We decided to leave Durban on Monday at sundown, 6:00pm. We were the last of our little fleet of three to pull out and by time we were in the exit channel proper it was dark. We passed the seaward side breakwater and could only see fierce looking seas breaking over it. We knew we were in for rough night when we left the exit channel and found ourselves in very large seas. It wasn't long before we were all feeling grim and a 30 second task of looking for a socket wrench had me confined to my bunk and the head. Zeke pulled an epic watch covering for myself and Nora while feeling the effects himself. He shouldn't have done it for me, but I was very grateful that he did.
Tuesday morning things improved, but it took us most of the day to feel almost recovered. The radio chatter told us that the Durban authorities had closed the port to freight traffic due to 21ft breaking seas at the harbor entrance. I think I'm glad I couldn't see it.
Wednesday made up for it with a fantastic day's sailing. Thirty knots knots of wind and large orderly seas both dead behind us and making around 13 knots the on a reefed jib. We blew by East London in brilliant sunshine and set our course for Port Elizabeth. The forecast showed the wind would come around from a northerly to an in-our-faces 30 knot southerly just as we arrived, we just squeaked in ahead of the change and are tied up on a concrete wall fishing pier. One of our fleet bailed and put into East London, the other came in a couple of hours behind us and had a bit of a slog getting in.
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