
I took the panels to the counter I found that it was 32 Rand per metre!
So what with the nine panels, enough heat-resistant wadding to make three
place mats (which is what the panels are meant for), 1.5 metres of thin
wadding for the mast cover and 2.5 metres of background fabric, I paid just
over £16. So here's a picture of the new mast cover. It has
rhinos, elephants, a lion, two zebras, a leopard and cub and a water buffalo,
so quite appropriate for our new location. |
New
Mast Cover |
|
|
29 September 2011 Richard's Bay
Ann and Rennell came for lunch today, and after chatting on board for a time
we went into Tuzi Gazi where the waitress kindly took this photo of us.
Afterwards Rennell took us for a drive around the area adjacent to Tuzi Gazi
and the Zululand Yacht Club, much of it reclaimed land. It would be
interesting to have a look at some old charts to see what this area was like
before the reclamation, as Richard's Bay is now the largest port in South
Africa, handling a wide variety of cargoes in both containers and bulk
carriers, such as ores and coal. Whilst up at the car park by the port
control building we saw a freighter on her way out, and watched as a helicopter
picked up the port pilot from the deck of the carrier. It seems that
all pilots are dropped off and picked up by helicopter, the first time we
have come across this. 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). It was the first fine day we've
had for nearly a week, so it was disappointing to see the sky clouding over
and taking on that peculiar yellow tinge of an approaching
thunderstorm. Fortunately, however, the rain didn't come along too
early to spoil our enjoyment of the day. It waited instead until about
2 o'clock in the morning to start with an almighty crash which nearly had me
falling out of my bunk, but it didn't stay around for long. I gather
from Fiona in the office that thunderstorms are a new phenomenon around here
- global warming again, I suppose. |
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
One
of the Inhabitants of Pelican Island |
|
|
22 September 2011 Umfolozi Game Reserve
Whilst shopping for some new curtain material - the old ones fell into holes
when I washed them in La Réunion - we met Rennell and Anne, long-time
residents of Empangeni, although Anne now lives in Australia most of the
time. They very kindly invited us for a day out with them, and took us
to the game reserve at Umfolozi, about an hour's drive from Richard's
Bay. And what a splendid day we had! The weather was rather cool
and overcast and most unlike the usual weather here, according to Anne. 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. Rennell then drove us back to
Coromandel, where they came on board for a drink before setting off home to
Empangeni. Despite the gloomy weather, it had been a truly remarkable
day, one we will not forget for a long time, nor will we forget the
generosity of our hosts. |
Impala
Lion
Warthog
Elephant
Zebra
Homo
sapiens erectus and the wife |
|
|
3-13 September 2011 La Réunion to Richard's Bay,
South Africa After waking up to a flat calm, we suddenly found a
nice little breeze had sprung up and decided to leave while the going was
good. Once outside we hoisted the full main and genoa - only to have to
reef down about 10 minutes later as the nice little 10 knots rose to 25,
leaving us screaming along with the gunwale under the water! As Andy
was reefing the main a huge sea broke over Coromandel's port bow, drenching
us both - so much for the shower and clean clothes! However, by
mid-afternoon the wind had reduced to a more reasonable 10-15 knots, and we
slowly slid away from La Réunion, although we were able to see the
peak of Piton des Neiges until sunset. 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. So back we went, Michael from Tanoa
was waiting to take our lines, and in no time at all we were snug in our new
berth. And just as well: the following day after a brief period of
calm, the wind sprang up from the south west, blowing up to 25 knots, which
would certainly not have been pleasant had we still been out there. As
Ruth (SV Do It) once said, " It's better to be in here wishing
you were out there, than being out there wishing you were in
here!" With this coast's reputation for appalling conditions when
a south westerly wind ruffles the south west going Agulhas Current, I was
very glad that we were safely tucked up in here. |
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 |
|
