34:24.344 S 24:23.422 E
Day One to Cape Town
The gang decided to leave
at six “after the clouds go over” as a local told us. Fred of course was
on high nerves as “I get frightened of going off into the unknown”. That
being the case it always amazes us that he gets itchy feet, leaves first
and stays ahead of most of the gang and support.......Monika persuaded
Didier on Harmoni that leaving on a Friday was no worse than any
other day and Warren on Eliana, who had dithered until the very
last minute......... Allen and Bear helped everyone off (except Roy on
Peggy West who always said he would leave in the morning for Simons Town)
and then Bear and I helped Allen and Patricia off (Nauti
Nauti). So thrilled to say we finally left ‘The Windy City’ at
six o’clock. We swung out of the marina to pass Global Mirai. Her crew had managed a couple of
days off but loading ore happened all day today. This 2012 bulk carrier
flying the Panamanian flag is due into Singapore on the 17th of January.
Her vital statistics are 189.99 x 32.26 x 11.3 metres. Her summerweight
tonnage is 58,028 and she will trot along at 10.2 knots.
We passed one of the Oldendorff girls and headed
between the dock and the breakwater.
The two black dots in each picture are bottlenose dolphins spuddling about. We always see
these smiling creatures as harbingers of good luck.
Football ground (centre) as we hope to leave the grey
sky behind.
Around the breakwater behind Nauti Nauti (as
we did on entry).
At
the back of the gang. The one good thing about leaving last is we
don’t have to suffer the indignity of being overtaken....
At 19:30 we had enthusiastic visitors.
A rainstorm to our right over Cape Recife.
In all we struggled for
two and a half hours in lumpy water and wind on the nose (fully expected)
until we rounded Cape Recife and then set off at a fast trot, never quite breaking into a
canter. Just the genoa sees us at 5.5 knots and heading west YAY.
Seventy-nine miles done at the time of typing – too tired at six so it had
to wait until I got up just now.
ALL
IN ALL WE ARE FINALLY HEADING TO CAPE TOWN
AT
LAST