I chose to stop at Saldanha Bay about 50 nm north of Cape Town mainly to clear out of South Africa. The process was relatively new for Saldanha Bay and was reported to be much more streamlined than clearing out at Cape Town, the alternative. That turned out to be the case.

I was able to book a berth at the small marina at Yachtport in Saldanha Bay. They primarily do maintenance on boats, especially hull maintenance on large boats because they have the only 100 ton travel lift in South Africa. A travel lift is a large steel frame on wheels with heavy straps that are placed under the boat while it’s in the water.  Electric winches on the travel lift hoist the boat out of the water so it can be moved to a place on dry land ( “on the hard” in boat lingo).  Once there, fixed supports are used to hold the boat so the travel lift can be released for another job.  The process is reversed to put the boat back in the water.

Of course, I didn’t need  the travel lift service having just done this in Richards Bay where I had the hull cleaned and new anti-fouling paint applied.  Incidentally, Phywave was much faster in the water after that work, at least a knot or more. It pays to have a clean hull.

Given the technicians on-site at Yachtport, I had them do a few maintenance items, like an oil change in the Volvo-Penta D2-50 engine. I also had them clean one side of my dual Racor diesel fuel filter and replace the 10 micron filter cartridge. I furnished the filters and oil which I already had on board.  All this was in preparation for crossing the Atlantic and avoiding any potential problems along the way. I won’t have any serious help with engine problems, or get new filters or parts, until I reach the Caribbean.

I also took the opportunity to add to my provisions. With a rental car I visited the Checkers supermarkets in 2 large malls that are within about a 20 minute drive from Yachtport.

The biggest thing I did while in Saldanha Bay was change my route. Since being in South Africa people have been telling me how great Namibia is, that I really should stop there. In particular, a cruiser I met in Hout Bay who is from Namibia gave me some specific information on where to go and what to see.  I vacillated for several days over whether to go. This voyage is beginning to wear on me so I’m anxious to complete my 7 continents mission by returning to North America.  However, I realized I would probably never pass this way again so if I ever wanted to see Namibia, now is the time. Secondarily, I didn’t want to arrive in the Caribbean too soon, like over the Christmas and  New Years holidays when the place will no doubt be jammed with boats and people.  Some further delay, like a stop in Namibia, would help.

With those two factors in mind, I decided to head for Namibia to be followed by St. Helena on my original itinerary.  I left Yachtport Friday,  November 8, at 1200z, headed north to Walvis Bay with very favorable winds forecast along the route.

I kept my boat a total of 10 days at the Hout Bay Yacht Club marina, partly to fix a few things but also to have some time to explore this southwestern part of South Africa.

One thing I wanted to accomplish while there were some simple repairs to my mainsail. One of the batten sleeves needed to be re-sewn and I needed to replace the broken top batten. Unlike my previous stops in South Africa, Cape Town has capable sail-makers who could easily accomplish these tasks. I contacted Ullman Sails on Friday and they sent a team Monday morning to collect the sail from my boat and take it back to their shop. They came with a long sail bag and 4 guys so the sail could be rolled up with the battens still in place and taken away, especially easy with a furling boom. This is very efficient, avoiding having to take the sail down, removing the battens, and flake (fold) the sail into a square bundle for transport. They brought it back Thursday afternoon with the repairs made and fitted back on the boom, with my direction. It was expensive have the sail collected and delivered from their shop in Cape Town but the convenience was well worth it.

I had rental car while in Hout Bay I picked up at the Cape Town airport, using Uber to get there from Hout Bay. I drove east to visit friends Alex and Ronel Ponot, and their three kids who now live in Stilbaai on the coast. I first met them in Oregon where they owned a motel in Pacific City and then a horse ranch near Salem. A few years ago they sold it all and moved to the Perigord region of France, including transporting several horses there. They had a horse ranch in Perigord as well but Alex, who is French, said the French bureaucracy was so stifling he couldn’t make a business of it so they decided to move again, this time to South Africa but without the horses this time. Ronel is originally from Pretoria. They have a beach house in Stillbaai and a large ranch outside of town where I stayed with them for the night. I had a good time seeing a slice of South African life visitors don’t normally see.

After Stilbaai I drove down to Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point in Africa, where I spent the night in a great B&B near the lighthouse at the cape. Of course, they also have a prominent marker, and precise line, declaring it the point separating the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, all a pretty artificial construct. The oceans don’t know their names or where one begins and the other ends.

On the drive to Stilbaai and back I was amazed by the vast farm fields, orchards, and vineyards on both sides of the N2 highway. The soil and climate must certainly be conducive to agriculture, no doubt a key reason Europeans were drawn to settle here centuries ago.

Before returning to my boat in Hout Bay I spent the afternoon at the Victoria & Alfred (V&A) section of Cape Town, an area of old industrial wharfs and warehouses that have been re-purposed and expanded to house many restaurants and shops. With broad walkways and plazas along the water, it reminded me a little of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. There is also a nice marina here where I could have put the boat instead of Hout Bay. If you want your boat in Cape Town this is a better place to go than the larger marina at the Royal Cape Yacht Club. I had lunch at RCYC one day when I was in town buying spare parts. The club and marina are situated in a very industrial part of the port. Walking out the front door you are confronted with railroad tracks and long lines of trucks waiting to unload their containers. Unlike the V&A marina, there are no restaurants or shops anywhere nearby. You would definitely need a car if you put your boat at the RCYC marina.

Just about 12 miles south of Cape Town and a much easier place to find a berth for my boat compared to the two crowded marinas in Cape Town, the marina at Hout Bay Yacht Club is a great alternative. Arriving here still represents a complete transit of the coast of South Africa from Richards Bay and puts me decidedly on the Atlantic Ocean side of Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point in Africa.

The entire coastal transit took three 2-days passages spread over 15 days with stops in East London(5 nights) and Knysna(4 nights). True to its reputation, the weather along the coast is volatile and violent. On each of the three passages I had to contend with gale force winds, fortunately at my stern, and large, very choppy and confused seas that made getting any sleep difficult. That’s partly due to sailing in the shallow coastal waters where the typical depths are only 50 – 150 meters. In the open ocean with water depths of thousands of meters, the swells and flow of the wind waves take on a much more regular and rhythmic characteristic.

Leaving Knysna through the narrow “heads” at high slack tide was a few minutes of challenging boat handling. The wind was blowing into the narrow passage creating 3 – 4 meter swells I had to drive through, some of them breaking. The boat would ride up on the face of a swell, the bow then crashing down on the backside, sometimes getting a bit buried in the face of the next swell. It took full concentration, increased engine power, and a solid grip on the wheel to keep the boat perpendicular to the swells as I powered through to cleared them. Getting caught sideways in a broach would have been a disaster in that narrow, rocky place. I was surprised the water was so busy. When I arrived a few days before, I had flat water passing through the heads into the Knysna estuary.

I’m damn glad to be in Hout Bay and in a pretty nice marina. In a week or so I’ll move Phywave 70 nm north to Saldanha Bay and skip going in to Cape Town. Just recently Saldanha was added as a port where you can clear out of South Africa. I’ll be one of the first boats taking advantage of that change. From there I’ll be looking at my homestretch passage across the Atlantic (for the third time) to North America via St. Helena and the Caribbean.

Ignore the K, pronounced nyz-na. Another quick trip along the South African coast where a suitable weather window for a passage consists of gale force winds blowing in the right direction. Rough but quick.  However, it was not quite quick enough to get me to Knysna before dark on Wednesday after leaving East London early Tuesday morning.  Knysna has a well-known tricky entrance through the heads to the estuary which shouldn’t be attempted at night or with the wrong tide, especially for someone like me who’s never done it

So I had to lay up at an anchorage in Plettenberg Bay, along the Robberg peninsula, about 20 nm east of Knysna.  I was initially indecisive about anchoring there, thinking I could lie ahull or heave-to and wait for daylight to enter Knysna. I sailed slow for some hours with that strategy in mind. But I finally decided the anchorage would be better, especially if the wind kicked up overnight (which it did). With that decision made, I motored through calm winds to the anchorage, arriving at 11 pm. It’s been a long time since I anchored in the dark of night in a strange place.  The e-charts on my chartplotter provided horizontal guidance and with the depth finder I was looking for a depth less than 8 meters.  Once found, I slowed the boat to zero knots, dropped the anchor, and put out about 40 meters of chain (5:1 slope).  With that done, I went to bed and actually got 5 hours solid sleep.

Leaving for Kynsna early the next day I knew I would be bashing into 15-20 kt headwinds and waves all the way. Nothing for it but to motor fast enough to hit the best time around 1200 to pass through the narrow entrance.  Mike Jacobs of the Knysna Yacht Club (KYC) is there via Whatsapp and radio to help newcomers get safely through.  It was straightforward, except for crabbing into the 20 kt westerly crosswind. It’s a little unnerving to steer the boat so the course-over-ground (COG) track is through the passage but the bow is pointed at the rocks.

KYC is a very welcoming place. They let me stay tied to the reception dock instead of putting me out on a swing mooring where I would need to unload the dinghy, attach the outboard motor, and use that to get to shore. KYC has a great restaurant and bar a few meters from where I’m tied up. From what I can tell, Kynsna is a sort of a resort, second home, tourist town.  50 meters from the yacht club there is a small shopping complex with many restaurants and few nearby hotels.  There are charter boats that take people out on the water for sailing excursions. It’s by far the most comfortable stop I’ve made since Darwin.

However, always onward. A good weather window is opening Sunday/Monday that will get me to Hout Bay, just 10 miles south of Cape Town. I plan to jump on that window to complete my passage along the coast of South Africa.

The visit to my home planet was a too-brief two weeks, barely enough time to get over jet lag before getting re-jet lagged on 32 hour en-route flight times from Richard Bays to Seattle and back.

The main reason for my return home was to participate as a pilot in the First World Flight Centennial, September 26-29. As the date got closer and I was still sitting around my boat, I volunteered for a few things that added to an already busy 2 weeks. The first was a dinner presentation at the Rainier Club in downtown Seattle, a venerable club in a classic brick building that’s existed for more than 100 years. The club hosted the first world flight pilots at dinner upon their return in 1924.  I usually talk to pilot groups about my flying where a lot of technical details are appropriate.  This was a much more diverse group of about 100 people at the Rainier Club so while I was still on the boat I started building a “highlight reel” of the most interested moments from my 4 major international flights, included some of the cool videos I’ve posted on YouTube (and linked on my website). It was a engaging group and dinner was great; I was delighted I accepted their speaking invitation.

I also hosted a BBQ dinner party for Earthrounder pilots and their guests at my house on Bainbridge Island, not just those pilots participating in the Centennial but also any Earthrounders who happened to be in town for the event. It was a lively group of 20 or so – the broiled steelhead, grilled steaks, and salads were perfect.

While home I discovered something that surprised me – I started to like flying again. After achieving the goals I had for international flying by 2019, I have to say I was a little burned out on flying.  Flying to local airports for lunch, just to fly somewhere, really had little appeal or imagination. By climbing into the plane for the Centennial, flying felt fresh again; maybe a 2+ year hiatus from flying is what I needed for a renewed perspective.  There is a simplicity and elegance to airplanes and flying, especially compared to sailing around in a cruising sailboat like mine.  My boat is filled with a myriad of systems to support living on it, the deck cluttered with standing and running rigging, the navigational systems more complex in some ways than those on my plane, the dinghy and outboard motor a whole separate “little boat”.  It’s a lot of stuff that needs maintenance, sometimes doesn’t work, and sometimes breaks. Not simple, not elegant.  I look forward to getting back in my plane when my voyage is completed.

Returning to my boat in Richards Bay, I was anxious to get moving again.  In a comfortable marina like the Zululand Yacht Club it’s easy to get stagnant and let the days drift by. I was determined to break that so while I was still at home I started looking for a suitable weather window to continue.  I arrived back in Richards Bay on October 4th and started sailing again on October 8th headed to East London, 350 nm southwest along South Africa’s “Wild Coast”, a name I now understand. For the first few hours the wind was sublime but rapidly built to 30-40 kts (gale force) with commensurate wave action.  To further complicate things there is the famous Agulhas Current that runs southwest along the coast at speeds that can reach nearly 5 kts, quite high for an ocean (not tidal) current.  As I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog post, it is a seriously bad idea to sail in such a current when the wind is blowing in the opposite direction. Standing waves are created by the conflicting forces. Rogue waves along this coast can reach 30 meters in height. Many ships have been sunk or seriously damaged over the years. So even if the wind is stronger than I would like, if it’s blowing in the right direction I’ll take it, and I did.  The weather window was 60 hours long before the wind would change direction and blow opposite the current so I had to hustle down to East London. It wasn’t difficult; with the strong wind aft I could set only a fraction of a headsail and still clip along at 6+ knots (plus the boost from the current which added another 2 to 3 kts). In the end I deliberately slowed down, as I have before, so I would arrive in the port during daylight hours. I am now tied to fore/aft mooring lines, aligned with the river, at the Buffalo River Yacht Club so I don’t swing on the changing tidal flow in the river.

The people at the yacht club are great. As I arrived they found a mooring spot for me and hitched Phywave to the muddy mooring lines which need to be pulled up out of the water. A few hours later a guy came by in a dinghy and asked whether I needed fuel. I had 4 empty jerry cans I hadn’t filled in Richards Bay so I said yes. He took the cans away, filled them, and brought them back to the boat with a young woman from the club who had a credit card machine so I could pay. I’ve been in a lot marinas and anchorages but I’ve never experienced this kind of concierge service. Truly brilliant.

The balance of my voyage around to Cape Town will proceed in a similar fashion – wait for a weather window to move on to the next place along the coast – Port Elizabeth, Knysna or Mossel Bay, Simonstown, maybe Hout Bay. I will clear out of South Africa at Cape Town and begin the homestretch of my voyage back across the Atlantic for the third time and North America, my 7^th continent.

While they were working on cleaning and putting new anti-fouling paint on my boat in Richards Bay, I took a break from boating things and drove up to St. Lucia for a couple of days. The primary thing I wanted to do was take a tour of the Imfolozi Game Reserve, apparently the oldest game reserve Africa. In an open vehicle with a few other people and a guide, we saw a good variety of wildlife, including 4 of Africa’s Big Five (Elephant, Water Buffalo, Leopard, Lion and Rhinoceros). We missed out on a leopard, but did see a cheetah. I toured the major game parks in Kenya and Tanzania when I first visited Africa in 1975. We hired a VW van ourselves – no guide. We actually saw more animals then, and much closer, maybe a little too close when a hippo climbed out of the mud and charged the van. Good times!

Just before leaving Darwin, with the boat still in the marina, I had a diver attempt to clean growth off the hull so I’d have a more efficient sail across the Indian Ocean. He was only partly successful. He said fresh water rains and hot temperatures in Darwin during the months it was there had stimulated a lot growth on hulls, especially small barnacles which he wasn’t able to remove.

Wanting to get the Indian Ocean crossing done when the winds were favorable, I didn’t have time, or a place, to get the boat hauled out of the water and the hull properly cleaned before arriving in Richards Bay. The facilities for doing this at Reunion Island were fully booked for months so I made arrangements ahead of time to get this done here.

September 5 was the day. I came to realize the facilities they have here, although very commonly utilized by cruisers sailing this route, are pretty primitive compared to others I’ve seen and used. First, the travel lift itself is pretty small with a low crossbar. The slope of the bottom of the takeout ramp is such that you have to go into the lift bow first. As a result of these two factors, the forestays on boats have to be loosened, disconnected at the deck end, and pulled to the side. Their tension holding the mast is replaced with running rigging; in my case, the spinnaker and genoa halyards. Getting enough slack on the forestay to disconnect it at the deck end required loosening the backstays and the shrouds. The backstays have been dropped entirely before when loading the boat on the transport ship which brought it to the US. I also dropped them to get the boat on the travel lift in Puerto Montt. I’ve never loosened the shrouds or taken off the forestay before. These are all fundamental things that hold the mast upright. For any sailor, loosening these supporting steel cables is an uncomfortable thing to do. In this case there was no choice if I wanted to get the boat hauled out of the water in Richards Bay.

After the boat is out of the water and positioned where it will sit while work on the hull is completed, it needs to be supported upright above the ground. Every other boatyard I know used heavy telescoping metal support posts designed for this purpose. At Richards Bay they cut lengths of wooden posts to support the boat. One end of the post is dug into the ground while the other end has a flat piece of wood propped against the hull. I’m fortunate with Phywave because it’s capable of sitting upright on it’s own when the centerboard is retracted. If fact, it’s possible to beach it. Fixed keel boats can’t do this and need to sit higher in the air. Of course, if Phywave sat flat on the ground there would be no room to clean the hull and renew the anti-fouling paint. That work will begin on Monday and hopefully be completed so I can get the boat back in the water on Friday.

Overall, the process to finally get the lift cleared to handle another boat takes several hours. Considering that there are 2 meter tides in Richards Bay, and they need high tide to haul or launch boats, realistically they can only handle one boat a day.

After a 12 day passage from Reunion Island through some rapidly changing weather conditions and unexpected counter-currents, I arrived in Richards Bay, South Africa, at 1300z on August 20. I was able to make use of easterly winds blowing west on the north side of a string of high pressure systems (counterclockwise rotation in the Southern Hemisphere). I’m very glad to have completed this passage without having to contend with any southwest gales which were, in effect, blocked for a while by the high pressure systems. That changes tonight when a southwest gale will blow in over Richards Bay.

As I left Reunion Island I was treated to a pretty amazing concentration of humpback whales actively playing off the point of land at St-Gilles-les-Bains.   As I approached heading southwest I saw clusters of boats out there and wondered what was going on. I soon found out.  A parting gift as I left Reunion.

I’m currently tied to the concrete wall of the jetty where you must go first for Immigration procedures. The Custom building is a few miles away so a taxi ride was required this morning. There were strong crosswinds yesterday when I approached the jetty and unfortunately a big gust slammed Phywave into the wall and nicked up the aluminum hull a bit. I’ll see if I can get that cosmetic damage repaired while I’m here. I should have had all my fenders on that side of the boat.

This afternoon I’ll move across to a berth in the Zululand Yacht Club where all the visiting foreign boats go. The club seems more like a local social club, not just for boaters.

From here, the procedure to get around the coast of South Africa to Capetown in the face of periodic SW gales is well-known.  Wait for a weather window 3 or more days long and incrementally move the boat to the next port along the coast. Typical stops are East London, Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay, Kynsna, and others.  I’ll be thinking of that in more detail when I embark on this passage in October.

I’ve mentioned to the few people I’ve met so far that this is not my first time in South Africa. They’re a bit astonished when I tell them I hitchhiked from Nairobi to Capetown and back again in 1975. Apartheid was still in place and Rhodesia hadn’t yet become Zimbabwe though it was under enormous economic and political pressure with international monetary sanctions in place. I have many stories from those days that I expect will come up as I hang out in the yacht club bar.

The passage from Reunion Island to Richards Bay in South Africa around the southern tip of Madagascar (Mada for short) is renown for being difficult, mainly because there are strong gales spinning out of the South Atlantic Ocean and Antarctica that periodically cross the route.  The best time to make this passage is in October when the gales become less frequent during the Austral Spring and before tropical storm season begins later in November.

Which led to a dilemma for me. I was comfotable in the marina at Reunion Island.  When I arrived I told them I’d like to stay until October which they seemed OK with then.  Meanwhile, I’d been watching the weather forecasts daily, as I always do when flying or sailing. I spotted a weather window I thought could work leaving Reunion on August 8.  Considering that option against staying until October, I went to the marina office to confirm I could stay until October. To my surprise they told me I had to be out by September 30 because the marina was fully booked with sailing rallys that would start arriving October 1. 

Rallys are potentially large organized groups of boats sailing to the same destinations, like across the Atlantic or even around the world.  Boats pay to be part of the rally.  Depending on the rally, the organizers may arrange all logistical support for participating boats – fuel, marina berth space, clearing in and out formalities, weather forecasting,  tours of the places they stop, etc. Because of all that support, I call them nanny cruises.  Like other independent cruisers, I have to do all those things myself.

I have to be Seattle to participate in the First World Flight Centennial from September 26-29. There’s no way I could be back in Reunion to leave on September 30.  Moreover, I hate to be forced to leave into weather circustances that were not my choice and could be terrible. I planned to return to the US early in September. If I waited in Reunion longer, there’s no way to know if I’d find a better weather setup than the August 8 setup I had already identified.

So, as I write this August 9 I’m 24 hours and 130 nm into my passge to Richards Bay. You can never trust long range forecasts out 10 days to hold, especially in this part of the world. What’s important is that it holds at least until I can get passed (“weather” in sailor lingo) the southern tip of Mada. Once I’m passed that I can retreat north up the Mozambique (Moz) channel if necessary for bad weather, either by heaving-to or heading for two well-known weather anchorages at St. Augustine Bay on the west coast of Mada or the north side of Ilha Inhaca just outside Maputo in Mozambique. Generally, if a yacht is taking shelter from bad weather and nobody on board goes ashore, you can anchor in a country’s waters without going through the often arduous process of formally clearing-in to the country. 

That’s where things stand. I’ll see how it all works out.

Over the past few weeks I’ve made a number of excursions into the interior of Reunion Island where its spectacular volcanic history is found. I’ve included a map of Reunion which shows the three calderas(cirques) near the island center – Cirque de Mafate, Cirque de Cilaos and Cirque de Salazie, all dormant. At the conjunction of these cirques is Piton des Neiges, at 3071 meters the highest point in the Indian Ocean. In the lower right hand (SE) corner of the map is Piton de la Fournaise, the only active volcano on Reunion which last erupted in April, 2021.

To access these places, I had to drive up incredibly winding, narrow mountain roads, some with one-way tunnels blasted from solid rock (look for on-coming headlights before entering). The French certainly excel at building roads like this – there all over this island and France as well.