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.

Back to normality

Well I went the backward (cheapest) route to South Africa from Australia via Dubai. This wouldn't have been too bad except one was late making me miss the next which meant a lot of running around in the airports like a mad man to get on the next flight back to Durban and then onto Sunflower with Julie. Ended up arriving onboard just after midnight. Julie also had a mission with 5 different legs back from Argentina! Anyway all was well when we were back onboard:)

The next few days was just sorting everything out to get ready to leave for the next weather window. We went to put up the headsail and the furler was jammed, this is a bit of a major as we have no drive in light winds. Turns out this is the older model of profurl and has steel ball bearings and if any water gets through the seal say goodbye. I had ordered a new staysail through Ulman sails and that arrived so at least that's something. They have a bearing kit in Cape Town so we decided to leave without the headsail and just have to motor a bit more in the lighter winds.

We checked out Friday to leave Saturday and are now on our way. Bit of motoring to start but managed to sail last night but then the sea is glass today and we are once again motoring. It's either all or nothing here and you just have to go whenever you can and we were lucky to get this window so soon. 20kts from behind is forecast for tonight and that should get us into East London tomorrow afternoon sometime were it looks like we might stay for a night or 2 until we can carry on. It's just under 900nm to Cape Town so we will have only 2/3rds to go. We have a strong current of 2-4 kts helping us now. 

All is good being back onboard just trying to get back in the sailing routine once again, still kicking things I shouldn't with my big toe;) 

Busy times

We've had a great time in South Africa but now I'm back working on a boat in Australia and Julie is at home in Argentina visiting family and we don't arrive back to the boat until the first week of next year.

After we finished checking in at Tuzi Gazi marina we wandered over to the Zulu Land Yacht Club to check it out and see if they had any space for us. The world ARC rally was coming in a couple of days with 22 big boats but they still found a great spot for us and were super friendly. We loved it straight away. Big grassy areas all around with lots of BBQ Or Braais as they call them and a good bar with cheap beer, couldn't ask for much more?! The floating pontoons were in a lot better shape also than Tuzi Gazi and you could point your bow into the Southerly wind, were as the other marina you are side onto it and there were many problems with pontoons breaking up. The only downside was most of our friends stayed in Tuzi Gazi as they prefered being closer to all the restaurants ect but it's still not far to go and catch up with them. It got busy when the 22 ARC boats arrived and was a good buzz with lots of Braais and beers going down but after a week they were gone, on a mission to sail around the world without taking a breath, good luck to them;)

My South African friend Simon who has a boat is Langkawi also came up to see us which was great to catch up over a few beers.

We did a few boat jobs including cleaning out our 3 water tanks properly. The water we got in Madagascar didn't do much for our stomachs so was good to get them cleaned out with bleach and properly flushed out and was surprising how much sediment was in the bottom! We also fitted a second automatic bilge pump with an alarm which we had been meaning to do for a while.

Then it was time to go and explore, we hired a cheap little buzz box and bought a tent and went for a drive up north into the parks. Was brilliant. We drove the first day up to the north enterance at Umfolozi game park and stayed at a backpackers not more than 5 mins from the gate. Up at 5 the next morning       

And in the rain we drove in, animals were pretty quiet to start with but as the morning progressed we saw a heap, pretty well everything except chetah and leopards. Ended up driving until 2pm doing over 150kms through the park and was knackered after it, lots of concentration driving dodging potholes and looking for animals but was definitely worth it. We then drove to Cape Vidal which is another game park were you can camp, we arrived late arvo and set up our tent and stayed a couple of nights.

Very nice place, right on the beach with good campsites, a popular place for the locals to get away for the weekend. A little bit worrying though that our neighbour said the next morning that late that night after coming out of the toilet block and there was a chetah there looking at him! Apparently there haven't been any attacks for a long time;)

We also went on a boat trip on the lake and saw hippos and crocodiles which was pretty good.

Then it was back to the yacht club to clean and pack up Sunflower ready to leave on our flights back home.

Richards Bay

Well the last night out was a little exciting. The breeze started to fill in early evening from the NNE and by midnight we had 25kts with rain. It was directly behind us so we had to put in a few gybes to stay reasonably close to the coast. We had 2 reefs and a scrap of headsail and were averaging 8kts. Should have put a 3rd reef in really as it continued to grow with gusts especially as we went further out. The waves weren't too bad, sloppy for sure but could have been a lot worse. About 2am the shackle on the traveller connecting it to the mainsail broke, shit. Ended up being ok as it broke down the bottom and made a hook so the mainsail didn't go wild and I was able to lash it together but it could have been catastroff! Chinese shackle is all I can say:) they will all be replaced soon.

Mantra was also around hanging for daybreak to enter the channel and by 7am we were inside and very relieved to be here! Timing is everything and we wouldn't wanted to be out there much longer at all as by early evening it filled in from the south with a vengeance. We were out for dinner with a couple of other boats eating lamb shanks and chicken cordon bleu with a smile on our faces when it did hit thinking how lucky we were to have good weather forecasting!

Happy days, loving Richards Bay. 

We arrived in Tuzi Gazi marina to clear in but today we are going over to the Zulu Land yacht club.

Back in the western world and it feels alright!

Almost there! Mon 3rd Nov

Well I even got a tad emotional today when we spotted the South African coast.... Paul Simons "Grace town" got thrown on, Malagasy rum came out, and well there was a bit of a party going on in Sunflowers cockpit for an hour!
Had a good nights sail last, but today we had the motor on again switching it off at 4pm. The forecast is for strong NE winds with some rain after midnight so we might be in for an exciting run into Richards Bay. We have 80 miles to go and plan to enter the channel at daybreak.
Will be happy tomorrow we're sure ;)

Current! Sunday 2-11

Well after deciding yesterday that we weren't going to burn any more diesel and just cruise on into Maputo the wind slowly filled in. We also got a text from Tom on Ever After saying they had 2-3kts current inside of us so we headed on in. Our "Google Earth Live" waypoints for the current were thrown in the bin as they proved to be a waste of time! Just follow the coast along the deeper contours and you're laughing! Not the opposing currents we saw on live. Anyway, we had a great night and found it and were doing 7-8kts under full sail until half 8 this morning.then the breeze died and left a sloppy sea so we have motored a while as we are now back on for arriving in Richards Bay for Daylight Tuesday all going to plan! The forecast is for the breeze picking up tonight with easterlies, building until Tuesday afternoon from the North at 20+ and then turning Strong southerlies by early hours of Wednesday morning so we should make it in plenty of time.
It's now Sunday 1800 and we have 220nm to go until Richards Bay and have a couple of kts current that will hopefully build also.

Happy Days! Sat 1 nov

Well yesterday we were starting to forget that we are actually a sailing boat. We had been Motoring continually in a flat calm sea although we did manage to sail slowly for 2 hours early morning but that didn't last long. So it was back to watching more episodes of Seifield and transferring more fuel to fill in the day until lunch. Then we busted out the solar shower for a bit of a scrub and Julie gave me a haircut which was a big improvement from the "dumb and dumber" style I got last time and then the wind slowly filled in from the SE which was perfect as we got a little apparent wind. So the windvane was set and the last lime sacrificed with a drop of the delicious Malagasy Rum with Bob Marley cranking and we were off! Doing 6.5-8kts with the current, Happy Days!
Had a slower night as we lost the current although still sailed with enough wind. There is another big weather system with strong southerlies hitting Richards Bay Tuesday late at this stage. We were hoping to make it there for the morning just before it turns but at this speed we won't make the 450nm and no point burning diesel if we can't make it anyway so we will just plod along and head for Muputo and hang out on the cape for a few days until it turns good again.