The "boring" passage to Sth Africa

Richards Bay, South Africa. 30/11/17

 

A good day on the Indian Ocean.

Departed Mauritius on the 11^th Nov, anticipating two weeks of uneventful (even boring) sailing to South Africa - just for you, Alexa Bell.  Alas, it was not to be.

There were half a dozen other yachts on the same passage and I joined them on the SSB radio “Indian Ocean Crossing Mag Net”.  (You ham radio gents will be happy to know my signal was said to “boom out” loudest of all, and I was often called upon to relay for other boats.)

If nothing else, it let me know that I am not an orphan when it comes to boat problems.  Various common breakdowns assailed them, from autopilot to rig failure, to complete engine seizure. Eve, on “Auntie” had to turn back from almost halfway and bash against the wind back to Reunion with steering problems. Ouch.

The Indian Ocean is crowded with commercial shipping – Japanese, Maltese, Greek, Italian, Liberian,  – trading whatever from here to there and back again, because obviously whatever another country has must be better than what we have, but luckily they want that, so send their ships to get it.  It’s a curious and growing phenomenon.  What it means for small yachts is there’s more likely to be a watch  on the bridge whose awake and watching out.  A great many left a track detouring around Shanti.

 

The AIS has done for radar what the GPS did for the sextant – practically rendered it obsolete.  If not for me having a two-way AIS transceiver on board Shanti, which lets ships see me, I would have been squished like a bug on a windscreen so many times – well, I guess really only once.

The seabirds are so tame they will sit on my finger and land on my head. They come and go. How does a pea-brained bird know how to find Shanti again in a vast open ocean, to recognize her and return to their bidden nestling spot? One tried to commandeer the cockpit and pecked at my legs if I approached but I quickly put paid to that cheekiness and it settled in the crook of the dinghy tube.

 

There is a well-respected Sth African weather adviser, Des Casons, who guides his “chicks” safely in, or at least warns them of nastiness ahead. He tried his best to help me skirt an unexpected coastal low due to hit late Friday night, but in the end I just had to wear it.  He was spot on in regards to timing and position, but not quite in ferocity.

I have never seen anything quite like it before.  Probably the scariest part at first was the sheet lightning, which lit the entire seascape for miles every second and made me worry about my mast  being the tallest thing around.  Next came torrential rain, hammering like a billion stones on the cabin top.

Then the wind.  Within minutes it went from zero to over 40 knots. All hell broke loose.  I had to go out into the cockpit to deal with it, getting drenched to the skin and soon shivering with cold. Tilly, the autopilot squawked her refusal to deal with such demands, so I lashed the tiller and used the engine to hove to. 

The headsail sheets came loose and were flailing wildly about like demented snakes.  The sail unfurled a few feet, adding to the whip-cracking mayhem.  The whole boat was shaking violently. It was real seat of the pants flying, trying to comprehend the more urgent need and deal with it.

The starboard sheet was tightly tangled up with the flag halyard and other ropes, as well as having  knotted  itself into a rock hard monkey fist. Its outer casing was shredded and the sheet simply couldn’t be retrieved.

I managed to get the headsail winched back in and secured things as best I could.  In the midst of all of this the AIS alarm was going off, warning of at least half a dozen ships nearby.

Fortunately it didn’t last long and the wind abated to something sailable. In the pitch black night I had to go forward and run the port sheet over to the starboard side so I could use the headsail. 

By the time I hit the dreaded Agulhas current, the waves were high, with the southerly wind fighting against it.  It was a long slow bash to windward for the last 50 miles with the wind around 27-30 knots.

Never was I more relieved than to thread myself through all the ships and enter the channel into Richards Bay.

Never realized what a busy port Richards Bay is. One yacht had to stand off for 2 hours before being allowed in. The port is closed if wind gets over 40 knots so I was fortunate in making it.

 

 

I am now rafted up alongside a 52' UK yacht on the Q dock, with restaurants and suchlike a hop step away.  It is a well protected harbour within a harbour. Stillness!  What bliss.  

 

Apologies to those of you who were worried by my tardiness in posting a safe arrival blog but I have been in recovery mode, as well as busy booking flights out of here. Shanti will rest in the Tuzi Gazi marina for the next two months while I fly back to Oz and NZ to visit friends and family.

My reward for having successfully crossed the Indian Ocean is to go and see some big cats.

 

Dig deeper

Mauritius, 8/11/17

Yay!!  I made it to Mauritius!  A short hop of only 350 nautical miles, 3 days; nothing really.

But ...

That was definitely the most harrowing passage so far, with me so much on edge as to almost fall over the unseen precipice into the realm of chaotic confusion.

Waiting for something unknowably imminent to happen is perhaps one of life’s greatest stressors. All you know is it’s as inexorable as the next sunset, but you don’t know when or how or to what extent its impact will be.

After leaving the calm anchorage at Rodrigues with my patched up rig, the seas were short and steep and tumbling every which way, leading to a return of the good old “mal de mer” with me feeding the fishes for hours and feeling quite incapacitated.  I could hear the turnbuckles clanking against the chain plates and knew the rig was too loose but there was nothing I could do about it in my “just let me die now” state. At dawn the next morning I forced myself to go up on deck with screwdriver and shifter in hand.

A lot of this journey is to do with overcoming inner resistance, digging deeper than ever asked to before, seeking that extra ounce of fortitude that might still be in reserve.  There didn't feel like much left to prop me up, that's for sure. But that mast needed propping up.

In the milky morning light I could see the stays and mast swaying like strands of limp spaghetti. I tightened the stays up just enough to take out the slack.

Two days later, with a sharp gunshot crack, the windward lower shroud let go. It was a sound I had been dreading to hear.  I hadn't really expected it, believing those US engineers to have nailed it.  With 20:20 hindsight, some of what they did was questionable. 

But then I often trust others' opinions more than my own, especially the so-called experts of the world. Experts, someone since told me, are the very ones to be wary of, since they are expert in doing things in a certain way that they know, and may not be able to see beyond that.

But in that moment, I wasn't luxuriating in such ruminations.  Fear of the mast falling at any second overwhelmed me.  Would it hole the boat and she quickly sink? Would I be able to cut it away in time to prevent that?  I had heard of muscle-bound crew struggling with bolt cutters, hacksaws or grinders. All these thoughts flashed through my mind.  What to do, what to do?

Firstly stop panicking and mop up your tears. Take the one remaining halyard from the main and attach it to the port toe-rail. The mast was creaking and groaning like a haunted house.  I felt sure it would fall at any second.

I furled in most of the headsail and started the engine to motor the remaining 100 nautical miles to Mauritius.  I wasn’t sure if it was ok to do this, imagining the rigging getting tangled in the propeller if it fell.  My silent mantra became, “if it falls, quickly, instantly, immediately, urgently, throttle back to neutral.”

I couldn’t impress upon myself strongly enough the urgency of this; yet still it was amazing how often that thought vanished and needed to be reinstated. Such is the weakness of the mind. Or mine at least, in that time of mixed emotions, with moments of pending disaster interspersed with moments of tranquil acceptance.

It was a seemingly interminable 26 hours of roller coastering along, using every resource I had to visualise a safe arrival. The wind had dropped to around 18 knots and the sea state was the best it had been on this three day passage. Still, each oversized wave caused the mast to sway violently, lifting a good half inch off the deck. Amazingly, it was still standing as I motored into Port Louis in Mauritius. 

Tied up safely at the Customs wharf I surveyed the damage: the base of the mast had several small splits and one larger crack on the left. 

The whole mast had moved about half an inch to the right. Looking up it had a distinct S bend in it. I felt so despondent, as if I had worked so hard to save it but it was wrecked anyway. 

Later on it occurred to me that this was still a preferable outcome, since it could have caused a lot of other damage to the boat or me in falling, and I still had the boom, sails, wiring, lights, etc.

In Rodrigues I had been given the contact of a good rigger, famous Vendee Globe sailor, Herve Laurent, and this recommendation was confirmed by other cruisers in the usual marine equivalent of the good old Aussie bush telegraph.

They were not wrong.  Herve and his English speaking wife, Sophie, were standing dockside at the Caudan Marina on Sunday afternoon. They asked me my time frame and I half jokingly said two days.  It seems he took me literally, arriving early Monday morning, cannibalising old bits to make new. At the point where he loosened off all rigging to move the mast back into position, I couldn’t bring myself to watch so went shopping. Such a girl! 

Incredibly, two days later, I am patched up yet again and ready to continue.

A splint riveted across the crack and two bolts to help stop the mast from twisting.

They say that cruising is mainly about doing boat jobs in exotic locations – which sadly we often don’t get to see much of. This is true, not just of smaller, older boats but also the magnificent floating apartments, such as the 43’ Island Packet “Infanta” berthed behind me.

The owner is clearly no gentleman, sailing the wrong way round back home to Perth. He’s had engine overheating problems, water-maker failure, etc etc. Same same – only I don’t have most of his extras. But we’re all out here, facing similar challenges.

The sail training schooner, "Argo", circumnavigating with 32 young trainees, taking on 5,000 litres diesel this morning before heading to Sth Africa.

Next stop for me is also South Africa, either Richards Bay or Durban, depending on the wind.  Either way, it will be a grand moment to get there and be done with this wild Indian ocean, which incidentally, I have observed is the same colour as Indian ink, which perhaps was named after it?