POSITION REPORT ON SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER 2017 AT 0700

25:35.39S 34:56.43E

So far we've done 250 miles with 250 miles to go to Richards Bay. We did 142 miles in the last 24 hours.  We have 100% cloud cover and 5 knot N winds.  We’re motoring at 5 knots with 1 metre seas and ½ knot of current.  Here's what we did yesterday and overnight.

20 October 2017  Mozambique to South Africa (Day 2)

As the sun came up, the wind picked up to E 10-15, so Glenys dragged out the sails.  Again, it only lasted a few hours before the wind died again.  The weather forecast shows light winds until tomorrow, but there’s a chance of sailing later today providing that the wind veers to the ESE (in front of the beam) as forecast.

There are at least nine boats heading for Richards Bay all expecting to arrive about the same time, so it’s going to be chaos in the port.  There’s very little space in the two marinas in Richards Bay and they refuse to take advance bookings, so it’s first come, first served.  To add to the problem, the marina at Durban, which is only 80 miles away, sustained damage in a big storm 10 days ago and cannot accommodate any visitors at the moment.

It maybe that we can’t get a marina berth at either port, so we might be stuck on a concrete visitor’s wall in Richards Bay.  Normally this wouldn’t be a problem to us, but we have our son Craig coming out for a holiday starting on the 18th November and we want to be sure that we have a confirmed, safe berth, so that we can go land travelling with him for a week.

To add to the complex planning, we want to haul-out to replace the cutlass bearing.  One solution is that we haul-out for 5 or 6 weeks, so I’ve been trying to arrange something by email, but it’s slow going with their reluctance to commit to dates.  I sent off another load of emails this morning to the boatyards in Richards Bay and Durban, so hopefully, I’ll get a reply today.  Today is Friday, so if I can’t resolve it today, I’ll probably have to wait until after the weekend (when we’ve arrived) to sort it out.  It’s so frustrating.

We continued motoring until 13:00, when the wind picked up to 8 knots, which was enough to fly the spinnaker.  It was a nice afternoon of sailing.  The wind gradually increased to 12-15 knots and at 17:00, we pulled down the spinnaker and switched back to the genoa.  By dark, we had E 18-22 knots and were romping along at 6 knots on a port broad reach with a reef in the main; a reef in the genoa; and at least a knot of current with us.

The strong winds lasted for a few hours and then slowly dropped. At midnight, we were back to motoring for a couple of hours; and then we had 10-12 knots from the east; and then the wind backed, forcing us south; and then a trawler was passing by just when I wanted to gybe; and then after I gybed the main, the wind veered, forcing us further north...  It’s tiring stuff this sailing lark.