Saturday November 12th, sun, sand and speed in Walvis Bay

Our foggy damp sleep was brought to an abrupt end by a seal lolling about between the hulls. He was rolling around, scratching himself on the mooring ropes and hanging face down, arse in the air in the manner of Monty Python's French Taunter. He had loud sharp bark.

We took the dinghy into the dock just as the day's tour boats were leaving for the long spit of land that is one arm of the bay, to Pelican Point. There is a flock of pelicans that hang around the waterfront that are pretty indifferent to tourists sticking cameras in the faces. As the boats leave they may follow, floating grandly along behind them and landing on the  coach roof and deck right among the day trippers where they are fed by the boats' crews. These are big birds and watching them float in and land was a treat.

We had booked an afternoon tour of the dunes along the coast. The fog burned off by the warm sunshine and five of us, ourselves and a couple of young German women, found ourselves bundled into a Land Rover SUV and getting out of town in hurry, speed limits, Sunday drivers and jay walkers be damned. We skirted a significant salt pan operation;18 large evaporation basins each with an 18 month cycle time produce a continuous stream of salt. We were streaking down the beach, in generally soft sand, at an honest to god 100kmh, that would be about the same speed of our guide's patter; we were clearly in the hands of well practiced raconteur.The coast is pretty wild here. There is no sign of civilisation bar the tracks in the sand. Wild dogs, jackals, hyenas and springbok are common, as are, unexpectedly, ostriches. Seals hauled up on the beach are common, many distressed, many already fodder for the scavengers.

A few miles along, where the beach is overrun by the dunes, we turned inland, climbed the dunes and found ourselves perched on a knife edge a couple of hundred feet above the roaring surf (sorry, no other way to describe it) with a view down the coast and inland of dunes as far as the eye could see. It was just dazzling.

What followed was a high speed, at times a very high speed, romp through the dunes. I was born with a lead foot and I am not easily impressed by cowboys but this was thrilling. Straight down descents of angle-of-repose dune faces (37° that look more like 60°), full bore ascents of the same.  Runs along the rim of high bowls with drop offs into them. High speed runs up, around and down the face of the bowls. There were plenty of stops for photographs and time to just BE in the midst of it all, and it was magnificent. Eventually we were dropped off on a high crest to look around while our guides headed off to set up lunch below.  We generally travelled with one other vehicle, and there were half a dozen parties out this day. This spot was surreal. To our left a large bowl several hundred feet across and deep. Ahead of us, and off into the far distance stretched a succession of dunes. A couple of hundred feet down to our right a flat valley floor carpeted with vegetation sustained by subsurface water. Embedded into the shoreward dune face was more vegetation that took advantage of the fogs that roll in from the coast. Beetles live here that have developed ridges their shells that serve to gather and deliver dew for them. Lunch was pretty good; wraps, sodas energy bars and so on. The treat was very fresh oysters and champagne. I'm not much of fan of snot on a halfshell, but this was an opportunity far too good to miss. Chilled oysters and very decent champagne served on a sparkling fresh day in the middle of the Namibian desert is a world away from your burger, fries and a Coke.

The patter ranged across stories of the salt pans, the wild life and vegetation the changing geography of the coast that has cut off some of they routes they offer, multi week self drive overland trips to be had, (the bucket list just grew by one), tales of prospectors headed the 250 miles south along the beach on foot and ox cart to Luederitz. Luedieritz marks the northern edge of the coastal diamond deposits. Our guide has a clutch of gps waypoints where he has found the skeletal remains of those who faltered. More stories of mass graves of the miners, now off limits, and the tone deaf turning of skulls into decorations at a fishermans' lodge masquerading as a costal marinelife research station; they were caught by a highly offended government minister and the place was summarily shut down. That diamonds missed by the mechanical screening are still to be found on the beach. He never missed a beat, nor a chance to tweak your naivety.

We had supper at an over the water bar cum restaurant that owed more to Margaritaville than Namibia, a disorientation not helped at all by the local flamingo population. On the wall were a set of signed photographs of a specialised catamaran that set the world speed sailing record here in 2012.  65 knots over 500 yards, 55 knots over a nautical mile all done in a 25 knot wind. Pretty cool huh?

The pictures will have to wait until I get better WiFi, maybe when we get to St Helena.
A few to get you going here
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/q8cxz39ih4fbrfq/AABwKjlGIsA1c6itcKeg1OtKa?dl=0

Sunday November 6th, Cape Town to Namibia

Sunday dawned sunny and warm. We packed up, checked out and untied the ridiculous number of dock lines we had put in for the winds that howled off Table Mountain. We passed the still smouldering remains of the fishing vessel that went up in flames with a huge pall of smoke a couple of days ago. Outside the harbour we ran into twenty knot winds forward of the beam in choppy seas. It was downright chilly. Once around Robben Island we bore off a little to the north.  We added the reefed main to the jib and and with wind holding steady at twenty knots on the beam life is very comfortable. Nine knots may not sound like much but we are thirty miles out and buzzing along nicely on a brilliant day.

We passed inside Dasseneiland, (Dassie Island). A Dassie being a Rock Hyrax, a mammal the size of a fat house cat that looks like an overgrown hamster and whose closest living relative is the elephant. They are common here and we saw several in the rocks when we walked along the coast.

I turned in as we approached Saldhana bay. Around 2:00am I was awakened by the boat thrashing along, the winds were evidently up from their steady twenty knots. I  went back to sleep. At three I came up for my watch to find the winds in the high twenties. Zeke had taken in the mainsail when the wind had climbed into the thirties. The boat was settled back to a more comfortable nine knots. We were about 120 miles and fifteen hours out from Cape Town.

Monday turned out to be a peach. 180 n.miles noon to noon. Following winds in the low twenties, seas around six feet with occasional twelve footers,  navy blue and covered with white caps. Our speed is mostly around nine knots, sometimes fourteen down the waves and just once at nineteenth knots. That was a ride and had me watching the bows closely. I would not have wanted to see them submerge as we rode down into the wave's trough. All in all the sort of day you wish you could keep in a bottle to savour on those not so good days.

Tuesday November 8th, election day in the US. What's the worst that can happen?

Bar one, the days following continued in a similar vein. Following winds between 20 & 30 knots with lulls to 15 and gusts to 35, moderate seas with occasional big swells to get your attention as the boat runs away, and clear sunny skis. Adjusting the sails is no more than setting the spinnaker for the day and jib overnight. But, it is cold, the water temperature is a chilly 54°F ,(10°C) that even the midday African sun struggles against.

We approached the entrance to Walvis Bay in the dark on the tenth. The bay is roughly square five miles by five miles, the entrance marked by five towering parked oil rigs light brightly enough to ruin your night vision. Feeling our way into the yacht club's corner was tricky even with the GPS chart plotter. The club is now hidden behind a large new wharf three quarters of a mile long and a half mile wide that is not marked on the boat's charts and is bereft of navigation lights.  I was happy to have up to date charts on my cell phone, and I know how mickey-mouse that sounds. A little wandering around produced a mooring and we were secured for the night. The thought of having to attempt this entrance on even minimally out of date paper charts in the dark gives me the willies. We calmed our frayed nerves with a bottle wine and a shared chocolate bar. We should do that more often.

Walvis Bay is weird. A mix of beach front funk, medium sized town on the edge of the desert, large industrial port. Immigration and customs were easy, a couple of forms, some small talk, a couple of rubber stamps and Bob's your uncle. Making arrangements for everything else has been frustrating. Checking into the yacht club? Nope. Finding a mooring? Nope, we poached one, there are lots of empty moorings. Renting a vehicle? Nope. Arranging a tour into the country's amazing places, (and there are plenty)? Nope, well not quite. We are off along the beach for an afternoon tomorrow, and we stumbled across that. Phone and data services? Don't get me started. Uber? Never heard of it. ET would never have got out of here.

Link to today's paltry pic's :
*  Our now resident seal.
* The interior is the Walvis Bay Yacht Club
* The chap in the dinghy is Zeke returning from a couple of charter cats having found out whose  mooring we had poached. The boat boys knew and brushed it off with "don't even worry about it". The grey day background captures the mood of this place in the mornings.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uo5y70q3hjmyt2j/AAAQoAHGOgy1jUPbUCLJLVQNa?dl=0

Link to all photos:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/777m1sl5uebzqey/AABaKPwzXV0e_WlXZC0LDhDja?dl=0

Wednesday November 9th, Apocalypse Now

Arrived Namibia.
Offered political asylum.
We accepted.
L8R.

Friday November 4th. Wrapping up in Cape Town

The low pressure weather system has cleared Cape Town restoring the resident high that we ride around the edge of to St Helena. Pick your isobar and follow it all the way. We depart on Sunday morning, that being the best day to escape the clutches of officialdom, we are told. (Some joke that turned out to be)

There is a debate about visiting the Namibian desert. We have heard alluring tales. It could give me a chance to snowboard down the dunes, which I'd have to do to, um, boost my cred with Will & Dan.

Our last days in Cape Town included a day trip out to the vineyards of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek where vineyards have been planted since the 17th century. The wines are impressive. The highlight for me was lunch at the Rust En Vrede vineyard, a memory that will not soon fade nor will the memory of the setting among the gardens and vineyards at the foot of the mountains on a warm, sunny and breezy day. The small town of Franschhoek is a very attractive destination all on its own.

A boat showed up here the other day that our fleet had met somewhere in the Pacific, an occasion for hugs, how-are-yous and general bonhomie. The owners are a remarkable couple. Now in her fifties, she has been sailing and travelling since her mid twenties, a woman possessed. He is a retired Italian who has been at sea for the last twenty years. Listening to their stories dispelled any remaining notions I had about leading a full life and being in pretty good shape for my age. Over the course of an hour I heard about losing their prior boat on a reef in Brazil (it sank in under two minutes),  walking from Mexico to Canada, twice; cycling a circuit of the lower 48 states taking in Miami, Los Angeles, Oregon, Boston and Washington DC; on a prior trip here they cycled from Hout's Bay up to the Table Mountain cable car, hiked the mountain up and down and cycled back to the boat. They dismissed hiking hut to hut in the European Alps as being for hopeless softies. I asked if they had hiked in the Himalayas, the Annapurna Circuit for example - been there done that. I should have known better than to ask. They sailed 5,000 miles from New Zealand to southern Chile along the 43rd parallel, in and around the Straits of Magellan, westward around Cape Horn and up Chile's coast. When I  saw her yesterday, she was just back from a run from the yacht club up Table Mountain and back and I do mean all on foot. They leave with us tomorrow going non-stop to Grenada, around 7,000 statute miles. He is going on from there to the US for treatment for prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, which sounds pretty grim to me.

We have been busy with departure chores. The starboard engine now starts reliably, though it smokes like a demon until the third cylinder deigns to join in. The diesel dude has been here everyday for a week. The main halyard sheave, three reef lines sheaves and a lower shroud tang have been replaced. We repaired a couple line clutches. Scrubbed the crud off the hull from the dinghy, dinghies don't stay in place when you push on something. We found a marine cordage outlet store that is ridiculously cheap, 180 feet of spinnaker sheets for $30 (£24). Provisioning was made easier by the supermarket which delivered our swag, and us, to the boat at no charge. Farewell dinners and drinks left me with a bit of a thick head this morning. Acquiring pounds sterling for St Helena, rumour is they don't take credit cards and ATM's are thin on the ground. The St Helena pound is pegged to Sterling. Why they bother with a separate currency escapes me. You can't exchange Namibian Dollars outside the country, neither to nor from. The currency is pegged to the Rand, and evidently some of their ATM's dispense Rand! A crap currency must be part of the prewar German charm of the place. Laundry, there is always laundry, and tokens for the machines are scarce. Evidently there is a thriving arbitrage operation with the laundrettes in the city; the club's tokens sell for twice the price out there.

It is now Saturday night and we are settled on going to Namibia. We leave as soon as the formalities are complete. At around 700 nautical miles, we should get there within a week.

Cape Town has been great and I'll be sorry to leave, though I am itching to get underway again.

Pictures to follow.

Link to today's pic's : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yr0w5po6d4w3zhd/AADnGTgsblesRIr1Gs4kHQtga?dl=0
Some pictures are not referred to in the text
* time lapse of the yard here lifting a sixteen ton cat on a recycled railway crane.
* A local 's homage to Daisy Duke
* An in joke for The Boroughs. They declined to change the name to " ... In the seas”
* The loco for the wine country excursion parked by the yacht club. Wine Train outbound. Crazy Train inbound.
* The cat. There is a propeller under all the weeds.
* A gorgeous home design boat. All aluminium. The owner was fitting it out here.
* Sunset over Lion's Head
* Wine at the Ernie Els vineyard
* Wine & lunch at Rust En Vrede vineyard
* Vineyard planted with roses to attract the bees
* Hugenot monument in Franschhoek
* The ex-pat Scots social club
* A didgeredoo busker at the V&A waterfront. The electronics made a big difference to his sound.

Link to all photos:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/777m1sl5uebzqey/AABaKPwzXV0e_WlXZC0LDhDja?dl=0

Monday October 31st, Cape Town part 2

While my crew mates took off for a three day tour north and east of here. I took the opportunity to get some quiet time, and slow down the cash flow. It was a peaceful change. I did get out to one of the mega malls that seem to infest the outskirts of too many large cities; harbingers of the extinction of a city's individuality. The exterior is somewhere between Disney and any Florida Mall. The interior is the depressingly familiar mashup that leaves you thinking you must have walked onto the set of The Truman Show.

(This is a bit of a rewrite of a paragraph. In the prior blog) Being a tourist city there is the usual open topped, hop on / hop off, double decker, big red London Bus. It is an easy, comfortable and at $15 (£12) a reasonable way to get the lay of the land. The long route circumnavigates Table Mountain leaving the city via District Six, (in the 1970's the coloured population was forcibly removed and area was razed), passing the remnants of Cecil Rhodes' estate, past the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, along the edge of the Constantia vineyards, past the black township of Imizamo Yethu, euphemistically dubbed an Informal Settlement by officialdom (33,000 people stuffed into 140 acres without water and sewers). The furthest point out is Hout Bay. Looking across the bay's white sand beach to the surrounding hills that run to Chapman's Peak it looks lightly developed and pretty as a picture. You would never guess that Cape Town lay just a dozen miles away over Constantia Nek. The run back to Cape Town along the narrow road that clings uneasily to the high cliffs that edge the coast and into the suburbs, a term that creates entirely the wrong impression. Llandudno is effectively a private enclave, Camps Bay is very coastal California, Clifton, Bantry Bay and Green Point lead the way into the downtown.

The more time we spend here, the more people we meet and the more interesting Cape Town becomes. 

Nora's dad has a buddy from his college days in North Carolina who has a strong reputation as a painter. He keeps a studio in the Woodstock district. That night we all found ourselves in a happening restaurant on Kloof street; a fancy dinner for the price of lunch in the US. The wine was not a steal, but was excellent. A welcome change from some of our recent viniculture ventures.

A friend of mine married a coloured woman from Cape Town which resulted in a two excellent lunches. One with his mother in law and very striking sister in law at the resolutely white Chapman's Hotel overlooking Hout Bay. The looks were worth the price of lunch. The following day we went to his mother in law's home in The Flats part of Cape Town. This is where the apartheid government relocated the non white population of Cape Town's District Six prior to its destruction. Her stories were heartbreaking, appalling and calmly told without resentment. The story of post apartheid South Africa, the reconciliation without a bloodbath,  continues to test ones credulity. If written as fiction, it would be dismissed as hopelessly naïve. Just thinking about it now leaves me unable to continue writing.

 

Saturday October 22nd, Cape Town

I contented myself hanging around the club for a couple of days, though some of our compatriots escaped the compound. Once again we find ourselves inside a secured port, and a 45 minute walk from the centre of town and the more touristy waterfront. Brazilian visa formalities have the Americans pulling their hair out. Brazil seems to have adopted a punitive stance in response to perceived difficulties for Brazilians getting into the US; it can't be that hard, the US is crawling with them. The remains of my own hair is threatened by email difficulties and by Google's evident assumption that I am some sort of full time remote diagnostic tech' for their cell phone service.

Whatever.

The club is very lively and people we've met are friendly. Wednesday night racing attracts a good crowd, this weekend is an insurance industry regatta (lots of high heels, team hats and velvet rope barriers), December brings the start to their Cape to Rio race, which looks like a blast.

I did take the long walk into town and ended up on the Victoria & Alfred (yes, Alfred) waterfront, an older commercial dockland nicely redone as a tourist attraction. It's a fun place to hang out for a couple of hours with a good range of attractive bars, restaurants, shops, street performers and the like. In one corner is V&A yacht marina filled with oligarch class super yachts and imported racing yachts, with their own stacks of monogrammed shipping containers alongside. Tough life.

We did mount an assault on Table Mountain. An Uber delivered us to the cable car station whence we walked a couple of kilometers to the start of the trail. Table Mountain stands at 3560ft, the trail started at around 1200. I bailed out in the heat at 1600 feet. Zeke & Nora made it to the top. It's a steep trail, and they were pretty tired, but well done them.

The crews took off into the hinterlands north and east of Cape Town for a couple days. They returned laden down with booze, telling tall tales of vineyards and ostrich riding. I had a couple of calm days reading, looking around the city and riding the open topped tour bus out to Hout Bay. That was a fine way to get the lay of the land; this whole area is spectacularly scenic; the coast south of the city, Bantry Bay, Llandudno and Camps Bay are very swish.

The photographs include some from others in the fleet from earlier in the trip. There is a time lapse video clip of the cloud rolling of table mountain, when this happens the wind howls through Cape Town and across the marina making a hell of a racket.

More amazing tales in part 2.

Link to today's pic's : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/o6r8bhntppg3udc/AADWPVBwBllvxw039guHZuLpa?dl=0
(Includes some recently received pictures from crew mates)

Link to all photos:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/777m1sl5uebzqey/AABaKPwzXV0e_WlXZC0LDhDja?dl=0

Monday October 17th, To Kapstaad

Kapstaad being the Afrikaans name for Cape Town.

We left our slip an hour before the others to pick up a mooring in the bay off the beach and yacht club. Just behind our slip is where the shark cage boat ties up which makes for a tight spot and leaving while they were away gave us more room to manoeuvre. It was a brilliantly clear and sunny and an hour's waiting was a peaceful gift. We were entertained by a fleet of kids in sailing school going through their drills, sailing circles round a pair of bouys, practising crowded starts, jostling for position as they all rounded a mark together. They were pretty slick.

Our fleet mates emerged from the harbour, we sailed off our mooring and joined them to round Cape St. Blaise at the western end of the bay. The beach gave way to cave pocked, low (100ft or so)  sandstone cliffs topped with houses overlooking the open ocean. Today it  would make for a fine walk in the sunshine and light breezes. I can only imagine what it is like in a south easterly gale, the big rollers grinding themselves to smoke and being carried away, up and over the cliffs.

--------------------

Our forecasted tailwind was late coming and at 4:00am on Tuesday we were motoring. A pretty morning with a full moon overhead and the faintest promise of sunrise in the south eastern sky; it takes some getting used to having the sun rise and swing northward to midday. More wind would be nice, though I should be careful about what I wish for in these parts!

By 5:00am the wind was up to 10 knots aft. Off with engine, what a relief, deploy the hydrogenerater, push out the main, rig the preventer, snug down the mainsheet to keep things quiet and have a good look around. The fishermen are clear of us, and I could see our two compatriots' masthead lights winking in and out on the horizon across the moonlit sea. We are creeping along at 5 knots in the breeze. I set my alarm for ten minutes to doze.

By 7:00 Nora and Zeke were up, Zeke roused by our futzing with the port engine trying to convince ourselves that the prop was folded. It may have been, but more importantly, it was now time to choose a spinnaker. We were expecting fair winds to 30 knots, but at 10 knots the winds were now lighter than we expected. The big spinnaker can stay up in 18 knot winds, the small one can take 10 knots more. We were trailing the other boats who were still motorsailing so the bigger spinnaker was tempting. We set about rigging the lines, guys and halyards, the winds rose a couple of knots. We unzipped the large spinnaker's bag, we got a couple of knots more. We zipped the bag closed, and went for the smaller spinnaker. The wind held. Up she went, but wouldn't set cleanly in the main sail's wind shadow. Down came the main. We received a revised forecast showing our winds holding under 20 knots for the day. On went the engine and we swapped spinnakers, the wind dropped a knot, the boat speed increased a couple of knots. We shut off the engine, got the prop folded and were sorted. Time for tea.

At 13:28 we rounded Cape Agulhas, Africa's most southern point and meeting point of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. We marked the occasion with a toast of Mr. Garsons' whisky. Zeke adjusted our course northward, heading for home.

The rest of the day remained settled though overcast and grey. In the late afternoon the wind built to 17 knots. We doused the spinnaker and prepared supper. The western sky cleared for sunset. It is very quiet as we creep along at 5 knots.

At 3:00 am I came back on watch to 20 knot winds, a brightly moonlit sky and, six miles north west of us, the lighthouse on the Cape of Good Hope. It was something to see. It stands 285 feet above the sea and sweeps crystal bright across the moonlit seas. A call from Tahawus, abreast of the Cape, warned us of 40 knot winds; he was running at 6 knots under bare poles. With the wind dead behind us maybe that the cape's headlands are funneling the winds.

By 4:00 the cape was four miles off our starboard beam with the winds risen to 30 knots. The moon was partially obscured behind thin clouds but the sea around the cape's headland glittered brightly in a pool of moonlight. The headland itself clearly visible, a tall black silhouette against the faint loom of the lights around False Bay. This really is something, a very memorable place to be and a fantastical night. As we draw away we can see our next light at Slangkoppunt.

By six the sun was up and drove off the spell. I'll be happier when it drives off the clammy damp.

By lunchtime, in the dead calm of a hot day, we were all tied up in Cape Town at the Royal Cape Yacht Club, and were met at the slip by a club member who guided us through the formalities and on to lunch, courtesy of the BPO. The RCYC is the biggest club so far and is a hive of activity, and not just in the bar and restaurant. The boat yard, chandlery (we have been asked what use we have on a boat for chandeliers), committee rooms and large media room (packed with enough gear to warm a retired video and sound engineer's heart) are all busy and they run an aggressive outreach to the city's youth to get them into sailing. It is quite a place, nice showers too. Each stall has its own private changing room though first place in my heart for showers remains at Algoa Bay Yacht Club.

Link to today's pic's :
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s4cyi38biou1irt/AABoTP5k21fE3LLmwVXI5rqma?dl=0
Most of these pictures have captions that you may be able to see.

Link to all photos:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/777m1sl5uebzqey/AABaKPwzXV0e_WlXZC0LDhDja?dl=0