Waiting for the weather!

So we are still here in Richards Bay waiting for a long enough weather window to sail down the coast to east london as we do not really want to stop in Durban which is very crowded at present. Monday was looking good to leave but now we see some SW winds on Tuesday?! Peter is getting very frustrated as he wants to go but we have to leave at the right time if we do not want to put ourselves in a difficult situation. The advice is to leave at the tail end of a low pressure system passing through to maximise the time available before the weather changes again. Low pressure systems come through every 3 to 5 days so you do not have much time to make progress before the next sytem is on top of you! At the moment Monday is OK but Tuesday has light winds from SW (not a good direction) but only for 24 hours then back to E and NE (good direction) until Thursday morning! In the meantime we are enjoying our stay here. Tonight we have been invited on board Zoe for an American Thanksgiving feast. Zoe has 4 crew - Ed and his wife Zoe plus Zoe's brother George and girlfriend Lynda. We plan to sail in company with Zoe down to cape Town. They are on a tighter timescale than we are as ed & Zoe fly home to California on 9 December. We have arranged a berth in the Royal Cape yacht Club from 11 December as we get hauled out there on 18 December so it gives Peter time to do other work on the boat. We also get another rig check done in Cape town. The Zululand YC where we are berthed is a small friendly club and the wildlife is interesting. Each morning around 5 to 6 am there are small monkeys playing around the boats. we have not had any monkeys on board Trompeta but Zoe have had monkeys in the boat eating their bananas and cookies!!

On Safari!

Yesterday we took a bus to the oldest game park in South Africa the Hluhluwe Imfolozi national park - established in 1895. It was an early 7am start as the park is 2 hours drive from Richards Bay. When we arrived at the park small groups of us transferred to safari jeeps. The jeep took us along some tarmac roads then off road to spot the wild game. We saw Elephants, Giraffes, Zebra, Antelope, Impala, Crocodile, Blue Wildebeest, Rhinoceros, Buffalo and Warthog. In addition the birds we saw were brightly coloured like butterflies. We saw a dung beetle rolling a large ball of dung along the road as we drove past! The sound in the park was often one of crickets making a loud buzzing noise. Much louder than the cicadas we often hear in the Caribbean. At mid day the jeep stoped at the Hilltop Restaurant where we enjoyed a very cheap lunch of fish and chips. Since we arrived we have been amazed at how cheap it is to eat out. Our bill for fish and chips twice plus cheesecake for Peter and 2 beers plus water was 183 Rand which is about £13. The first night we arrived we ate fish and chips at the yacht club for £3 each!! It was a long day with the bus taking us back to the Marina around 4pm. Just in time to get a hot shower (it was quite cool in the morning as the clouds hung over the mountains and the jeep was open sided!) and relax before dinner with Phil & Andrea in the Yacht Club - again good cheap food - Steak and chicken plus several drinks came to 160 Rand (about £11.50). South Africa is a very interesting place with whites and blacks living in separate places. On the drive to the game park we past many shanty houses built of concrete or brick with corrugated iron roofs where the black people live. The marina staff are mainly black doing all the manual jobs with the staff in the yacht club office all white. Everyone is very friendly though and there is no sense of any hostile atmosphere. In the shopping mall we encountered one black man begging for bread but that was all we have seen in the way of poverty but there obviously are pockets of poverty. Today we are getting some boat jobs done and will probably go back to the shopping mall for me to get some retail therapy!! It is fun buying Christmas stuff too.

South Africa at last!

Today marks the end of our epic voyage across the Indian Ocean which has been one of the most diverse and difficult Oceans to sail. Each day seems to present different sailing conditions and there are lots of currents in different directions and swell from what seems like everywhere at times! This last passage started with a very rough and bouncy sea as we left Port Louis Mauritius the boats were all bucking and rolling in the big sea swells. Fortunately this sea only lasted 24 hours and by the following day the sea had calmed a little and we had good trade winds to sail along comfortably for much of the journey. There were some days with particularly strong winds into the low 30's and with a sideways swell this made for a bumpy and rolly ride. As a contrast we flew our Parasailor (big downwind sail for use in light winds) for a whole day on Sunday. Peter has declared the Indian Ocean the worst ocean to date with difficult unpredictable seas. The good news is that by timing our arrival here in Richards Bay to avoid the low pressure systems we actually had a very calm night and arrived here around 5am local time. The low pressure systems bring SW winds which kick up againts the Aghulus current which is a strong fast flowing current running along the coast line in a SW direction and the end result is huge waves which can overpower a yacht and are extremely dangerous. Even big ships have been known to suffer damage as these freak waves unleash their fury. It is really important to watch the weather and always leave port during a good weather window to avoid any turbulent seas and dangerous conditions. We plan to sail in company as we cruise down the coast to Cape Town with Zoe who is another rally boat who also plans to be in Cape Town around 9/10 December like us. Anyway on a brighter note here we are in Africa! Even the air smells different. The Zululand Yacht Club marina is where we have berthed Trompeta and we look forward to a few days relaxing and catching up on boat repairs (nothing major) and other little jobs you never seem to have time to do on passage.When we arrived we were given a bottle os sparkling wine from the Yacht Club so we had a lovely btreakfast of smoked salmon and eggs and sparkling wine!! We are going on a World ARC tour to a game park on Thursday so maybe we will see the BIG 5 animals! Watch out for our next blog!