With permission of Jim Mather of S\V Blue Sky we will be pulling some of their adventures from their website and posting them here over the next few months. Keep a sharp eye out for new installments. Enjoy the first one.
Richards Bay, South Africa, October 2009
Whales, dolphins and did I say WHALES! Way too many to count. They were breaching, tail & fin slaping, tombstoning or just crusing.
One crusing boat inbound from Mauritius was struck by one and that’s them pictured being towed in by Sea Rescue.
The photo on the right shows an anchor that was not secured and look at the damage.
The photo below is our first home in Richards Bay. This is the small craft harbor at Tuzi Gazi, where Customs, Immigration and Quarantine cleared us into South Africa.
This is the Sea Rescue base at Richards Bay. They have been very busy this season, to date they have towed in at least seven cruisers. Sea Rescue is made up of volunteers with first class equipment. They do not charge a yacht that gets towed in, but as a courtesy it is nice to give a donation if you are. One yacht offered them $5.00, the captain was very clever and replied “If that is all you can afford, I think you need it more than I.”
The photos below from top to bottom are: Bright yellow weaver birds nesting at Zululand Yacht Club, Phoebe & Drake making their own pizza at Dros Restraunt in the childrens play area. Jim receiving the Zululand Yacht Club Burgee from Commodor, Kirsten and Jim reciprocating with a Port Royal Yacht Club Burgee and Latitudes & Attitudes Burgee.
We anchored on the south shore of Hope Island in a narrow finger of water 2-3 fathoms deep. This little channel runs part way along this shore, surrounded by depths of 2 feet or less.
We were anchored near the east end of the “deep” channel. The eastward tidal current in the area had us facing west (hint: important). We chose this spot because a gale was forecast in the Strait of Juan de Fuca (just to the west of us), and we would be sheltered from the worst of it here. We were tired and went to bed a little after dark.
At 22:30, we were awakened with the howl of wind in the rigging. It had arrived, and indeed we were protected from the worst of it. We were seeing 10-15 kt, with the occasional gust to 25, all out of the west. So far the plan was working, but neither of us could sleep so we sat in the saloon or the cockpit, keeping watch and talking quietly. By 23:30, we were both quite tired, and things had not changed – the wind continued at about the same strength from about the same direction, and the anchor continued to *not* move. I think we may have both dozed off.
Suddenly, Jane shouted, “We’re loose!” I bolted to the cockpit and sure enough, we were sideways to the wind and facing the island. I started going over in my mind what we would have to do – when a boat is sideways to the wind, it is drifting, and there wasn’t much deep water to the east of us. But as I watched, I realized that despite our unusual attitude, Eolian was not moving. My next thought was that we had […]
We took Valkyr out a couple of Sundays ago. It was supposed to be Angela, Zsanic, Jay, Eva, Barbara and me on the boat but a few days before we were scheduled to go out Angela found out she had to work. When she did she offered to let me captain the boat and take everyone out anyways. To be honest I have several people that have made similar offers of letting me take out their boats and I never have felt comfortable being responsible for their boats. Up till now I have always just said thank you for the offer but never taken them up on it. However, in this case, there were a lot of people looking forward to going out on Valkyr and it would be the only chance Eva would have to go sailing before she went back home to Slovakia. I have probably sailed as crew on Valkyr more than just about any other boat other than my own so I am very comfortable with how she handles and sails. The next positive is that Jay was going to be onboard and I knew that I had a very experienced boater and sailor to give a hand if I needed it.
We all met at the marina at about 9pm and quickly got the boat ready to leave the dock and away we went. Well, away we went to Jay’s marina to pick up another GPS unit as the Garmin on Valkyr was on the blink. I’m not sure if it was just corroded contacts or something more serious. We did a couple of touch and goes at the face dock of Jays marina to drop him off and pick him up a few minutes later after he had retrieved the gps from […]
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