SOUTH AFRICA

March 13, 2007

 

For the accompanying photo album go to: http://www.cometosea.us/albums/albums/Circumnavigation%20Slideshow

 

To-morrow I shall be on my way home to the Americas. I'll be rounding the Cape of Good Hope in the afternoon and enter the Atlantic, another ocean after the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. It will be "Fleetwood" 's waters for the next few years.

I had not counted on spending nearly three months in South Africa. The maintenance in Durban and here in Simon's Town, just on the outskirts of Cape Town, and the waiting for suitable weather "windows" were the main reasons for the extra time spent here.

Just before reaching my first South African port, Richards Bay, on the way from Mozambique, I had a nasty knock down. I was running under bare poles in about 30 to 35 knots of wind. All of a sudden I heard a breaking wave rolling in, louder than any of the usual breakers. The next moment "Fleetwood" was laying flat on it's port side. The top of the mast touched the water. The wind indicator was gone. Fortunately I was wedged in the nav-station, listening to the 7 a.m. Peri-Peri net, otherwise I would have been thrown all over the boat with the rest of the unsecured items. The starboard lower lockers spilled into the port lockers. I was finding nuts and bolts that broke out of their boxes, for the next months. I had just on of the two wash boards in the companion way opening. A wave of water spilled through it; fortunately on the galley and not on the starboard nav-station with its vulnerable equipment.

I lost most everything out of the cockpit. Binoculars, winch handle, fishing gear, bucket, prescription sunglasses, etc. The dodger was ripped to shreds, it's frame bent and torn from it's fasteners.  I bought a tiny storm jib that might help to avoid this. The conditions were too rough for my smallest 60% jib and running under bare poles might have been part of the problem.

But then this coast is infamous for nasty waves.

Half of the 3 months was spent in Durban. This was also one of the best and most enjoyable stops on this two year voyage. The marina was within a short walking distance of the town center. Two yacht clubs, the Royal Natal and the Durban Y.C., competed for the visiting yachts' praises. Just about any boating equipment was available at the close by chandleries. Over the years I had heard raving reports from visitors to South Africa to the hospitality of it's people and the beauty of the country. But it still exceeded my wildest dreams.

Several people in particular, like Fred and Eva Meyer of the Peri-Peri Net, but many others made the stay in Durban unforgettable.

We all have heard of the crime problems in this country. And some people prefer Richards Bay over Durban because one is further away from the, mostly impoverished, native urban population. Richards Bay is also far from the marinas and there is little to do in the town. The traditional white Durbanites in the town center have been replaced by colored and black Africans and the whites practically all have become SubD(b)urbanites.   I saw some very attractive residential areas with homes, landscaping and tree lined roads that would be the envy of upscale California towns, with the possible exception of the high walls and security systems. Here the white man still lives in an unreal world compared to the black man.

Listening to the locals, hearing the radio and reading the news papers the future for the entire African continent appears hopeless to me.

Many of the cruising couples made visits to the wild life parks, and the Zulu reservations, particularly from Richards Bay.

Christmas became a memorable experience in Durban, after all. The Sacred Heart Cathedral had a wonderful service in both English and French. The Cardinal, a black African, went to seminary in Louvain and celebrated parts of the mass in French. There was also a French speaking Flemish priest. The choir part that sang in French were mostly Congolese refugees. Because the cathedral is down town the congregation has changed from mostly white to mostly black. But it is a vibrant and close community led by some truly caring pastors. The two female Polish crews of the Mantra 28 also made Christmas very special. The two boats are doing a round the world double handed regatta. A few days after I arrived in Richards Bay, two Mantra-28 footers, “Asia” and “Ania” arrived from Mauritius, flying the Polish ensign, crewed by two young ladies on each boat.Joanna (nickname Asia pronounced Ashjah) Raczka, skipper on “Ania” and crew Aleksandra (nickname Ola) Peszkowska, 22 years old. Joanna (Asia) Pajkowska, skipper, with crew Karolina Bratek, 20 years old. I was left to guess the ages of the two Asia’s. Asia Pajkowska participated in the 2000 single handed OSTAR race from England to the Caribbean. She did this without any sponsorship and finished respectably in her class. She was a volunteer crew member on one of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution rescue boats on the South coast of England. She showed me the burgee, of the “Mazurey”, that was left here at the Point Yacht Club by her country woman, Krystyna Choynowski-Liskiewicz who was the first female solo circumnavigator. She accomplished this on March 28, 1976. The credit for this feat is usually reserved for Naomi James who sailed around Cape Horn in 1979. There are good pictures of Asia and the other crew and details of the voyage at www.mantra28.pl

The boats are owned and sponsored by the Mantra yard and the voyage is run as a regatta between the two boats. The four ladies cooked up a storm on Christmas Eve and I was invited as the only non Polish guest to their celebration that evening. They served borsht, piroghees, special pastries, etc.; they sang their Polish Christmas songs. They left Poland in September 2005 and launched the two boats in the Italian Adriatic port of Monfalcone. From the Panama Canal they followed the “Milk Run” and spent time during the cyclone season in Australia. They stopped in Chagos in the Indian Ocean and Reunion and Mauritius before heading for Richards Bay in South Africa. They are on their way now across the South Atlantic to Brazil.    

In Durban I also had the unusual opportunity to be joined by another five solo sailors. I am basically recapping what I wrote as a possible news paper story. So bear with me.

Here is a rundown on all of us, starting with the oldest, from left to right in the photograph.

Name                           Age      Boat Name       Boat Type        Home Port   

Georges Prat               75        Ierges               39’ Alumin         Bayonne, Southern France

Philippe Blochet          71        Ar Sklerder      35’ Steel            Paimpol, Brittany, France

Jack van Ommen        69        Fleetwood        30’ NAJA         Gig Harbor, Wa., USA

Bill Hughes                   67        Kymika            33’ Westsail      Fremantle, Australia

Dieter Pollak                66        Amazon 1        44’ Amazon      Vancouver, BC, Canada

Noel French                 58        Tigem               44’ Bavaria       Plymouth, England 

Georges Prat , alias "Six Fingers" is, at 75, the oldest and also the only genuine single hander. He lost the use of 4 of his fingers on his left hand in an industrial accident. He is on his second circumnavigation. Like all six of us he will follow the route from Cape Town, via St. Helena to Northern Brazil and then cross the Atlantic back to Europe.

When he is asked what “Ierges” stands for he tells everyone that Ierges was an ancient Greek mariner.  A French lady in Curacao came back the next day and told him that her husband as a professor in Greek history insisted that Ierges is not a Greek name. So, he had to explain to her that at the end of the 5 year building process of the boat he finally settled on the boat name. His previous boat name was a combination of his ex-lady friend, Marie and his name: “Margeo”. “Ierges” are the leftovers. He added an accent grave to the last “e”. You never know when he is serious or mischievous because he always has this mocking squint in his eyes. As you will see from the photograph he just does not look anywhere close to being 75 and that is usually the way the conversation starts when you first meet him; you have to guess his age. Someone told me once that for every year you are on the ocean you rejuvenate a year. When I wrote to my twin brother, a landlubber, that I would be celebrating my 60th when he was doing his 80th, he warned me that I would need his company to get a drink when I drop below 18. 

Philippe Blochet, at 71, is also on his second circumnavigation. He started his first one in 1996. On the leg from Cape Town to St. Helena he had a mild stroke and fell unconscious. He woke up the next day and did not check with a doctor till he returned to France, where he had an operation. He sold his boat, bought a camping trailer, but after a few years the urge for another circumnavigation got him here to Durban again. The name of his boat “Ar Sklerder” is named after a chapel on the Brittany coast. Several hundred years ago fishermen prayed for the fog to lift and promised to build a chapel on the spot where miraculously a clearing appeared. “Sklerder” stands for “Clearing” in Breton. Philippe carries a replica of the statue of Our Lady of Ar Sklerder on his boat. He retired from the merchant marine. He and I can get into deep conversations on religion. He is an avowed traditional Catholic of the Monseignor Le Fevre movement. 

One of the many experiences he shared with me was when back in 1998 he stopped at Suwarrow in the Northern Cook Islands. He had two passengers aboard at that time. They found a shipwrecked British couple, of the “Short Time”, who had decided that they were going to stay on the deserted island. During the 2nd world war the New Zealand military had a communication post on Suwarrow. From 1952 to his death in 1977, Tom Neale, a New Zealander lived in the buildings that were left from the second world war.

The shipwrecked couple lived on the catch from the lagoon and coconuts. They asked Philippe to post letters to the island’s governor, with a request to stay on the island, a letter to their lawyer and one to his father. They also gave them one thousand pound sterling to bring back to his father in England. The governor denied their request and they were later repatriated from the deserted island. The money was put in a suitcase by one of Philippe’s passengers and subsequently stolen. The French doctor paid the equivalent, out of his own pocket, to Nick’s father in England when he returned to France.

I had met Philippe earlier, in Bali, and for me it was a pleasant surprise, to find him again in Durban, because I instantly took a liking to him. I plan to stop and spend time with him and several other Breton cruising friends when I reach the Brittany coast at the end of the summer.

Bill Hughes immigrated to Australia form North Wales when he was 29 and his destination is Holly Head, North Wales. I found Bill on another boat in Richards Bay, my previous port stop. I heard a couple guys singing Welsh songs and when I checked it out he was drinking and singing with Henny, an ex-patriate Dutchman living on his boat for many years already in Richardsbay, and sometime musician.  

Dieter Pollak, a German-Canadian was born in Sudetenland and grew up in Westphalia. The Pollak family lived for 12 years in Ireland and sailed from Ireland to Canada. He worked as a millwright in British Columbia and then started his own steel yacht building yard, building amongst others the Amazon design. He took early retirement and has been on this voyage since 1999. His wife, Hildegard, meets him at various stops and accompanies him on short crossings. His destination is Ireland and Germany before, eventually, returning to Vancouver.

Noel French, who pulls our average age down to just under 68, is classified as handicapped. He was run over by a car, ten years ago. He jests that he was resurrected one more time than Jesus Christ. He was clinically dead twice during his operations when his heart stopped. He is now totally deaf in his right ear and lost his sense of smell and taste and has difficulty with his equilibrium. He has been on this voyage since October 2002. On his way from the Panama Canal to Alaska he broke his boom and diverted to Hilo, Hawaii and spent 6 months for the season to change. He suffered a dismasting near New Zealand. I meant to ask him what he carries in the blue bag, you see in the photo; I have never seen him without it.

He read two biographies of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He found contradictions and inaccuracies in them, so he decided to write his version. He spent years on his research. He has a particular insight on Mozart’s symbolism of the Free Masons subtly incorporated in the Magic Flute, being a Free Mason like Mozart was. 

 

Several of the six of us have taken crew or passengers on part of our voyage. Myself, Bill Hughes and Noel French have not taken any one else on board till now. I caught up with Georges Prat again here in my final South African port, Simon's Town.

 

The old neighborhood in Amsterdam spread out to all the corners of the globe. In Durban I met Jan Kunst and his family. His brother, Peter, was in my elementary classes and his father was our church pastor and was also involved with the resistance group my mother was in during the second world war. In Cape Town I met Eduard Jongsma. The Jongsmas shared the same church pew with our family in the "Waalkerk" and Eduard was one year behind me in elementary and later in the same high school. He is also a sailor and ocean racer. We met twice at the Royal cape Y.C, and last week he took me to meet his extended family in the Cape Town area.

 

You will see lots of "Braai" pictures. This is the national past time; the South African barbecue.  Every yacht club has this at set days of the week. And with the two clubs at the Durban Marina and the Bluff Y.C., we smelled of smoke most of the week. Boerenwors is my favorite, a beef sausage that comes in long single strings.

From Durban we sailed most of the way in an about 10 boat fleet, who left the starting blocks after a long wait for a suitable window to weather the "wild coast", mid February. The coast line here is infamous for it's enormous waves that can build up in a South Westerly against the swift south flowing Aghulas Current. So, we listen carefully to Fred Meyer on the Peri-Peri Net at 7 a.m. and again at 5 p.m. to get the green light for a long enough window that will carry us to the next port. From Durban, in particular, this is a long stretch since there are no places to go and hide if the S.W. kicks up it's vengeance.  Our first stop was East London, a true river port. We were locked in for 10 days by the weather. Most boats then made it to Mossel Bay. But the three slowest boats, a 32, 31 footer and "Fleetwood" stopped in Plettenberg Bay to sit out the South Westerly. From there I made it all the way to Simon's Town. S-Town is in False Bay and is just a short train ride from down town Cape Town. It is a delightful old town with a large navy base and older homes at beach level and newer ones above on the surrounding hills. The False Bay Yacht Club treats us again in the, now taken for granted, South African hospitable style. Some of the boats of our fleet went to Cape Town. The Simon's Towners all agreed that we had a better spot. The Royal Cape is far from town and the moorage more expensive.

There is a large Penguin colony, just South of Simon's Town, at Seaforth.

I celebrated my 70th birthday here on the 28th. My cruising pals spoiled me with a party, dinner, gifts, cards and their attention. It was very special. On my birthday three couples and I toured the wine country, not far from here, around Stellenbosch and Franschhoek.

It reminded me very much of Sonoma County, the wineries, the vegetation, etc.

I bought a new lap top because my three year old Dell Inspiron 1100 is falling apart and the salt air has done it in. I also abandoned trying to revive the third, gone bad, Canon Digital camera and bought a second hand older model Nikon 35 mm direct reflex digital camera. It should show a marked improvement in the next album.

I made three trips into Cape Town in the commuter train that follows the breath taking coast line for a while, you can take this all in from your seat in the restaurant car. Where ever you are in Cape Town, Table Mountain is always forming a stunning back drop. The downtown business center is quite attractive with lots of pedestrian streets shaded with trees.