East London To Port Elizabeth

  After checking the weather carefully, we left East London after 3 days there. But first you have to file a flight plan with the port captain's office, the paper work is getting easier with each port. It is only 140 miles for this leg or an overnight passage. There was still a SW wind blowing in the morning so did not leave until 10:30am when the wind lightened. A couple of hours later when out in the ocean and heading West the wind came around to a beam reach so we could shut of the engine and start sailing.

We had a mostly good sail but the seas were rough and lumpy making for an uncomfortable passage. Also had a couple of rain showers.  For quite a while we were going 8 and 9 knots with help from the Agulhas current. Late in the night we had to motor for a few hours when the wind died and then by morning it had picked up again. On this coast you do not want to delay waiting for a nice sailing breeze, you go from safe haven to safe haven as quick as you can.

We arrived off the entrance to Port Elizabeth about 10:30am,  24 hours after leaving E London. It is a easy entrance into the port which we did after calling port control.   Sal Darago who left after we did arrived in PE a few hours ahead of us and helped us into a dock slip in the marina. There seemed to be a number of empty berths as most of the international yachts had already left on the same weather window we did. The marina was inexpensive and had good showers. Port Elizabeth is a large city, but again we get warnings about being careful where you walk. We took a 20 min walk up to the grocery store nearby. The next day did nice long walk down to the beach in the same direction as the grocery store. Very nice down there.

The dock lines are getting a good work out in this marina as there is much surge and swell moving boat around. The decks are already a bit sooty looking just like from the coal dust in Richards Bay.

INFO

-If come in at night apparently can anchor off boom that protects marina or tie up to a fish boat or the wall just to North of the marina while you scope things out.

-We are in 12 ft at 33 58.03S 25 38.15E in marina.

-Boats coming down with us on this leg found the current was generally on the 100 fathom line. We picked up some current even well inside it about 8 to 10 miles off but eventually lost it when we got a bit to close in, but did not figure it was worth the extra miles to go out and fine it as would arrive in good time in the morning anyways.