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!