Cape Town, 11/3/201
But first, one step back ..
Port Elizabeth
 |
| NO, it's not Shanti. |
The Algoa Bay yacht club marina in Port Elizabeth
has got to win first prize for being the marina most likely to be
condemned. Apparently a gale almost
destroyed it in 2009 and they have been (slowly) rebuilding it ever since. Such projects have low priority in South
Africa.
The mega money spinner here is the adjacent manganese
ore terminal, which doesn’t help matters in the marina, where nothing is spared
its sticky grey dust. So the handful of sadly neglected boats left to rot here
wear this added coat of dismal despair. Even the fierce south-easterlies can’t
blow them clean; only threaten to blow them and their fragile pontoons away, which is why they use so many dock lines, which is probably a bit of an oxymoron.
Despite this, the locals made Port Elizabeth one of the friendliest stopovers I
have encountered.
From there, fellow cruisers, Sheri and Giorgio, on Argonauta encouraged me to alter my plans to stop at 3 or 4 more ports along the coast and take the 4 day weather window directly to Cape Town. It turned out to be a wise call. (as mentioned in my last mailout).
Since arriving in Cape Town on 23rd
February, there has been good news x 3 and bad news x 3 (so we’re sitting on
about par).
The good news #1 was an electrician came to Shanti
and (finally) wired in the “Sterling Power Advanced 4 step Programmable
Universal Digital Alternator Regulator” that I have been carting around with me
for many months. Hopefully this will
solve all my engine running/battery charging problems. Good news #1a is that he
only charged me R600. I spoiled it for
everyone else by giving him 700.
Good news #2 is I received a very valuable letter
of introduction to the Royal Cape Yacht Club from my home club of
Sandringham. This reciprocal clubs’
benefit drops my marina fees from R280 to R78 per day (divide by approx 10 for
$AU).
Bad news #1 is that my Volvo Penta “dripless” shaft
seal has been not just dripping but spraying many litres of sea water into the
bilges. The passage from Port Elizabeth had me bailing out a bucketful every
few hours. This will necessitate hauling Shanti out of the water (again) to
replace it. Wish I’d known about it back
in Richards Bay.
Cape Town takes the appellation of ‘windy city’ to
new heights, with fierce katabatics (or bullets) blasting gaping great holes in
the air, funnelling wind sheer to a toppling
assault.
It’s never easy to arrange things around it. Once the thick white banks of cloud blanket
the magnificent Table Mountain like sheets of snowdrift, you know that wind is
coming.
In the marina, it was howling all night long, all
the halyards on nearby boats whipping and slapping on the masts, and even
wrapping round their neighbour’s VHF antenna.. look closely at the end of this video clip.
The crane was booked for 0900 on Monday 5th, but
the wind was blowing the crabs off the rocks, so it was cancelled. A couple of hours later, in a slight lull,
they were able to lift me.
 |
| Flying Shanti |
Bad news #2 – to remove the old seal, the shaft has
to be separated from the coupling that connects it to the gearbox. Naturally
the very rusty old bolts have not seen light of day for aeons and refuse to let
go of their solidified attachments. With loads of not so gentle persuasion and
a trip to the machine shop, problem solved.
 |
| Dripless shaft seal being replaced from the grubby, seldom visited end of the engine. |
Good news #3 is that my mast was removed without
drama last Friday and they were able to do a relatively inexpensive weld repair
to the base, which was not just cracked but snapped right through, so very good
news that I am in the right place for the job, the home town of Sadler 32’s and
Shanti’s birth place, where they even have a custom cradle for Sadlers.
 |
| Mast was cracked on the outside and completely broken on the inside. |
 |
| New sections welded in and reinforcing sleeves on the outside. Even spray painted this bit, so it looks like new. |
Bad news #3 is that after lifting me out, the hook
of the crane caught under one of the solar panels, breaking the glass.
A few days later this became good news #3a. I now have 2 new panels which actually fit
better than the old ones and I retrofitted the one surviving panel to the side
of the boat. This gives me 400W of
potential energy from the sun, with a maximum peak efficiency of around 15Ah
input, in a perfect world, with strong sunshine, at midday on the equator –
perhaps half that in the real world, so no problem using the existing 20A solar
regulator. Who knows, I may even be able
to run a fridge now? Woo hoo! All power
to Shanti.
I have been very impressed with the workmanship
here and the costs, which are about half what they are in Australia. So if you
can’t make it to SE Asia for cheap boat works, come to South Africa for your
next refit.
Jobs completed in the past 3 weeks include the mast
and rigging repair, rewiring it through a new, hopefully leak-proof gooseneck,
new reef lines (from Southern Ropes where they sell extremely cheap offcuts by
weight), new Volvo dripless shaft seal, new solar panels, and best of all, 4
new 100Ah deep cycle batteries, delivered to the boat.
I bit the bullet on this one, even though I had
only put two new non deep cycle, Calcium batteries on a few weeks ago in
Durban. I didn’t want to risk mixing
different types of batteries; having 4 the same has been something I’ve wanted
for years. Putting it in perspective,
they cost the same as one week’s stopover in my next stop at St Helena. Putting
it another way, they may just help get me to St Helena.
The old corroded (leaking) aluminium window frames
were removed and new timber frames made instead. They look great and hopefully are one more
move in the direction of a dry interior.
 |
| New ply frames look fantastic. |
Other good stuff has been taking time out to “smell
the roses”, thanks to the Argonauta’s and their friends, who have made
excellent tour organisers. Up at “sparrow’s ...” saw us off on the first red
bus, touring the city, bays, coastline and of course wineries. I think I
disappointed a few of the sommeliers by spitting most of my half-glasses out
(isn’t that what the spittoon is for?) but still ended up feeling languid as a
limp lettuce leaf at the end of the day.
 |
| Sheri & Giorgio from Argonauta share a few tastings at Groot Constantia winery. |
Probably the worst news is nothing to do with
Shanti or my small problems, but all to do with the recalcitrant rain gods, who
haven’t opened the skies in over 3 years.
Cape Town is on Level 6 water restrictions,
with rations of 50 litres per person per day. (I could give lessons in
Shanti-board minimal consumption of 2-3 litres per day, but of course I have access to salt water, especially since I replaced my electric galley pump with a decent (read, working) one). The marina taps are turned on
for one hour, 3 times a week, and of course, no washing boats down, so Shanti is pretty grubby from tradies' hob-nailed boots.
Toilets are all fitted with dispensers of hand
sanitizers instead of soap (the suppliers of this must be making a killing!)
and things like swimming pools, laundromats, car wash places, etc. are out of
business. It is the most talked about topic here, with forecasts of reservoirs
running dry in a few months. The hierarchy of disaster is first the land, then
the plants, the animals, then the poor people. There’s a lot of tension in the
air and people speak of corrupt governments and mismanagement, but those things
are not new here. Only the drought adds its punch.
Despite this, the locals have been incredibly friendly and helpful to me, leaving me with a very positive impression of Cape Town.
I took the 45 minute walk this morning to the local
produce market via the upbeat V & A waterfront marina with Sheri and
Giorgio. It was one of the better markets I’ve seen, with heaps of gourmet
edibles, making me wish I’d gone on an empty belly. I filled my shopping jeep with last minute
fresh goods, like unripe tomatoes and bananas, home-made cheeses (hope the
fridge plays along), non-sulphur dried fruits and nuts.
From there it was to the Ports, Immigration and
Customs and I am now officially checked out of the country. Funny how you can wander about freely with
your passport stamped out.
From here to St Helena is about 1800 nautical
miles, so there’ll be nothing heard from the Shanti blogspot for a few weeks. The weather looks
about as good as it gets on this coast, with light winds to begin with, which
should send me off on a good start.
After that .... it’s anyone’s guess....
