01-01-02 Happy New Year. We rang in the New Year with friends in Richard's Bay. The international yachties here organized a dock party right in Tuzi Gazi Marina so we could be close to our boats. Didn't want any errant fireworks landing on board! It was a crazy night - with many locals coming down to the waterfront to celebrate. Fireworks, parachute flares, camp fires all around us! We survived and so did SIMMER. We had fun eating, drinking and dancing on the quay. A little fuzzy this morning, but we are still planning to catch a movie at the local cinema today. Movies here in RSA are very affordable - $1.20 each. We can even splurge and buy popcorn and soda.
01-07-02 We're in Durban (Lat 29°52'S/Lon 31°01.5 E). We sailed from Richard's Bay in 16 hours overnight. We had a good sail with a bit of downwind sailing at the start, then a nice reach right into Durban at daylight, winds 20-25 knots. Durban is a big city with an Indian flavor, population 3.2 million. It is the home to the largest concentration of Indian-descended people in RSA. Indians were imported to South Africa to work in the mines and other manual labor in colonial times. We're enjoying the Indian food, galleries, and many boat chandlers. But big cities aren't quite our taste, so we are looking for the next weather window to go and hop down the coast. We may leave tomorrow (Jan 8th) if the weather is right and head to the next port, East London, 255 nm away. One of our very valuable HF radio contacts lives here in Durban. He's on the radio several times a day and provides updated weather info and advice for sailing the South African coast. He (Fred) and his wife (Eva) came down to the marina, gave us a lovely gift of Cape fruit and the current weather report. What a nice couple and a wonderful welcome to Durban. Colleen baked some chocolate chip cookies for them as a heart-felt thanks. They are very dedicated to yachties passing through the area and we all appreciate their efforts.
01-11-02 Arrived in East London yesterday, known locally as EL. The port is RSA's largest river port on the Buffalo River and we are tied up to the free town wharf. It's a nice spot and we'll spend a couple days relaxing after our passage. We experienced some bizarre weather here in EL, just 12 hours after arrival - a thunderstorm came through in the late afternoon with severe lightening, heavy rain and huge hail. We've never seen hail like that before, glad we weren't offshore sailing. Our cockpit was full of hail cubes, as if we had an ice machine turned on full power. Today's weather was beautiful - breezy and cool - and we organized a barbecue (braai) with the other yachties. South Africans use the term braai (pronounced "BRI") for barbecue, and it is a national past time. The braais are usually built of brick, with metal cooking grates, and wood fired. We had a wonderful evening with the South African red wines and fire keeping us warm. A little guitar playing also added ambience to the evening, providing a wonderful memory of EL.
01-17-02 We arrived in Port Elizabeth (PE), Lat 33°57'S/Lon 25°36'E, a couple days ago. Glad to have the Transkei coast, known as the "Wild Coast", behind us. It is a notoriously dangerous area for ships. Shipwrecked sailors were the first Europeans to visit this part of the world and many ship wrecks dot the coastline. The dangers are a direct result of the strong Agulhus current, prevalent southwesterly gales, formation of abnormal waves and not many safe harbors. We still have some challenging sailing ahead of us enroute to Cape Town, but our arrival in PE is a small notch in our belt. PE bills itself as the "Friendly City" and we've experienced it first-hand. The Algoa Bay Yacht Club offers 3 free days at their dock for visiting yachts and a free drink for each crew member. Also the local chandler came to the yacht club to fetch us and bring us to his shop. We needed to buy some line and a few small pieces of hardware. After our purchases, he drove around to show us the area, to his house for fresh-squeezed orange juice and to meet his wife, and back to our boat. What a wonderful gesture and we really enjoyed the morning.
01-21-02 Moved 50 nm west to Port St. Francis, Lat 34°11'S/Lon 24°51'E. Our passage from PE to Port St. Francis was excellent. Sunny, lovely wind, calm seas, and we saw seals and our first penguin. Guess we are getting a bit south! The penguin is called a jackass penguin, because their voice is very much like the braying of a donkey. We didn't hear it though, as it quickly dove underwater as we sailed by. It was nice to day sail again, we've been doing so many overnight and multiple day passages. We'll be here for awhile, since a southwesterly has moved in. The wind is not forecasted to go back to easterly until 4-5 days from now. Since we're waiting for weather, we may hike to Jeffrey's Bay - world famous surf spot.
01-30-02 Left Mossel Bay this morning, headed around the cape to Cape Town. The winds were light westerly and forecasted to switch to south, southeasterly by mid day. Good forecast to go around the cape. Instead the winds built to 20-25 knots from the west and the seas were very sloppy. So we anchored in a small bay, 12 miles west of Mossel Bay and are now waiting for the winds to shift and the seas to calm down before we head out again.
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