I sleep well as the passage is smooth and wake refreshed to do my five hour stint. At one time a large container ship comes close and Mike chooses this point to wake up so I have some advice on what to do. Although he goes back to sleep, he gets up early and I take the opportunity of scuttling back down to bed while it is still relatively calm. Again I sleep well although I wake up a couple of times when I can feel us going really fast and doing the slalom thing through the waves. When I get up I find out that we are going at 10.5 knots. It feels really smooth but that’s because we have 3 knots of current going in the same direction.
It is a lovely bright blue sunny day with large but well spaced waves and for some hours it is a very pleasant sail.
At one point we actually get to 18.7 knots with the wind gusting to 47 knots but generally we have a steady 11 to 12 knots with 4 knots of current and 35 knots of wind coming out of the north east. By noon we have managed 211 nautical miles for the first time ever over a 24-hour period.
However, all good things come to an end and gradually during the day the wind starts to move round earlier than predicted, first coming from the north west then the west, then it starts to die and Mike takes the genoa in and puts one engine on.
It starts to get hazy then downright grey and miserable. By 4.30 pm both engines are on as we have only 12 knots right on the nose coming from WSW and only 1 knot of current to help us. It is so hazy that a huge container that we can see on the radar and with AIS is only visible to us when it is one and a half miles away. Thank God for technology.
It is now obvious we can only make East London which is disappointing and won’t get even there until around midnight.
By 7 pm there is sheet lightning in the distance ahead of us and although the wind is now back up to about 20 knots, we are only going at around 5 knots because it’s coming from the wrong direction.
We take it in turns to snooze in the salon (actually I sleep properly but only for an hour) and approach the breakwater at the mouth of the Buffalo River at East London at around half past midnight. It’s cold and Mike and I both put on long trousers, fleeces, waterproofs and hats.
We get permission to enter the port and motor slowly up river until we can see the railway bridge crossing it – the end for us. As Mike looks for somewhere to anchor we see two people waving at us from another boat then calling out hello. It’s some of the guys from Lady Ev. They had heard me on the VHF earlier talking to another ship (Jorg actually says he heard me say I insisted that the other ship change course but I didn’t – I requested it!) and have been waiting for us to arrive. We raft up against them and they tie extra lines from our bow and stern to the harbour wall, then we go over to their boat for a beer (well Mike does, I just go over to say hello). It seems that they had tried to leave for Port Elizabeth earlier today but the sea conditions were so bad that when they were nearly 40 miles out they had to turn around and come back in. You really don’t want to mess with the weather here.
Cold and tiredness soon overcome us and we climb back aboard Jeannius and head for bed. I’m glad we’re in and safe!
Our position is: 33 deg 01 min S, 27 deg 53 min E
Distance so far: 18164 nautical miles
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