07.00hrs, It is a very wet and windy day, but around here , things change very quickly According to the cruising guide, The weather can go from a NE gale to a SW gale in the space of a few minutes, WOW ! and this area is famous for their huge Rogue waves, up to 20 meters high. and many big ships suffer damage in these waves, And to think, we are out in this potential hazzardous area and supposed to be enjoying ourselves. BUT.but we will, even if we do not want to. we blooming well will. and we are leaving here today and going to Durban,
Meanwhile, Aileen had to use the boats drier to dry the clothes, as the weather was so wet. Mind you, the locals are delighted as they have had drought conditions now , for a long long time , and even the university is totally out of water.
08.00hrs, We strolled up the Yacht Club for a fried breakfast, at 5 euro's , its good value.and its a Sunday, Aileen and Stephen drove to the the local shopping mall, Gawd, it was a huge place again, It was so big, it was like walking around in an enclosed city. and boy, it was busy,
We got the few bits and pieces that we wanted and returned to the Marina, Skipper then returned the rental car to the airport. John from " Tzigane " followed in his rental and brought skipper back to the boat a short time later.
14.00hrs, There is a Weather window, ie, moderate weather for the next 24 hours only, so we we had already decided to take advantage of it and head for Durban with " Tzigane", " Eowyn," and " Thor V1 " , a distance of 85 miles, south. We prepared the boat for sea, and as the rain stopped for a short period, we resealed the port windows in the saloon, and fixed the rubber seal in the port porthole up front in the forward cabin.......... We took the rib onto the davitts, and put on the cover and by 16.30 hrs we were ready to roll.
117.00hrs, We had all our clearence papers and had filed our flight plan with the authorities, ( Flight Plan is a list of all the ports / destinations we plan on visiting in while in South Africa, ) so we slipped our lines and left Richards Bay and headed out into a rough sea yet again. The wind was SE and we were advised to go as far as the 200m contour line before going south towards Darwin. This would give us the strongest current going SW, which turned out to be a mere 2.2 knots, but, but, its better than nothing or worse still, have the friggin thing against us.
We motored sailed slowly so the others kept pace with us, and we all sailed together through the night, There was a huge amount of shipping , and we had to be carefull navigating our way inbetween them all.
19 .00hrs, There was a small moon above the high layer of clouds, which made the scene bright for the night. Skipper and Neil did the watches, while Aileen made a chicken curry with rice, and then vanished into her bunk for the night. The wind shifted to NE and got up to 35 knots before we reached our destination.
That all ,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )