Up the West Coast to Namibia

By Boating Blog - June 17, 2024

A new boat chore is to clean some of the algae growing just below the water line, and looking very edible, like frilly leaf lettuce. I drew the short straw. On a nice sunny day, quite rare this time of the year in Cape Town, in my new wetsuit, I dipped into the murky harbour water armed with a spatula and a scourer. John floated fenders around the boat for me to hold on to as I worked scraping the green growth and barnacles off. We paid professional divers to do this in Richards Bay; they made it look easy

Cape Town was the last stop which would have any supplies or spares needed for our the boat until we reach Brazil. It was also the last place where we had to make sure that we had everything in order to leave South Africa and the safety of land and shops. What have we forgotten to do!

One can never have enough spares. It took a couple of weeks to source a spare alternator. The fitting of the reverse osmosis water maker did not go smoothly with lots of trial and error, and testing, and leaking housing.

29 May was election day, a day of reckoning for our beloved country. The silence that morning in Table Bay Harbour was quite reverent. We unfortunately could not vote.

After one month in Cape Town, it was time to check out. Immigration went surprisingly smoothly. With passports stamped, this is good bye!

Left Cape Town on 1 June, winter, motored in the chilly breeze. The auto-pilot still refusing to work. The plan was to stop at Dassen Island and anchor for the night. We arrived at the tiny bay at sunset to find a large catamaran already anchored right in the middle of the bay. This was our first attempt at anchoring, with the cat and rocky surrounds being obstacles. Anchor dug in at 5m. Now to set up an anchor watch. Every new sound made by the chain sounded like the anchor dragging which meant a restless night, getting up often to check.

The next morning we continued motoring to Saldanha Bay which was 6 hours away. We tested the recently repaired water maker and it worked! Then there was a leak, always the heart stopper. The propshaft was letting in lots of water. We made it to Saldanha pumping out the bilge several times and took up mooring, also a first. John quickly found the cause of the leak, a loose seal on the shaft.

Time to put BoatyMcBoatFace together to get to shore. The oars were a bit heavy and long but they worked. Nice upper body workout. A few restful days in Saldanha waiting for the next weather window to head north.

Off to Luderitz six days of sailing away. Put up the Genoa using the new whisker pole which held the sail out. Nice steady 10 - 15 kn wind, but very cold. On the second day we wore our foul weather gear, bought for Argentina, and did not take it off. The temperature was 14 - 17 deg but felt like ice. It was a quiet coastline, our new AIS was a pleasure to use, just a few fishing boats and diamond dredgers along the way. We re-calibrated the auto-pilot and it finally worked. The sun came out on day 4 and it seemed like a good day to try fishing; just a line tied to the stern. Half an hour later we had a 3kg Yellowtail Tuna. Saute fish fillets, Tom Yum fish soup, and sashimi with wasabi and soy sauce.

Luderitz is a small coastal town in southern Namibia, sea on one side and desert on the other. The German influenced architecture of a bygone era when diamonds were discovered, makes for an interesting walkabout. We took a mooring and rowed ashore every day. Three trips to the petrol station to refuel; easy walking distance to the very basic shops too.