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.
