Moving On - Tombeau Bay, Mauritius
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Mon 21 May 2012 04:22
| 20:06.255S 57:30.633E May 20, 2012 Shortly after arriving in Mauritius, we consulted Bruce about the expected weather for our passage to Richard's Bay, South Africa. He recommended we go sooner rather than later, before the winter weather patterns set in. After mulling it over for a day or two, we decided to cut our stay in Mauritius short, skip the island of Reunion altogether, and head for South Africa now. After contacting John and Sue (Storyteller) to ask if John could join us in Mauritius earlier than planned, they completely rearranged their travel plans to accommodate us (what are friends for if not to decimate all carefully laid plans every now and then?). Once we made the decision to go early, Harmonie was abuzz with activity. All systems, rigging and sails were checked and re-checked. Everything was fine except the main sail. When we took it down and looked it over, we found two fairly large tears. The fabric near the tack end of the sail is very worn (this area of the sail usually takes the brunt of the abuse when furled in and out of the mast), so we patched it up as well as we could. Our main is starting to resemble the artfully pieced together sails used on the fishing canoes in Lombok, Indonesia. The good news is that the main is the first sail we completely put away in high wind, so it is typically not subjected to anything over 22 knots. Not that we are expecting a lot of high wind, but we might see a little bit here and there. We took the genoa down and put up the smaller (110% yankee cut) head sail we purchased in Phuket. The new sail will handle higher winds well (it is significantly smaller than the genoa), and it should also do well any time the wind is forward of the beam. Not that we are expecting a lot of high wind forward of the beam, but this is a long passage with high potential for changeable winds, so the smaller sail should serve us well. The passage is about 1,500 miles and will take us south of Madagascar before we turn northwest toward Richard's Bay, which is just north of Durban on South Africa's east coast. If we average 7 knots and don't have to hang back and wait for weather to pass, the trip should take us nine days. The big challenge comes toward the end when we cross the Agulhas current. This is one of the fastest flowing major ocean currents in the world. It runs south along the east coast of Africa. Crossing it is all well and good unless a south wind crops up. If a contrary (in this case south) wind blows against the current, very ugly waves develop. This is something we will absolutely avoid. Crossing the current should only take us about 12 hours, so we'll just need a good weather window for that period of time. If necessary, we will hang back (sail slowly) a good distance away until the wind shifts to a favorable direction. We will have good weather information from Bruce and other sources, so we will be well informed when the time comes. The current forecast from Bruce says the wind will be light for the first three days, then pick up a bit for a short while before settling back down again. Not too bad. A bit of motoring might be necessary in the beginning, but we'll take that over 30 knot winds and rough seas any day. We are sorry to cut our time in Mauritius short and skip Reunion, but…the sooner we get to South Africa, the longer we'll have to see all the sights. Sue (Storyteller) will meet us in South Africa and we will travel with she and John and their friends Ray and Helen for about three weeks. We'll fly to Johannesburg from Richard's Bay and move on to Kruger National Park and the Drakensburg Mountains from there. We are thrilled just thinking about all the animals we'll see in the wild that up until now we've only seen in cages. Getting to South Africa early will also allow us to haul out and store Harmonie on the hard while we fly home for a few months. Quite a few of the boats that were with us in Chagos are now finding it hard to find suitable storage here in Mauritius for the time they plan to fly home to Europe. The 'marina' in Port Louis is small, with no floating docks, only a concrete wall to tie to - which is not great for long term storage. There is a boatyard, but haul out is extremely expensive, and storage on land even more so. We decided the trade-off (less time in Mauritius and skipping Reunion vs. a secure hard dock and more time in South Africa) was worth it. John flew in from Australia yesterday (bearing a new steaming light, two spare generator water cooling pump impellers, and a very nice bottle of scotch), and after one short day of recovery time for him, we leave for South Africa tomorrow (Monday, May 21). At least the first couple of days promise to be fairly jet lag friendly. We are excited to have John with us for the trip and are looking forward to sleeping longer than three hours at a time. Ah…such luxury. We had a short test run today, sailing from Grand Baie on Mauritius' northwest coast to Tombeau Bay, scene of our first anchorage here. Being the long-time expert sailor he is, John adjusted all three sails more in that 2 hour span than Don and I usually do in a full 24 hour period. Maybe we should increase our average speed estimate for the trip?? John has racing blood coursing through his veins, whereas Don and I have sluggish cruising blood meandering through ours. The mix should work well. Ready to go. The dinghy is put away, the kayaks secured on the stern deck, the safety equipment installed, the fuel tank full, the new steaming light installed, the bimini complete with new zippers installed, and the freezer full to bursting with eight pre-cooked meals and lots of other stuff to keep us going during night watches. The only thing that isn't done? A blog entry covering our two-week stay in Mauritius. Sorry about that, but it'll have to wait until we get to South Africa. There was no time for typing as we were too busy sewing sails, dismantling the bimini to take to a sewing shop for new zippers (the old ones disintegrated in the sun), buying supplies and cooking. We did squeeze in one day of sightseeing with our favorite taxi driver, Rashid (a very colorful fellow - I'll try to do his character justice in the future Mauritius blog entry). Next up: Our first update from the high seas will be posted Tuesday, May 22. Anne |