Passage from Cape Town to St Helena

[Kyle]Before we could depart, we first had to clear out of the country (South Africa). In order to do that, we were required to present ourselves with the boat at the Royal Cape Yacht Club (RCYC) in Cape Town. Fine. The problem is that there was no space there, apart from the one dock that Customs requires them to provide, due to being full with boats from two rallies and the impending Cape2Rio race. So, what we got after a few confusingly unanswered emails was a six-hour reservation for the aforementioned dock from 9am. To get there in time from Hout Bay, we would have to have our lines untied by four o’clock.

We really like South Africa, but I must say that of all the places we have ever been, their clearing out process involves the most tedious and infuriating steps of bureaucratic senselessness (mostly it seems to protect the RCYC from people quiting the country without paying them). The process seems to have been developed half by people who know nothing about small (non-container ship) boats and half by people who just plain don't trust us to do the right thing. {Maryanne: Kyle may be exaggerating for emphasis somewhat}

The convoluted process has many completely contradictory requirements. Every time Maryanne would email someone for clarification, she would get a response that was vague enough to not actually answer her questions while hinting strongly that the correct answer was exactly opposite of what the last official had told her. When she would ask for more clarification, the answer would change back again. They would also do this thing where they would say we needed five pieces of information, we would present them and then they would ask for three more, like we should have known that they had needed all eight the whole time. Then they would need two more and so on. Why can’t we get a straight answer?

One of the biggest sticking points was the apparent requirement that we provide a letter from every marina we have visited (which has been mercifully streamlined from literally every marina in the country) saying that we have paid in full and don’t owe them anything. This was not too big of a deal until we got to the RCYC. Since Begonia was parked there at the free Customs dock that is set aside for clearing out, we needed a letter from the RCYC saying that we were paid up, but since we had not stayed on one of their paid docks, we were not technically customers, so they had not billed us for anything to pay. Add to that that the RCYC was really busy and we just kept falling through the cracks. All we need is a piece of paper saying that we don’t owe you anything and we’ll get out of your hair. Nope, we can’t possibly provide you with that until you are standing right in front of us, not owing us any money in person.

Of course, on the actual day, the marina was full of racing crews in full-on, last-minute panic mode, plus enough press to capture all of the drama (with the pending start of the Cape 2 Rio race). At the reception desk, we entered the line behind crews that were freaking out because the race was starting in four hours, the mechanic who is installing their generator hasn’t shown up yet and the half of their crew who aren’t stuck in traffic on their way from the airport all lost their passports at last night’s big party.

When it came our turn, we were treated like important customers, even though we weren’t, and the staff diligently went through the laborious process of passing reams of replacement paperwork for our printed copies back and forth to be photocopied and then filled out and signed by us again. When the guy behind us figured out we weren’t even in the race, he gave us such a look that I completely forgot to turn in the twenty-four passports I found in the couch cushions while we were scribbling away on our clipboards.

At the end of it all, we were handed a short stack of papers topped with a helpful walking map showing us where to find the Immigration offices, just a couple kilometers away. The official there was very nice. He didn’t need to see most of our paperwork, but he did have a couple of new forms for us to fill out. Then it was stamp, stamp, “Have a lovely sail.” No one will need to come to your boat.

We returned to Begonia and then headed out with all the other boats. About half had decks lined with large crews in matching shirts heading for the Cape2Rio start line right off Grainger Bay. We did what the other half did, which was to go anchor in Grainger Bay to get a view of the first half. It was a bit crowded, but we figured we would be the only one staying past dark. We were right. The starting cannon was fired, the competitors began to recede over the horizon, and within a few hours all the other boats got tired of drinking and yelling and went back the way they had come.

We were anchored in Granger Bay - a prime position to watch the start of the Cape2Rio race

In the wee-hour darkness before dawn, I woke to prepare for our departure and discovered that we had apparently dragged anchor into the open sea as we were sleeping because Cape Town was GONE! Closer examination revealed that we were still holding fast; it was thick fog that had obliterated not just the city, but even the far corners of our own boat.

As I was downloading our first batch of weather forecasts, I thought I heard voices. Well, that was pretty early in the trip! It turned out to be actual voices of other people. In the darkness, I could just make out the outline of an unlit fishing boat anchored about five boat widths away with about ten people casting with poles from the decks.

A couple hours later, as Maryanne and I were weighing anchor, they did the same and then passed behind us, treating me to a torrent of abuse and obscenities for being anchored in the bay and being hard to see. I thought they may be kidding, but the guy at the helm had a face the color of a plum and his head looked like it was going to pop right off his shoulders and start flying around like an inflated balloon that had been released. To this, I pointed at our brighter-than-average anchor light, mentioned their complete lack of any, bright lights or otherwise, and then, for symmetry of course, I pulled carefully selected tidbits from our time in New Jersey, Boston and certain places in the UK and blasted their decks with a firehose of truly next-level swearing, all in my best Drunken Aussie accent. It should take ‘em a while to figure that one out!

Meanwhile, Maryanne was a little confused because she thought the whole point of the wireless headsets we were both wearing was to prevent such racing-boat-style outbursts. Besides, everything had gone smoothly at the anchor end of the boat. “Sorry, Honey. You’re doing great. I’ve got a whole other thing going on back here.”

So my whole fantasy of leaving Cape Town on a sunny morning and then spending the rest of the day watching Table Mountain slowly recede over the horizon didn't look like it would happen. We did have occasional five or ten-minute glimpses of it through breaks in the fog, but mostly our departure was cold, drizzly and featureless. Well, at least we’re heading closer to the equator.

We left Cape town in morning fog and we were joined by leaping dolphins and fur seals with Table Mountain occasionally coming into view

After an initial slow day, the wind built and built out of the south until we had gusts over forty knots pushing us along with almost no sail at all. That lasted about three days, which was starting to get pretty old, when the wind finally started to decrease again.

We replaced our white sails with the spinnaker and the comfort level slowly improved with the decreasing seas. Two days later we had slowed to such a crawl that our paddlewheel speed transducer wasn’t even spinning half the time and the sail lay on the deck like a dropped theater curtain. Maryanne started to worry about our ETA, but I assured her wind was on its way, if not tomorrow, then the next day. In the meantime, my advice was for the off-watch to enjoy the prime sleeping weather.

Soon enough, the little bangs and squeaks started, along with the low gurgle of water flowing past the hulls. The gurgle then morphed into a hiss of white noise, which helped to drown out all of the other building racket. We were on our way again!

{Maryanne: Notes from the passage include a few Albatross visitors, Kyle took a tumble and broke the cockpit table (since fixed), we spotted a few flying fish, and even the odd petrel and a few terns as we approached St Helena}

Eight days later, which off the top of my head I think is a record, but I haven’t verified it yet, we still had the spinnaker up when we arrived at Jamestown, St Helena. We were a day and a half earlier than our original estimate.

The sun came out as we approached St Helena and we were grateful to arrive before sunset

Then we had a minor bit of drama. St. Helena has about twenty moorings for visiting boats. We had been told by the Harbor Authority that even with all the recent Governor’s Cup arrivals (the Cape Town to St. Helena race), there should still be plenty of space for us. As we pulled into James Bay, however, we found that nearly every boat in the harbor had tied fore and aft using two moorings each, leaving none available. The rules about mooring use are very explicit about not doing this, but apparently one monohull didn’t like being sideways to the mild swell in the bay, so they ran a line to one of the other moorings in an effort to point their bow into the swell. Once one of ‘em did it, they all had to do it. Fast forward a week and you have us motoring around looking for a space that’s not there.

The Harbor Master told us to just untie somebody else’s stern line and take the mooring, but every candidate boat we selected would have ended up swinging into its adjacent neighbor if we did so. Eventually, we heard someone whistling one of those really loud whistles (I wish I could do that) from a catamaran on the edge. He waved us over and then told us to give him a couple of minutes, he would drop his stern mooring and then we could have it. Word slowly got around and by the end of the fourth day, a bigger crowd of boats, including Begonia, was all swinging around on just one mooring each.

Another passage concluded. We'll clear in after a good night of rest.

[Maryanne]Update. On the nights of day 6 and 7 of this passage there was an amazing bloom of large planktonic life that I'd never seen before. I had no idea what they were, and conditions were a bit rough so I wasn't able to scoop any out the water to inspect more closely. I couldn't get a good picture either since it was so dark. They were bioluminescent, drifting in the water and looked like intricate basket-like, condom-shaped critters of varying sizes (between 10-40cm long) and there were so many of them on that 2nd night it seemed like I'd be able to walk on water with them as my support. Later I did a bit of research and found them to be some kind of pyrosome (and that is worth looking up). There is even a giant version that is big enough for a person to swim through (I didn't see that guy!).

A pyrosome is not a single individual but a whole colony. Photo courtesy of NOAA