East London

We arrived in East London just before lunch on Monday with a nice breeze. Not a bad spot at all up Buffalo River with a yacht club about a mile up near the bridge. We jumped onto a mooring that belonged to the club. A couple of our friends were already there that we hadn't seen for a while and we ended up having a couple of beers at the club. The following day we hired a car as the forecast wasn't that flash for the next few days. I have a lot of family about 500kms inland from here that I had never met so we took a drive with the first night stopping at a very nice country town called Summerset East. After having a couple of beers in the local pub we checked in at a B+B accross the road and chatted to a few of the locals. The next morning we carried on to Graaff-Reinet were the big McNaughton clan are from. Was great, we met Andrew and Jenny Mcnaughton and they were super friendly and welcoming like we had known them all our lives. They filled us in on the who's who in the family and we took of in the car and visited the old farm Aloe Ridge were my dad grew up until they left in the 60's for Australia. Its pretty brutal country for farming, very dry but they seem to do alright. Very pretty with a lot of mountains and natural reserves around the place and the old historic town is very well cared for. We stayed a couple of nights with Jenny and Andrew and then said our fair wells until the next time we visit. Was a great stay and to put faces and places to the names.

We hoped for a weather window to leave Saturday but the wind isn't to flash but from Tuesday on it looks like we have at least 3 good days so we should be able to make some good miles towards Cape Town  hopefully.