One Great Hop!

After more than 3 weeks waiting for a window, watching the weather opening and closing, with the forecasts changing sometimes 3 times daily, we finally settled for a 40 hour window that should take us to at least East London on the 30th of December. So after much debate with many cruisers which had conflicting opinions on our choice of timing we set off at 7 am bound for East London 345 miles down the coast. Getting out of Richards Bay was worth the sacrifice of spending a boring New Years at sea.

The passage started slowly but the breeze steadily build up to a nice 20 knots which blew most of the day and part of the night, when it died off a bit but still offered us a steady 10-15 knots. With one reef on the main , our code zero up most of the time, plus 1 to 2 knots of current off the coast, Moonwalker took us a staggering 245 miles down the coast in 24 hours.

Those same first 24 hours saw yours truly spewing her guts out most of the time... just horrendous sea sickness. Never felt anything like it. I gotta put down to the fact that it was the baby's first sail and it was trying to get adjusted. I was just hopeless. Every time I was required on deck or cockpit to work, the body demanded a donation to the fishes. Russ just looked on unable to do a thing apart from literally taking the boat himself non-stop 36 hours without sleep. I guess hence our amazing speeds as he had nothing better to do than sail the boat.

The second day saw us with variable winds from East and eventually South East with the dreaded South Westers being delayed by the lovely high we were riding. So East London went by in a blur and so did Port Alfred at night. Even with light winds of less than 10 knots, Moonwalker was doing constantly 9 to 10 knots proving to us why we love her so much. It isn't the big speeds in strong winds we are interested (which my the way topped up at 22.3 knots, an absolutely all time record for us) but the high speeds she is capable in very light winds. So many times we saw her do 6 knots in 6 knots of wind, and in this case it was like doing 8 in 8. This discounting current which was with us on and off after East London.

New Years was uneventful which on this coast is a absolute blessing. Russ finally managed to get some sleep 30 minutes before midnight, so I heard all the coastal traders, tankers and cargo ships wishing their Happy New Years around the ocean on the radio.We had 3 boats we knew coming down the coast at the same time so it wasn't such a lonely time. The moon showed up for a wee while too, and I wasn't spewing so I was very happy with my New Years indeed.

The propellers worked a dream. She is so much smoother while at sail now and with the bigger blades we are now capable of doing 6.5 knots motoring in perfect conditions! Hows that for an improvement on our original 4.5! We managed to check all this out when we got to Port Elizabeth, the wind died completely and we had nice flat seas to motor on. While checking out the coast we came across lots of seals, sunning their fins, which initially we thought was a lot of tree trunks floating around. They are just so funny and gracious. Penguins and Gannets where everywhere too, so we tried our luck trawling a line out but caught nothing.

We entered St Francis Harbor at 6 pm on the 1st of January in perfect conditions no breaking waves or surges as reported. But we can totally see how getting in and out of this harbour can be tricky. We attached ourselves to one of the local squid boats and had a smelly but lovely evening asleep.

So in short, Moonwalker rocks, we are out of Richards Bay and we are oh so very happy! I will have more cool up dates soon as this places promises... swell coming, J Bay just around the corner, some very nice, hospitable people around. We caught up with Fasie and Fiona from Moonpath too. Super nice family.

Russ has just returned from a surf at Cape St Francis as I finalize this blog, and reported good waves with only surf shorts and a vest. Big smiles on his face...