Harmonie - Moving On - Port Elizabeth, South Africa

Moving On - Port Elizabeth, South Africa

Harmonie

Don and Anne Myers

Wed 7 Nov 2012 11:13

33:57.993S 25:38.113E

November 6, 2012 - November 7, 2012

The weather still looks good for departure this afternoon (Wednesday, 11/7), so we'll leave Port Elizabeth around 4pm after the moderate southwest wind moderates a little more and shifts to the south. After that, the wind is predicted to move to the southeast and east, remaining fairly light until Thursday night when we will once again have 25 to 30 knots of northeast wind behind us. On Friday, the wind will go light again and we couldn't ask for a better forecast with which to round Cape Agulhas, that pesky southernmost tip of Africa that causes so many sailors so much angst (we admit we'll be happy to put that particular chunk of land behind us too). The distance from here to False Bay (just south of Cape Town) is about 400 miles, a shorter distance than the Richard's Bay to Port Elizabeth leg we just finished, but it's more than likely we'll sail more slowly since the favorable current won't be nearly as strong. All of that means we'll probably arrive in False Bay Saturday morning - in just under three day's time. There, we have what looks to be a nice berth waiting for us at the False Bay Yacht Club - which is comforting because False Bay is known for its windy afternoons. Due to the topography of the land surrounding the bay, it's not uncommon for winds to reach 50 knots on a regular basis at this time of year. Yeah, 50 knots. We're not particularly looking forward to that, but hopefully Harmonie will be safe and snug in the visitor's berth at the yacht club.

Unfortunately, we've seen nothing more of Port Elizabeth in our short 2-day stay than the port and the yacht club, but here in South Africa when the weather is good, it's best to take advantage of it and keep sailing. Although the setting here isn't the most beautiful (the yacht club is sandwiched between the squid fishing fleet and a manganese ore loading dock), the friendly nature of the yacht club members and the very pleasant yacht club facilities, bar and restaurant make up for it. In the bar last night, we heard the tale of the October, 2009 wind storm (85 knots!) that devastated the port, and the yacht club docks in particular. Ugly. Five sailboats were lost and almost all the rest suffered some damage. The docks dragged their anchors, unhinged from the land ramps and splattered themselves willy-nilly around this end of the port. Three years later and the docks are just now back to their pre-storm glory. Not that the docks are all that glorious as you'll see in the photos below, but at least they are back in their proper places, and anchored extremely well. When compared to the current mess of the New York and New Jersey coastline, Port Elizabeth's disaster seems quite small, but it does help us to understand a little of what must be going on at home in the aftermath of storm Sandy.

Our view of the manganese loading dock.

It's not so bad being here in a southwest wind, but when the wind blows from the southeast as it was when we arrived, clouds of manganese dust envelop the yacht club, leaving mud-colored, cakes of grit on every surface. The manganese grit brought back fond memories of Richard's Bay's coal dust and Sri Lanka's cement powder dust - once again reminding us how spoiled we are in most other ports of the world where commercial docks are kept well separated from yacht clubs and marinas.

Port Elizabeth's squid fishing fleet and part of the yacht club docks.

Lucky for us, the big racing yacht 'Warrior' is off visiting Cape Town, so her slip was empty and available for us. Otherwise, like any other visiting yacht over 15m in length (Harmonie is 16m), we would have been directed to raft up next to one of the squid boats. It probably would have been fine, but the over-boat scramble to the concrete pier might have been interesting.