The Cape of Good Hope.

October2017

Out of all the notorious oceans that lay a head of us around the world, I must
say that the Southern Ocean has been my most concerning. The Cape of Good
Hope was always between us and home and it needed careful planning.
Normally the positioning of the high pressures over the land helps with my
decision making as they keep the low pressures at bay and a good northerly
wind is needed to help you around Cape St Francis, from there on you have
somewhere to shelter. Well, we had a good window to sail the 870 nautical
miles from Richards Bay to Simons Town. A little mad, but possible.
We exited Richards Bay breakwater with a commercial tanker who hailed for
more space over the VHF, we were already tight to the lateral marks but I
complied by moving that little bit more to the channel markers. Port control sat
on the top of the cliff like a crow in it's nest making observations, ready to
pounce if things didn't look right. I was more concerned about the tankers bow
wave as we passed the break water. The waves from the sea were a little
uncomfortable, there were times when we didn't move at all because of the
swell rolling in between the breakwater. Once we had cleared the entrance and
the shoal waters on our starboard side, we were able to hoist the main. As soon
as the sails were up and sheeted in the boat became comfortable. It was only the
many anchored ships left to deal with, dodging them at our best point of sail.
In the distance we could see another yacht exiting Richards Bay which helped
reassure us of our decision to leave.
Joshua had been working on our class B AIS and managed to get it working
again, he is quite good with the computer and in him doing so we could call the
exiting yacht. It was a German yacht called Antje who was also heading for
Simons Town so plans were made to have morning and afternoon skegs.
The breaching whales that afternoon entertained us for hours as we sailed into
the sunset and the moon rises in the opposite direction, assisting the stars.
The following morning between shifts the wind had picked up and changed
direction, so the head sail had to be furled. Now the wind was accelerating to 30
knots but as the morning broke into a sunny day the wind increased to 45 knots
which was okay but now the boat was exceeding 14 knots down 2.5 metre
waves. Our average speed barely went below 10 knots. There was one wave
that took us to 14 knots and continuing onto the next wave and we saw the
speed peaked 18.5 knots. Defiantly a record for the likes of Carpe Diem in the
16 years we have owned her. Breaking our daily mileage record at 207 nm. It
felt good and it filtered down to the rest of the crew. The Agulhas current had
helped with 2.5 knots of current.
Unfortunately our German companions suffered head sail failure and had
started to pull into Port Elizabeth for repairs. When we contacted them via Port
Elizabeth radio who were awesome on the VHF, we were 55 nautical miles
further along the coast. To be honest it has been difficult trying to pull out a
head sail as the winds were strong and the course, dead down wind. There was
no way the autopilot could hold the course but it was only for 10 hours before it
turned on the nose at 30 knots. Eventually it died off and we were able to move
around the boat without holding on.
For the rest of the voyage the winds didn't return until the very last two days
where at first the thunder and fork lighting warmed us up for what was about to
come. As we rounded the south westerly coast of South Africa, avoiding the
busy shipping lanes as we tightened in the Northerly turn. The current had
slipped away from us a day before and the wind never blew in one direction for
longer that 3 hours, so it was better to motor sail. It doesn't help when a
commercial ship is out of the shipping lane in the middle of the night and not
answering his VHF. We quickly turned to port giving ourselves about 20
minutes to clear his path. It was close! We managed to raise him eventually
after the name of the vessel (Yellow stone registered in Singapore) appeared on
the AIS but only to find a stroppy man at the end of it who did not care about
other seafarers using the same waters as him. So be aware cruisers, be vigilant
and stay safe in these waters.
The thunder and lighting didn't quite leave our sailing space, leaving a black
cloud over us. There were signs of it dispersing on the morning we piloted up
towards False Bay. With 30 nautical miles to go the wind let go and we
experienced 50 knots for 20 minutes from behind which dropped off to 30 knots
then to 10, only to returned 10 miles off our destination (False Bay Yacht Club)
with some venom. For the last 2 hours Carpe Diem beated to windward in 30
knots under the watchful eye of the South African navy as they motored back
and forth across the top end of the sheltered waters as if trying to show us the
way in the gusty and very foggy conditions. Despite the uncomfortable weather,
all was calm on board, even taking down the sail was a breeze and we motored
into False Bay's visitors berth with only stories of safe sailing to share.
One more leg to go, 1700 nautical miles to St Helena.