vocet south africa

Avocet's Adventures Around the World
Derry Ryder
Thu 18 Dec 2008 08:34
 here we are in capetown 26 days 12hours from salvador 3350 nautical miles as crow flies much more sailing
first 5 days good winds then3 days no wind then3 days very strong south east winds lost the vane of our wind steering machine.thenfour days very light to no wind then five good wind days then no wind until day 24   then strong southerly until in did 300 miles in36 hours on reaching soldahna bay in17 to20 knot winds we were suddenly hit by 45 knot winds gusting to 55 made landing interesting when we got sails down we were still doing 6.5 knots under bare poles.  we had one good day tuna fishing on the voyage with 13 tuna caught only 2 kept rest realesed we had some fantastic encounters with whales including one sei whale who repeatedly came to within feet of the boat it was about50 foot long redo of fridge in salvador worked well and all food stayed frozen no sail problems this trip the crew other than dq and qr are leaving and we need to aquire more  will update later derry