Cape Town

Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Sat 5 Sep 2015 14:01
After arriving in a new destination, it is traditional for the owner to take the crew out for dinner. As we had arrived in the morning, we decided to go out for a quick bite to eat for lunch. Once we saw the restaurants, we decided to make the crew dinner a crew lunch instead. We had already decided on a steak meal so we headed to Belthazar which has been voted the best steakhouse in South Africa.

We arrived there at about 13.00 and, after a great meal, several beers, multiple bottles of wine, and finishing off with a bottle of port, I was totally broken!! I did have the excuse that I had been on watch from 03.00 to 06.00 and hadn't been to bed but ...... Paul walked me back to the boat and I was asleep by 16.00. The boys carried on and I was woken at 01.00 when Sam returned. We had a nightcap and then I went back to bed and woke up at 07.00. So much for a big night out!!

The next day was largely wasted, the crew with hangovers and me trying to get us cleared in. I went to customs and immigration, only to be told that we couldn't clear in from the Marina we had booked in to. We ended up having to move the boat to another marina, signing in there, returning to the original marina and then several taxi trips to customs and immigration. They certainly do not make it easy for yachts arriving from overseas.

Anyway, we were cleared in by the end of the day and started to knock off some of the jobs list. We found that we had a problem with the rigging which needed further investigation. We met an extremely helpful guy on the Marina who knows everybody so, the next day, a guy came to pick up the sail to take it away for repair and a rigger came down to see what the problem was. Later that day, I had a price for a brand new mainsail, which is about half the price as in the UK.

Jane was due to arrive the next morning, so I moved off the boat into an apartment that evening. After being apart for 2 months, we wanted to have a bit of personal space rather than staying on the boat with 3 guys and a mass of jobs going on.

First thing in the morning, we all jumped in a taxi to go to the sailmaker, and I ended up buying a new main. The other one is being repaired so we will keep the new one as a spare until we reach England. I left the boys at the sailmakers and carried on to the airport to pick up Jane.

I won't bore you with all the details, but we had a fabulous week together. We spent 2 days on open-top bus tours which took us all the way round Cape Town and the surrounding areas. We then went to Inverdoorn, a private game reserve about 3 hours from Cape Town. The villa we stand in was superb, and we had great fun with a 3 hour evening and a 3 hour morning Safari, as well as playing with 3 one year old cheetahs. We then returned to Cape Town for a couple of nights and just chilled out.

Jane flew back on Thursday and we moved the boat down to the Royal Cape Yacht Club on Friday lunchtime to start the process of clearing out. We cleared out from the Yacht Club, but can't complete customs and immigration until the sail is on board the boat and we are ready to leave. The sail was due to arrive on Thursday, then Friday, then Saturday, but it is (hopefully) being delivered to the boat this evening or at first light tomorrow.

Apart from this, are ready to go so, once the sail has arrived, we need to hoist it to check that everything is OK. We then need to repackage the new sail and hoist the old one, which will take us a couple of hours. As soon as this is all completed, I will have to re-check out of the Marina and get all the clearance papers from them. We will then jump into a taxi, and go to the Port Authority, Customs and Immigration, by which point we will be ready to go. If all goes to plan, we will slip out lines around midday and set off on the next leg of our journey.