Farewell Cape Town

Dawn was lightening the sky as we finally slipped out of the luxury of the V and A Marina at 06:15 on the 20th of February. The previous day had been spent in replacing the feed pump for the watermaker and dealing with other last minute items. I gave my MyCiti bus card to the security lady before we left as it still had credit on it. I hope it will be useful.

It was great to finally be heading north after a delay of 3 weeks here. Table Mountain gave a massive backdrop to Cape Town as the first rays of the sun painted its ramparts pink, and shortly afterwards the sun came over the mountains to the east and warmed us.

There was no wind initially and we motored steadily out past Robben Island until we could finally set sail at about 11:00. We were soon making 9knots with 30knots of wind from the south east.

It took a little time to settle back in to living at sea. Our familiar lunch time found us, as always at the cockpit table, with cabbage and trail mix salad, bread and butter, and other side dishes such as garlic hommous, or tomato and onion. Big seas from astern and an occasional splash on deck. The cold water of the Benguela current makes the air chill, and despite the sun I soon needed my long thermals, two fleeces, full Musto sailing suit and woolly hat to stay warm. Mark, meanwhile, has determinedly stayed in shorts!

We have seen lots of terns diving for fish, then little Heaviside Dolphins peculiar to the southwest coast visited us, with blunt noses, and little triangular fins. They have a distinguishing white ventricular trident, which is three white stripes, one each side of the tail and one below. Later we were visited by larger Dusky Dolphins and began to see albatrosses gliding fast and low on huge narrow wings, with a thin black margin to the white underside these may be the Shy Albatross. We also see large dark brown petrels, as yet unidentifiable.

Our first night came and I decided that, with the strong wind, we should furl the mainsail and carry on under Genoa alone. It also allows us lay our course better downwind without fear of a gybe. It's always amazing how it seems relatively peaceful heading downwind in big seas, but turning to windward to reduce sail one suddenly feels the full force of it and is reminded of how hard it would be to return that way.

It's annoying that it's taking me time to regain my sea legs, and I'm feeling rather queasy and struggling with my appetite at meal times. So I have been sleeping a lot off-watch but also reading "Papillon" in readiness for French Guyana. It's an astonishing story, and one that has gripped me, not least because it is autobiographical and deals with Caribbean places that we have visited such as Curaçao and Colombia.

It was my turn to cook supper tonight and, despite feeling a bit rough, I managed to produce beef and onions (tinned) with rice, spiced up with garlic, fresh onions, peppers and so on. Pudding was simple. We had the luxury of frozen blueberry yoghourt as the freezer is working well in these cold waters.

Now I'm on the 9 to midnight watch with the crescent moon slowly setting in the West and the sky full of stars, with Orion leading us north, and the Southern Cross bringing up our rear. We are 50 miles or so off the coast with occasional cargo ships passing us within a few miles. Ahead where the coast bulges out to meet us from Namibia I can see lots of fishing boats on the AIS screen, clustered on the 100 metre depth contour.

Our new batteries are behaving well, but we were advised to change the charger settings, and now it takes at least 4 hours to recharge. I will have to judge whether this is the right way to operate to maintain their life.