Saturday 28-2

Still going, sailing well although not exactly in the right direction but we are sailing very comfortably and making good speed. It's been very cloudy the past 3 days with lots of rain squalls especially at night. They are not really strong but still keep you on your toes and get very frustrating after a while especially when you have had little sleep. But it's all good and we are plugging away heading north with the breeze around 15 knots most of the time so we are always moving. Haven't seen a ship in 4 days so our watch keeping is getting rather slack;) we do try though to stick our head out for a look every 15 minutes or so and if there are any they should see us on there AIS, but other than that there really isn't much else to say! Just eating, reading sleeping and having the odd sundowners.
Pos 20*43s 3*07e with 580 miles to go @ 0900

Wednesday 25-2

Nothing exciting to report really, swell and seas have dropped right off although it's still a little rolly. Winds have eased to 15 knots today and hopefully they will go more east tomorrow and we can make or course for Saint Helena again. We have been sailing extra miles to have a more comfortable ride and keeping our wind angle at 120-130 degrees and not rolling like mad with banging sails, might take us an extra day but that's fine:) sun is also out today, the rest of the days have been very cloudy but I think it will even be warm enough for a shower today! We were officially in the tropics yesterday above 26 degrees south so we had our first Cuba Libre' of the trip, unfortunately it is still only 24 degrees warm outside!
Just under 900nm to Saint Helena, pos 25*17s 6*50e

Bliss- Monday 23-2

Oh the last few days have been great, we have just been loving the Atlantic! Plenty of wind from behind, mostly 20-25kts, Saturday night 25-30 and Sunflower is in her element. We have just been running with the mainsail only with either 2 or 3 reefs in, on course and making good just over 140 miles a day! No stress about the headsail banging and the auto-pilot loves it. The seas were reasonably big but not confused and from the same direction as the wind, very much unlike the Indian Ocean! And that's when Sunflower's canoe stern really comes into it and they just curl around her transom, with the odd big green wave though slapping the side of the hull with a massive bang and covers the deck with water. We have been reading a lot, eating a lot and sleeping probably too much, is just so funny with all the anxiety we seemed to have inside on the Indian Ocean, especially around Africa we are both fully relaxed and it makes for a very easy passage knowing the wind should be behind us for the 3500 miles we have for Brazil. It's now Monday, we left Thursday with 1700 miles to Saint Helena and now have only just over 1100 and the seas and winds are dropping and the weather is warming up, in a couple more days we will be hopefully showering on deck:). (Julie is says I'm getting a little on the nose!)
This morning the wind is down to about 18kts and we have the head sail out for the first time in a few days and we are back doing 7 knots, happy days:)

Rolling Along

Friday 22-2 1400hrs. All is well and we are rolling along with plenty of breeze from behind making good time. Have 2 reefs in and a little bit of headsail with about 25kts of breeze. We are 170nm from Cape Town and a bit over 100 miles off the coast. Was freezing all day yesterday but today it has warmed up a tiny bit but we still have shoes and jackets on! bring on the tropics!!!

Cape Town

We left Simons Town Tuesday to head around the Cape of Good Hope the 50nm mile to Cape Town. We had to motor sail into a sloppy 15kt SE breeze which wasn't too comfy for the first 12 miles. Inish was alongside and it was devastating to see them loose there mast as one of there chain plates failed. We weren't much help to them as there wasn't much we could do except organise for the sea rescue to come and assist them with a bit of man power to recover their mast. Was torture for us to see them like that and god knows how they were feeling:( really sad day.

We had to leave them, once the sea rescue had it under control and we made our way around to Cape Town arriving just before dark. Once we rounded the cape we set the new spinnaker and made really good time until the wind died mid afternoon. Very happy with the new cruising chute in a sock, once we got all the lines right and untwisted it is very easy to handle for such a big sail and we were touching 9 knots at times!

Anyway we have been busy yesterday, after a very boozy wine tour Saturday in Stellenbosh we stayed in a back packers and I put my passport in the safe, left the next morning with a serious hang over and forgot all about it and drove back to sunflower and didn't realize for a couple of days! So yesterday amongst the hundred other things we had to do quickly also involved a 2 hour round trip to go and fetch that:)

Anyway we are on the water now, just inside Robben Island with a good forecast for the week heading for St Helena, Happy Days:)

Family time

My aunt, uncle and god father all came out from London for what was meant to be a nice relaxed holiday but actually ended up being a fairy boozy week that went by in a flash. Great fun with loads of good food, wine and a little rum thrown in on a few occasions that always seemed to get a little out of hand;) we hadn't seen them since last year when we had Xmas in Sri Lanka so it was a really good catch up. We did a couple of wineries, found some great restaurants and then did it all again and the week was gone, seemed to all go to quick and never did quite get to the relaxing bit!

Good times....

Sorry no time to add pics we are off!!

Up the creek!

Yep, the South Africans really are Bonkers. Yea but they are alright;) we had a great weekend away and met a lot of them and see what makes them tick. We left Thursday for Swellendam about 250km east and inland to a festival called "Up The Creek". It goes for 4 days with 3500 people and you just pick your spot out of a massive field and set up camp. Very loose and relaxed, you can take all your own alcohol  and security are hardly seen. The routine (from what I saw;) seemed to be to wake up and crack a can and get on with the day taking it very steady. Great mix of people of all ages and styles, from the young and trendy to the the 70 year old hippies everyone there for a great time. There were 3 stages including 1 on a little island on the river where everybody brings their floating Lilo's! Music is only at 1 stage at a time with sorts of artists, from classic rock to acoustic, African singing to Ska it was all there and some really great musicians. All local South Africans so we hadn't heard of any except the occasional song we had heard on the radio. And no matter how drunk everyone was we never saw one bit of agro or mishaps everyone was just on fine form! Was very interesting for us to see the different types of South Africans also, you have the very British Cape Town crew and the mad Dutchmen or "Afrikaans" as they are called and then the people from Johanasburg or the country towns they all seem a very good mixed bunch. Very friendly, offering to show us around were they live or come and stay and Braai with us, super bunch of people, we really like the South Africans!

Simons Town

The forecast was right and the weather held out and we made it right around to Cape Town in 3 and a half days. Really fast sailing in the current to start with and we made 200 miles in 24 hours, very happy with that considering we only had the little stay sail and no genoa! We had easterlies the whole time around the cape and no more than 20 kts so the weather was fine. That was until we were on the other side on the last day and the wind slowly built, we ended up dropping the mainsail and just carried on nicely with the new stay sail and by the time we arrived in Simons Town we had over 40 kts and were absolutely flying! We rounded the breakwater with massive gusts blowing in and dropped sail  rounded up and dropped anchor just outside the marina entrance next to our friends on "Mystic". Luckily our Rocna anchor bit straight away with loads of chain and we cracked a bottle of champers but couldn't still quite relax as the breeze was howling all night but we were all good and the next day it was flat calm and we went inside the marina at the False Bay Yacht Club. Great spot! Lots of international boats there so we caught up with some we knew and met a lot also. Great bar with happy hour each afternoon on the upper deck with cheap beers so happy days!

We got a few jobs done including the furler drum and top bearing taken of by a local rigger and taken away to have a new bearing kit put in. Will be very happy when that job is finished. We also took a hire car in Cape Town and went to Southern Ropes factory, sailors heaven with loads of rope for everything and cheap so we are getting some new halyards ect and did a bit of a tour out the back and saw it getting made, awesome to see! 

We then took a drive around the coast from Cape Town south and absolutely spectacular! Wow, with the mountains and coast and really nice little villages it makes for a really nice drive. We will explore more next week as my uncle and aunt from London arrive and no doubt we will be doing a lot of wine tasting around the place :)