Cape Town Catchup

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 23^rd 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....