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Date: 07 Jun 2012 23:34:04
Title: Mauritius to Richard's Bay, South Africa - Day 9
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28:47.654S  32:04.700E

May 30, 2012


Sorry for the delay!  We've been busy clearing in (took nearly two days of waiting for immigration and customs to show up), sorting out the boat and piles of laundry, eating out (close to seven times in as many days), meeting our South African boat neighbors ("This is Africa.  You'll see."), getting sim cards for phone and internet, buying road maps, renting a car, planning our South African travels, moving the boat to Zululand Yacht Club in Richard's Bay (where all local sailboats apparently come to die), getting the hang of the whole South African thing (lots of security and walls topped with electrified wire, lots of languages, lots of meat on the barbecue), researching options for new main and mizzen sails, and thinking hard about where to leave the boat while we travel home for a few months.  More on all that another time.

For now, here's the rest of our Mauritius to Richard's Bay passage story.
We reached what we thought was the eastern edge of the Agulhas Current a comforting five hours ahead of schedule at 4pm on May 29th (day 8).  This was after a full-on effort throughout the previous twenty-eight hours to motorsail as fast as possible.  Motorsailing fast is not normally something we like to do as it's hard on the engine and we've been babying the engine and its occasional oil and transmission fluid leaks for a long time.  Every time Don shut down the engine to check both, John and I waited silently for the thumb's up or down signal.  Luckily, the leaks never amounted to much, and we continued motorsailing hard for another nine hours until 2am on day 9.  At that point we were motorsailing at speeds well over 9 knots, so decided to give the engine a rest and sail with the 15 knot northeast wind even though we were still concerned about reaching the western edge of the Agulhas Current before the forecasted (and dreaded) southwest wind kicked in.  Throughout the night we did pick up a good 1-1.5 knots of speed as a result of the current, but we weren't pushed as far south by it as we anticipated, so ended up further north of Richard's Bay than planned.  It's possible our relatively high forward speed kept us from being pushed sideways as much as we might have been.  Because the effect of the current wasn't as strong as expected, for a good long while we weren't completely sure we were in it.  We kept looking for those wavy blue lines in the water indicating the strength and direction of the current, but like that elusive, bold, solid blue equator line, we never saw them.  As the African coast loomed closer (not that we could see it since it was dark and we were still sixty-ish miles away), we decided we had to be in the famous Agulhas Current even though it wasn't whisking us southward at some fantastic rate. 

As the night wore on, we emailed back and forth with weatherman Bruce several times - us providing him with position updates, and him providing us with Agulhas Current position and wind forecast updates.    Communicating in this fashion was a feat in itself as Bruce was traveling from Perth, Australia to London (a 24 hour trip) where he was scheduled to provide weather forecasting for the Australian para-Olympic sailing team.  The internet is a fantastic thing, isn't it?  Bruce sent us updates from Vienna,  London, and finally, Weymouth after a long train ride from London.  All of which was a sure sign of his dedication to his craft.  One of Bruce's updates informed us the Agulhas Current had developed a 'kink', bringing it westward within just a few miles of the coast near Richard's Bay.  Imagine the state of depression that descended over Harmonie when those words were read.  Before that, we were thinking we'd clear the current a good thirty miles off the African coast.  We received this particularly joyful Agulhas Current position update around 3am, and immediately rallied the troops for a crew meeting.  Huddled around the softly bouncing companionway in the dark, the three of us discussed the two options Bruce presented:  1) Head to a point on the coastline about 40 miles north of Richard's Bay, where a slight indentation in the land might provide some protection from the coming 25-30 knots of southwest wind.  Wait there until the worst of the southwest wind subsides (about 12-15 hours), then beat against a 15-20 knot southwest wind 40 miles through the night to Richard's Bay in a churned up sea.  2) Use the last of the northeast wind to make a beeline to Richard's Bay before the southwest wind arrives.  When the southwest wind arrives, get out of the current as fast as possible.

There was no dissent among the crew:  we agreed to go for option 2.

So, we went for it.
We were still sailing fast with a 15 knot northeast wind at 3am, so we kept going; adjusting our course to the southwest, and pointing directly at Richard's Bay, 68.6 miles away.   The wind was forecasted to change to the southwest around 8am, blow modestly for an hour or two, then blast away at 25-30 knots.  At 3am, that meant we had nearly seven hours to get as close to Richard's Bay as possible.  We celebrated briefly - "We'll nearly be there!  If the wind change comes later than expected, and we keep going at this speed, we'll sail right into Richard's Bay by 11 o'clock!"  Feeling encouraged, Don took over the watch and John and I went to bed.  We sailed beautifully at 8-9 knots.  Four in the morning came and went.  Five.  Six.  Time for my watch.  Don's parting words to me were, "Wake me up if the wind direction changes significantly."  From six until seven the wind fluttered briefly to the north and northwest a few times, but I held my breath and it returned to the northeast.  The miles ticked down, I saw a shooting star and feeling lucky, silently wished for another two hours of northeast wind.  Twenty minutes later, the wind changed.  It was 7am, still dark (we were still on Mauritius time), and the wind didn't just slowly meander from northeast to southwest over the course of 30 minutes or an hour, it changed in five minutes.  I sat there in disbelief as the wind indicator showed the wind going forward as I tried to keep up with it and turn the boat south.  Hopeless.  I woke Don up, we put the sails away, cranked up the engine, and pointed directly into the 15 knot southwest wind.  We had 33.8 miles to go.

And so the final slog began.
The southwest wind remained moderate for about an hour until a little after 8am, then started to ratchet up.  At that point, we decided it was time to head straight for the coast and out of the current before the fabled steep, ugly, wind-against-current waves started to form.  Misty clouds rolled in, the air turned cool, and a watery dawn arrived just as we approached the African coast.  We were still a good 28 miles from Richard's Bay.  Wasn't it just the day before we were saying the last 30 miles of our passage might prove to be interesting?  The Agulhas Current followed us all the way to the 50 meter depth line, where it abruptly stopped.  At that point, we were only a few miles off the coast.  We decided the best way to punch into a gusty 25-30 knot wind was the good, old-fashioned way: sail.  Our faithful third crew member was roused, warned to put on his foul weather gear, and sent into the cockpit to help Don bring out the sails while I hid down below, pretending to prepare breakfast.  Have I mentioned how nice it was to have a third person aboard?  Especially one as accommodating as John?  We sailed hard on the howling wind, tacking back and forth, making an ugly zig-zag pattern on the chart.  Our tacks were short, only 15 or 20 minutes at the most, because as soon as we crossed the 50 meter depth line and moved into the current, the waves became quite steep, not large, but close together, causing our bow to slam as it skipped from one wave to the next.  The opposite tack was just as short as we didn't dare sail too close to shore.

A sad state of sails.
John is too polite to say it, but in all the years he raced and cruised, we're sure he has never sailed on a boat with a sadder set of sails than those on Harmonie at the moment.  Before we left Mauritius, we patched the two new tears in the main as best we could, and sewed up the worst of the peeling sun cover seams on our genoa.  Somewhere just past Madagascar, while we were busy putting up the downwind rig, our main snapped in the wind and developed a large diagonal tear high enough we couldn't reach it to slap yet another patch on.  Over the course of the four or five days the genoa was up, more of the seams holding the suncover on disintegrated, causing the cover to continuously flap in the wind.  Sailing hard in a 30-knot wind two miles off the coast of Africa, we willed the main to remain in mostly one piece and the suncover to remain on the genoa.  As the wind speed continued to climb, we decided not to tempt fate further, and furled in the main, leaving only the reefed genoa and mizzen.  Several hours later, John quietly pointed out the strangely sloppy shape of the mizzen.  It was all slouchy and bunched at the bottom like the halyard wasn't tight enough.  Whoa!  What's up with that?  Upon further inspection, it looked like the attachment of the head (top of the sail) to the halyard was blown.  Great.  A decrepit main, a flapping genoa suncover, and a blown head on the mizzen.  It was 11am, we had been tacking back and forth for three hours, and still had 14 miles to go.  We sailed another hour, heeled hard (as hard as our boat ever heels) to starboard, then hard to port, pounding into the waves (even outside of the current the wind was building up short, choppy waves), wondering if we'd ever get there as the apparent wind spiked regularly to 35 knots.  Don and John sailed the boat, dodging sea spray as it swept past.  I joined them in the cockpit for only as long as it took to tack - I spent the rest of the time pretending to do the breakfast dishes in front of a crazily tilted sink (when in fact I was staring at the chart, trying to calculate just how many hundreds of tacks we'd have to do to travel the last 14 miles to Richard's Bay in a 30-35 knot wind blowing directly from the direction we wanted to go).

The slog goes on, and on.
By noon, we were still 11 miles away, the mizzen was still slowly sliding down the mast, and we were exceedingly tired of pointing in every direction but the one in which we desperately wanted to go.  So we put on the engine for the final run in to Richard's Bay, and put away the tired sails (a small prayer was said as Don furled the flapping, bunched up mizzen into the mizzen mast…luckily it went in without a single complaint).  Ok, so, with the engine on, and bow pointed directly toward our destination (and directly into the 25-35 knot wind), we went.  We went veeerrrrry slooooowly.  Our poor engine did its best to push us forward, but the wind and waves did their best to push us back.  We barely cleared three miles each hour.  Three miles!  In the end, it took us four and a half excruciating hours to slog 11 short miles to the entrance of Richard's Bay and the heavenly, flat water that lay beyond.

And so we made it.
It took us 8 1/2 hours to sail and motor the final 28 miles.  It was truly unbearable to be that close, yet so far away after nine days at sea - the last three of which spent worrying about the Agulhas Current, the southwest wind change, and where we'd be when it hit. 

But - the important thing is, we made it.  We had no damage (other than our already done-for sails), and arrived safely with daylight to spare.  Had we not made a beeline for Richard's Bay starting at 3am, and instead gone for the other option - head for the coast 40 miles north of Richard's Bay, wait out the worst of the southwest wind, then sail and motor through the night into a 15-20 knot southwest wind in a churned up sea - we might still be out there.  Ok, not really, but it would have taken us a good long time to get to Richard's Bay had we chosen that option.  We did get a small taste of what the Agulhas Current can be like in a contrary wind, and were extremely glad we made such good time sailing and motorsailing the last three days of our passage, so that when the southwest wind did come, we were within relatively easy reach of the African coast and the western edge of the current.  Although the last few hours were a true test of our patience, they were nothing compared to what they could have been had we been caught by the southwest wind further off-shore.

Summing up.
We've already received a quote for a new main and mizzen, but did find the mizzen head attachment wasn't blown, it was just that the line holding the mizzen head to the halyard came loose in the high wind.  We'll still replace the two sails and have the suncover on the genoa repaired before we venture out around the cape in Season Six (scheduled to begin in early November).  In the meantime, we've got lots to do and see in South Africa from our base here in Richard's Bay for the remainder of Season Five. 

We are really, really glad this passage is done.  It's been sitting there, looming in the back of our minds, the whole way across the Indian Ocean.  It feels good, almost unreal, to have finished the crossing (minus that bit around the cape) relatively unscathed.  Shew!  We've been breathing deeply ever since we arrived.

Huge thanks to John for putting up with us, our ugly sails, hard helm seat, creaky pillows, monotonous passage food, and nine solitary night watches - all in the name of friendship.

Next up:  Passage summary and pictures
Anne


 





   





 


        

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