We departed Knysna on the morning of January 6th
for the 290 mile sail to Cape Town. This
part of the coastline also has its fair share of hazards, so we were hopeful
that our two-day weather window would hold.
Conditions in the harbor entrance were calm as we motored through the
Knysna Heads and pointed west for our last leg in the Indian Ocean. Winds were light on the first day, and we motor-sailed
for a while to maintain speed in order to make it to port before the next big
blow.
We had an uneventful first day, as the winds remained light
and the swell continued to diminish further offshore. The next morning the winds filled in at 15
knots from the SSE, and we sailed along at six knots toward our first important
landmark on the passage. From 10 miles
offshore, we could see Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point on the African
continent. Cape Agulhas is an
unspectacular rocky headland and the lesser known of the two South African
capes, but this is the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean.
As we sailed into the Atlantic, we reflected over the last four
months and 6,000 miles of sailing from Indonesia to South Africa. We had always considered the Indian Ocean a
big scary body of water with storms and pirates and other challenges to test
our relatively new sailing skills. Although
the winds were a bit stronger here, our heavy displacement boat is in her
element in a fresh breeze. We actually
enjoyed this brisk sailing much better than that of the Pacific, which was plagued
with unstable weather systems bringing squalls and inconsistent winds. In fact, we were lucky to have winds over 30
knots on only a few brief occasions in the Indian Ocean. Hopefully the Atlantic will treat us as
well.
On our first night in the Atlantic and the second of this
passage, the winds held steady and slowly shifted more to the south. By midnight, we could see the flash off our
beam from the distant lighthouses near the Cape of Good Hope. Sailing on a beam reach in 15 knots of wind
and four foot seas on a cloudless night can be an amazing experience, but it
was especially rewarding going around what was originally named the Cape of
Storms. Many ships have been lost in
these waters, and we were happy to have made it around the cape before the next
low pressure system arrived.
In the early morning hours, we could tell that it wasn’t
just a new ocean we were in, but a new current.
At Cape Agulhas, the warm Agulhas Current meets the icy Benguela Current
going north from Antarctica and continuing up the west coast of the African
continent. The two currents collide and
mix in the 90 mile area between Cape Agulhas and the Cape of Good Hope,
and the water temperature starts to decrease.
Water temperatures can vary greatly where the currents are
coming together between the two capes, but by the time you get west of the Cape
of Good Hope, the cold Benguela Current dominates. Every hour the air temperature dropped a
little, and by the time the sun rose and the Cape Peninsula came into view, we
had to dig out our sweaters and heavy jackets again.
Ideal sailing conditions continued as we made the last 25
miles north into Cape Town. As the
southern suburb of Green Point was just off our beam, we hailed port control on
VHF to get permission to enter the harbor.
As we rounded the corner, Cape Town came into view. This has to be one of the most picturesque
cities in the world. It sits at the
bottom of a natural amphitheater called the City Bowl and is bordered by the
mountains of Signal Hill, Lion’s Head, Devil’s Peak and the most prominent,
Table Mountain, with its near vertical cliffs and flat-topped summit over 3,300
ft tall.
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| suburb of Green Point and the outer harbor Port of Cape Town |
Passing through the outer harbor, we noticed the first of
two pedestrian bridges that needed to be raised so we could reach the inner
harbor. The bridge operators didn’t
respond to our calls on the VHF, so we just nosed up to the first bridge. They apparently knew what we wanted and opened
it as we approached. The tourists along
the water’s edge lined up and watched us go through, and the second bridge
opened a few minutes later.
By noon on January 8th, Saviah was moored at the
Victoria and Alfred (V & A) Waterfront Marina right in the heart of Cape
Town. The marina is part of a big
development and is surrounded by high-end condominiums, hotels and restaurants,
with Table Mountain looming in the background.
We were surprised to find dozens of rambunctious sea lions that also
call the marina home. They provide hours
of entertainment for tourists but are sometimes a nuisance for boaters. Their barks/growls/hisses can be heard day
and night. They like to lounge on the
docks, and if they pick one near your boat, unpleasant smells often waft
through the cabin.
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| V&A Waterfront Marina |
Cape Town is a beautiful cosmopolitan city, and the second
most populated in South Africa with 3.75 million people. The
biggest tourist attraction is the V&A Waterfront, which was right at our
doorstep. This development was built on a
portion of the original Port of Cape Town docks. It is a working harbor where you can watch
fishing boats and cargo ships come and go as well as recreational boats. There are also tour boats that visit nearby
Robben Island, which is the location of the maximum security prison that held
Nelson Mandela and other political activists years ago.
It is also one of the city's most popular shopping venues,
with several hundred shops and restaurants.
There are many local vendors selling crafts and food, as well as some
very entertaining street performers. We
were happy to find a huge grocery store a short walk from the marina where we
could provision without needing a cab or bus.
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| V&A Waterfront |
For exercise, it was nice to run on the waterfront trail from
the V&A to the suburb of Green Point.
We also spent some time walking around downtown to visit the park on
Government Avenue and the oldest structure in Cape Town, which is the Iziko
Castle of Good Hope, built by the Dutch in the 17th century. This pentagon shaped fort surrounded by a moat
sits amid the high rise buildings in Cape Town’s business district.
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| Iziko Castle of Good Hope and Mouille Point Lighthouse |
Table Mountain towers over the city and is another big
tourist attraction that we had to see up close.
The summit is easily reached via a cable car that carries passengers up
and down all day. We opted for the more
challenging ascent and hiked up with some other cruisers, Lars and Allison on
s/v Twister. We hit the trail at 6 am, before
it got too hot, and climbed up the very steep terrain. An hour and a half later, legs burning and
out of breath, we were at the summit (3,570 ft) looking down on the city and
beyond. There were also great views of
the Cape of Good Hope and False Bay as well as the two peaks, Devil's Peak and
Lion's Head on either side. We spent a
couple hours hiking around on the trails on top of the plateau and then took
the cable car back down.
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| views from the top of Table Mountain |
After spending a week in the city, we wanted to explore some
of the surrounding area. We rented a car
and headed south to spend the day on the Cape Peninsula, the mountainous spine
that goes 25 miles south from Cape Town to the Cape of Good Hope and is part of
the South African National Park system. The trip took us along Chapman’s Peak Drive. This is a very scenic route where much of the
road was cut right into the cliff face at dizzying heights over the Atlantic
Ocean. The views over the coastline on
this stretch were incredible.
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| Slangkop Lighthouse and Cape of Good Hope National Park |
Once in the park, we did the short hike to the lighthouses
at Cape Point. There are actually two
capes at the end of this peninsula. On
the southwest side is the famous Cape of Good Hope, which is more well-known
because it sticks out a little further south, but it is low lying and not very
exciting. The other point on the
southeast side of the peninsula is Cape Point, the more dramatic of the two. This narrow piece of land juts out into the
water with very steep cliffs rising to over 800 feet.
Cape Point is also where the lighthouses on the peninsula
are located, as it is a much higher platform.
The original was built on the top at 817 feet, but it was not as
effective because it was often shrouded in fog due to its higher elevation. Later after the shipwreck of the Lusitania in
1911, they built the new and more powerful one, lower down on the cliff wall at
285 feet.
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| Cape Point |
We then did the one and a half mile hike from Cape Point to
the Cape of Good Hope. This point was
originally named the Cape of Storms, but was later changed to the more
optimistic name as it opened up trading to the Far East. The cape itself wasn’t very exciting, but it
was a really nice walk over there, much of which was on a boardwalk with a
beautiful beach below.
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| Cape of Good Hope |
After the cape, we drove back north following the eastern side
of the peninsula and stopped near Simon’s Town to see the colony of African
Penguins that live in the area. These
penguins are on the endangered species list, but there are over 2,000 of them in
False Bay, living off mainly squid and other shoal fish that flourish in these
waters. The beach where we first spotted
them was also a popular swimming area, and it was surprising to see people
sunbathing and wading in the water alongside these animals. A little further north there was another viewing
area with a boardwalk to keep people off the beach. There must have been hundreds of penguins here
walking around and sitting in their shallow pits in the sand. Since these birds can’t fly, they have to dig
their nests in the ground, which makes their eggs easy prey for other animals.
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| African Penguins |
After our tour of the Cape Peninsula, we headed about 30
miles east of Cape Town to spend a couple days in the Stellenbosch area. This town lies at the foot of the Cape Fold
mountain range. The well-drained, hilly
terrain and the regional climate are ideal for viticulture, and there are hundreds
of wineries in the area. With vineyards and orchards dotting the slopes
of the mountains and lots of old Cape Dutch manor houses, this was another
beautiful spot.
We also visited nearby Franschhoek (Dutch for “French
corner”), which is one of the oldest settlements in South Africa, founded by a group
French Huguenots that fled to this area in the 17th century. There is still a very big French influence
here and many wineries and great restaurants as well.
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| Stellenbosch and Franschhoek |
After a few days of inland travel, it was time to get back
to Saviah and start looking for a good weather window to head north. Originally, our plan was to sail 750 miles up
the coast to Walvis Bay, Namibia to see the Namib Desert. It wouldn’t be a long stop, as we had
recently learned that our friends were coming to visit us in Barbados in early
April, and we had a lot of ground to cover before then.
Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with us this
time, and we ended up waiting a week for a good weather window. This gave us time to do some more projects,
like replacing our macerator pump, installing some cabin fans and building a
mount for the new outboard engine that we recently bought. We also installed the burglar bars that we
had fabricated for our three hatches in anticipation of spending time in the
Caribbean and South/Central America. It
was nice to get some of these projects done, but the delay meant that we would
need to skip Namibia, or we would really be pushing it to make it to Barbados
by early April.
During our week of waiting, we had typical Cape
Town weather with several days of sustained 30 – 40 knot winds, gusting to 50 knots
at times. Finally, on January 31st,
the winds settled down some. We cleared
out with customs and immigration and said farewell to South Africa. We had a wonderful three months exploring
this diverse country. Our next stop is
Saint Helena, the small British island in the South Atlantic, 1,700 miles to
the northwest.