Farewell to Malcolm Findlay

CARANGO AMEL 54 #035
PETER and VICKY FORBES
Tue 29 Nov 2016 05:39
33:52.95S 025:38.07E

After we landed in South Africa we relaxed and unwound after the tough passage from Reunion South of Madagascar and across the Mozabique Channel and our first encounter with the legendary Agulhas current.

Malcolm, our South African representative, had kindly organised what proved to be a very successful tour of the Anglo-Zulu battle sites at Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift.  We all thoroughly enjoyed that glimpse back into the Empire and what it entailed.

Then we bid a fond farewell to Malcolm who had deadline for his home flight to England and the grandchildren and onward life.

 Malcolm has made an outstanding contribution to life on bard Carango for the last three months from Australia - chef extraordinaire and general good egg, full of optimism and fun.

The depleted team decided on an early exit from Richards Bay and lead the fleet out into the South Westerly wind - the wind over Agulhas current makes for a very rough ride as we discovered. We battled South - most of our friends on other yachts sneaked into East London but Carango alone continued to Port Elizabeth. 

Port Elizabeth is a huge commercial port and arriving as we did at one o’clock in the morning under a pitch dark sky into a million port lights was confusing to say the least. We negotiated the entrance and made our way hopefully towards the Yacht club marina.  Their moorings max out at 15 tons and Carango weighs in at 22 - so we were out amongst the big boys. We tied up safely on the commercial fishing quay amongst the mighty south seas trawlers. We were tied up to massive tractor tyres on the dock side - Carango was not too happy - more cleaning when we get to Cape Town!

The fish dock, to be honest, is a bit rough but we mated up with Chris the skipper of an immense trawler, ex Inverness deep sea fishing boat. I guess the scots had used it to extinction and then sold it on to be probably the pride of the South African fleet. Rust bucket would be an apt description but Chris and his crew are tough and so is the marine environment down here. We stepped between rotting fish corpses and picked our way across to the Algoa Bay yacht club for loos and showers. 
 Carango showing some class amongst the sticking trawlers.


 We would have tried to help this guy but it seemed terminal.