Heading down the east side of Africa

Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sat 16 Jul 2011 18:28
Saturday 16th July 1745 UTC 1945 Local
 
31:19.478S 030:04.080E
 
After our exploring and travelling around Southern Africa we took to the high seas again today. The coast of southern Africa is known as being very hostile in winter and there are not many places to stop. Ideally we should want to make Port Elizabeth some 400 miles away in one hop so we needed to find at least a two day weather window.
 
Generally in the area and at this time of year frontal systems come through every three days or so. They always blow south west over the Agulhas Current and we have had our fill of that.
 
The technique therefor is to leave hard on the heels of a passing depression. That situation arose over the past couple of days so yesterday was a mad scramble to get our repaired and reinforced sails bent on, which for the jib is relatively easy, but for the main it is quite a job, though an all too familiar one now. Customs and port clearance needed also to be maintained as well as all bills paid and thank you's to be said. So it was rush rush rush and it seems we got everything done and I was up at 0500 sharp to do three small jobs before raising Trish to cast off.
 
The front was forecast to be through by this morning but in fact we headed to sea to find the tail end of it's sou'westerly with rough sea conditions. Unfortunately Trish had headed to the galley to make a breakfast and was caught out by nausea after having been ashore for a over a month. I have to say I felt slightly squeamish myself for a moment too and I think that was probably anxiety about whether the forecast was wrong and I was going to be taking Trish into wind over Agulhas current.
 
The whole morning was a bit of a slog but eventually everything cleared and we found ourselves with clear cold skies and a reaching wind supplementing the current. Though the wind is only eight knots we are being carried along at over nine knots and (10.4 just then actually!) very comfortably. In order to get a free ride I am now unashamedly flirting and holding hands with the very same current that we could not wait to escape from a few weeks ago. In indeed it is paying dividends.
 
It gets dark early here now and it is nice for a change to be sailing with the lights of the shore in view.   
 
We hope the moon will find a stage for itself to shine through the now cloudy sky too.
 
Thoughts now turn to the final legs of the circumnavigation, though I am not being complacent about the 600 miles to go round Cape Agulhas and Cape of Good Hope before Capetown. 
 
I will say a bit more about it soon but I might remind you all that way back in Lankawi before Brokeback we had decided that Trish would not do any more long passages. I have to say however it shows just how much seatime she has done and how many thousands of miles and nights at sea she has put in when an 800 mile passage in the winter round the Cape of Good Hope does not qualify as a "long passage!" 
 
When we made that decison in Lankawi after there were not a few tears shed (no, not by me.....) I had planned to single hand the boat from Thailand to the Andaman Islands and then on to Sri Lanka or the Maldives. 
 
I am still hankering to single hand, remembering how demanding and challenging, but enjoyable my round Britain & Ireland single handing was, and I am contemplating sailing Rhiann Marie from Capetown back to the Canaries or Gibraltar to close our circumnavigation before the northern winter proper sets in. 
 
At the moment it is not a firm plan but something I would like to do if my fitness is up to scratch by then and I can find an insurer prepared to provide the cover.
 
First we need to get to Capetown............