Daily report #63

Dear readers,

First of all, we apologize for the interruption in the blog series. We were busy in turbulent conditions.
This is what the past few days looked like:

Saturday we had a scheduled arrival in Port Elisabeth. But while approaching the bay, we saw in the morning on the predict wind app an opportunity to sail to Cape Town. So we turned left back out to sea to begin a battle against a Western current that we predicted would turn south and then back us all the way to Cape Town. After sailing upwind for 36 hours against 25-30 knots of wind we were 48 Miles as the crow flies towards Cape Town and we saw that we would have to do that for another day and then get an easterly current for only 1 day. So not enough to get to Cape Town. We decided to go to PE and wait there.
Sunday afternoon arrived in PE. We have always been in contact with Osasa and one John (from the noon site) to handle the formalities. That all went smoothly thanks to the great help of John in particular and he was also waiting for us in the Marina. He told us to go to sleep first and then we could complete the formalities on Monday. We could not use the facilities of the Marina.
On Monday John picked us up to clear customs in SA Fortunately, that was done quickly even though they treat small ships exactly the same as the large cargo ships. We had not completed a number of forms so that took some extra time. Then taken to the Mall by John to buy a SIM card there. You are nowhere without internet.
That took a long time because we couldn't figure out how to put a bundle on your SIM if you don't have internet. Or well-functioning provider software .. John had something else to do and left us in the Mall after consultation and fiddling with that internet mess.
We were able to Uber to the boat at about twelve o'clock after our phones worked again and we had done some shopping. Before John came to pick us up in the morning I had already looked at the meteo and figured out that it would be best to make our jump to Cape Town early the next day because after Saturday there would be hopeless winds from the west for a week. Which we would have to wait at least a week for in PE Because John is full of invaluable local knowledge of the possibilities of getting to Cape Town with a sailboat, we consulted with him and it seemed like a possibility to him. In the afternoon we filled up with diesel (together with John with Jerry cans from his pick-up) and loaded drinking water. We also did chores, socials and met a number of fellow scaffolding stickers. Always interesting stories. Finally, we booked a restaurant (de Kelder) at half past seven and had a DELICIOUS meal and drink there at the expense of Corene and Bert. Our thanks for that, is greatly appreciated. After dinner we had a visit on the boat from a South African couple who also own a boat. Theoratia and Cobus Veltman. I hope I spelled her name correctly because I did have to ask her name a few times. Very nice people who would like to sail around the world, but are now stuck because of a new engine that has to be delivered. I hope it works out for them. At about twelve o'clock we could go to bed with the alarm clock at 05h00. I didn't sleep a wink. Probably because of that springbok steak in my stomach that gave me a mountain of energy (delicious!). At 05h00 we got up and at 05h45 we left PE behind us. We sailed smoothly from the harbor.
This time we were just in time to catch a tail of westerly wind on a southerly course and were then able to turn west waiting for a strong breeze from the east. On the way we have seen 40 knots of wind as we sailed off the wind and high seas with a trimmed milkmaid. (Our specialty) After about 36 hours and at 50 miles from Struisbaai I have some time to write this story again. Busy busy busy.
We will anchor in Struisbaai tonight. Then we can let the West wind pass for 24 hours and we still have about 150M to go to Cape Town in pleasant, reasonably calm conditions, provided the weather does not change to something less predictable. Hopefully we will be in Cape Town on Saturday evening.

Thanks to John. What a great man. He once drove around free of charge all the time helping and advising. Didn't really want anything for it. In the end we gave him a suncap from Australia (from our sailmaker Andrew Chapman) and a bottle of rum from La Reunion. Awesome.

Cheers.