Sailing around the World ( presently in Richards Bay , South Africa )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Mon 15 Nov 2010 07:41
|
SUNDAY 14th
NOVEMBER 2010
07.00hrs, It is a very wet and windy day, but
around here , things change very quickly
According to the cruising guide, The weather can go
from a NE gale to a SW gale in the space of a few minutes, WOW
!
and this area is famous for their huge Rogue waves,
up to 20 meters high. and many big ships suffer damage in these
waves,
And to think, we are out in this potential
hazzardous area and supposed to be enjoying ourselves.
BUT.but we will, even if we do not want to.
we blooming well will. and we are leaving here today and going to
Durban,
Meanwhile, Aileen had to use the boats drier to dry
the clothes, as the weather was so wet. Mind you, the locals are
delighted as they have had drought conditions now ,
for a long long time , and even the university is totally out of
water.
08.00hrs, We strolled up the Yacht Club for a fried
breakfast, at 5 euro's , its good value.and its a Sunday,
Aileen and Stephen drove to the the local shopping
mall, Gawd, it was a huge place again, It was so big, it was
like walking
around in an enclosed city. and boy, it was
busy,
We got the few bits and pieces that we wanted and
returned to the Marina, Skipper then returned the rental car to the
airport,
John from " Tzigane " followed in his rental and
brought skipper back to the boat a short time later.
14.00hrs, There is a Weather window, ie,
moderate weather for the next 24 hours only, so we we had already decided to
take advantage
of it and head for Durban with "
Tzigane", " Eowyn," and " Thor V1 " ,
a distance of 85 miles, south.
We prepared the boat for sea, and as the rain
stopped for a short period, we resealed the port windows in the saloon, and
fixed
the rubber seal in the port porthole up front in
the forward cabin..........
We took the rib onto the davitts, and put on the
cover and by 16.30 hrs we were ready to roll.
117.00hrs, We had all our clearence papers
and had filed our flight plan with the authorities, ( Flight Plan is a list of
all the ports /
destinations we plan on visiting in while in South
Africa, ) so we slipped our lines and left Richards Bay and headed out
into a rough sea yet again.
The wind was SE and we were advised to go as far as
the 200m contour line before going south towards Darwin. This would
give us the strongest current going SW, which
turned out to be a mere 2.2 knots, but, but, its better than nothing or worse
still,
have the friggin thing against us.
We motored sailed slowly so the others kept pace
with us, and we all sailed together through the night,
There was a huge amount of shipping , and we had to
be carefull navigating our way inbetween them all.
19 .00hrs, There was a small moon above the high
layer of clouds, which made the scene bright for the night.
Skipper and Neil did the watches, while Aileen made
a chicken curry with rice, and then vanished into her bunk for the
night.
The wind shifted to NE and got up to 35 knots
before we reached our destination.
That all ,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (
Skipper )
|