The last leg, so we hope, of the first stage of the voyage. If all goes well, we should exit the exit Indian Ocean Saturday or Sunday and splash into the Atlantic after rounding Cape Agulhas. And although Cape of Good Hope, just south of Cape Town, is widely considered the most southern cape of the continent, it is not. Why is it so much better known than Cape Agulhas? Most likely, the answer is buried in navigational stories from the era of the tall ship when trade to and from the East Indies was a great source of wealth for the colonizing European nations. Cape of Good Hope was much more of a landmark than Cape Agulhas. Cape of Good Hope is where the ships turned east for the colonies or north for home.
Four boats are heading out today. Last night the weather forecasts and models were looking pretty decent for an early start. The wind was predicted to move from the west to the south overnight and then to the east later in the day. Friday is going to be pretty dismal with hardly any wind in the forecast, but early Saturday, it is supposed to pick up, blowing us around Cape Agulhas and on Sunday around Cape of Good Hope.
The marina in Port Elisabeth, a safe haven when the westerlies are at play, and the waves toss yachts around in a manner that east, west, north, or south have no meaning, as holding on is the only thing that matters, leaves much to be desired. The poorly maintained narrow docks, and the even narrower fingers perpendicular to the docks, marking the boat slips, are made of iron and concrete. Most of the metal work, keeping the concrete in place, functioning like the lead in stained glass windows, is so rusty that pieces are falling off. The mooring lines are getting stuck on the rough rusty cleats. No longer supported chunks of concrete have dropped into the water below.
Nelson Mandela Yacht Club is written on the building, separating the marina from the road, but the name is the only thing left. The club seized to exist years ago, and a restaurant now occupies the two-story structure. And what were once facilities for the marina are now washrooms for patrons of the restaurant only.
Beside the marina is the loading facility for manganese onto big cargo ships. The dock is supplied, it seems, twenty-four hours a day by an endless supply of railway cars. A fine layer of black dust has settled on the decks and rigging of the ships in port. An unwanted souvenir that hopefully washes off in one of the downpours we expect to receive in the coming days.
At 05:53, we’re the last one to hit the waterways. With the wind still blowing from the west, we immediately turn south after leaving port and follow the coastline until Cape Recife. Here we are supposed to head in a southwesterly direction. But the wind, predicted by all forecasts and models to change to south overnight, wasn’t budging. We couldn’t do better than going straight south. And it was miserable!
And although not going in the direction we wanted, we still should be sailing at a decent speed with fifteen knots of wind on the beam. We were barely doing two. The waves, not very high but very steep and only seconds apart, prevented us from going anywhere. One would pick the bow up, work itself underneath, and when far enough aft, the bow would pivot down, like a seesaw, and slam into the next wave. Not quite like hitting a brick wall, but it sure felt close enough to it.
For three hours we played that game. In the three months on this boat, I hadn’t even unpacked my foul weather gear, just wearing a rain suit when needed, but this time I got soaked. One of the four boats went back to Port Elisabeth. I found out later that the extremely rough weather had dislodged the spinnaker pole, damaging some connections to the mast. Another boat toyed with the idea of turning back solely because of weather conditions and wait for a new weather window. We didn’t, tongue-in-cheek, hoping for better weather became our strategy.
At 10:00, the sea flattened out a bit, and not much later, in a matter of twenty minutes, the wind turned south. And then, not much later, it died.
The rest of the day, we motored, and we sailed, mostly we sailed. We are no fans of motoring, but we only have a limited opportunity to make it to Cape Town, so we need to do what we need to do.
The temperature dropped considerably during the day, and by late afternoon I was wearing a full set of foulies and rubber boots. First time wearing socks in three months and sleeping under a blanket.
After a very cloudy Thursday, the sun rose in the east Friday morning, and by six, all layers had been peeled off, and it was back in shorts.
There are a lot of big ships around. We have at least four within twelve miles of us at any given time, and most of the time, more and closer. Any east-west traffic not using the Suez Canal passes through here.
Saturday evening, the moment we had anticipated since arriving in South Africa, had arrived. A steady wind moves us at about seven knots. In the distance on starboard, a development becomes visible against a desolate landscape, devoid of any growth taller than some scrubs. This is Struisbaai. Just a few miles to the left, we see the outline of a lighthouse, white with two red banners, thirty meters tall, built on a spit of land that slopes into the waters of the East Indian and the Atlantic Ocean. This is Cape Agulhas. It is 19:07 when the sun sets in front of us, and we sail a mile and a half offshore, from one Ocean into another, rounding the very bottom of Africa.