Mossel Bay to Cape Town

Ahead of us lay the last leg of our 900 mile journey to Cape Town. This leg is 240 miles around the bottom of Africa making it two nights at sea. It is difficult to get a perfect weather window as the Cape Agulhas area and Cape point area often have different weather.

Our last day in Mossel Bay we visited the big museum and saw a replica of Bartholemew Diaz's ship that he sailed to South Africa in 1488. Later that night had a nice dinner in the yacht club with the Mojombo family. Very good prices here.

The weather looked good to leave the next morning and as long as we did not leave too early it looked like we would arrive at Cape Point (Cape of Good Hope) just after a big blow.

We left our anchorage at 8am and after a short bash around Cape Blaize, we motored off and on, all day with a light SE wind behind us. That evening the wind picked up to about 15 to 18 knots making a pleasant sail all night. Had only one ship to avoid as we were inside the main shipping lane. There is a lot of ships going around the bottom of Africa.

We rounded Cape Agulhas at about 7:30 am with SE 18 still blowing and the seas not too bad. Great, that's our first hurdle over with and no drama's. Using our dongle, we even managed to get some internet 6 miles from shore as we passed the Cape, so got a detailed weather update. The Cape is the Southern most point of Africa and is where the Indian ocean ends and The Atlantic starts. 25 miles past Cape Agulhas we noticed the water temp getting colder going from 67 deg f down to 58 deg f by the time we rounded Cape Point. There is a tremendous amount of sea life in this area as the shallow Agulhas bank goes out over 60 miles. We saw more bird species than we ever had at sea and also lots of fur seals and dolphins.

During the night as we started to cross the entrance to False Bay the wind began to pickup and soon it was blowing 30 knots, but at least the seas were not too bad. The weather forecast said 20 to 27 knots and easing by midnight. By two in the morning we had passed around Cape Point and the wind had eased to about 24 to 28 knots, but the seas were rougher now making for a uncomfortable ride. But soon conditions eased and by dawn the wind was way down and 2 hours later we were motoring in a dead calm, with 25 miles to go to Cape Town. For the past two weeks we had been watching the weather in this area and noticed it is almost always blowing hard here so we consider we had a comparatively easy rounding of the two Great Capes. One boat we knew got over 50 knots rounding Cape Agulhas with huge ugly seas and every 10 wave filling his cockpit. Another boat rounded Cape Point in 40 to 50 knots winds but being a large boat did fine. I think if you watch the weather carefully you can miss the big blows.

As we approached Cape Town the water was dead calm, not a cloud in the sky and we had a fantastic view of the fabled Table Mountain. The cabin floor was cold to stand on and the air in the shade of the main sail was cooler than any we had felt in a long time. As we rounded Cape Point we had stayed inside the cabin mostly, as it was freezing cold outside during the night. We watched the radar and AIS for boat traffic and only occasionally stuck our heads outside for a look at things. The wind vane did all the steering.

As we neared the harbour entrance we saw lots of sailboats coming out and realized they were getting ready for a race. We motored into the big harbour and headed for the marina. It is a Sunday and the marina office is closed. We had a reservation but did not know the slip number and Ian the manager had told us over the phone to go to their fuel dock if we arrived on Sunday so that's where we spend our first night in Capetown.

We visited the yacht club for a temporary membership card and had a nice shower.  Monday, today is a public holiday and we noticed again all the race boats going out for the third day of the large Croc Regata. Ian gave us a slip number and we headed for our dock slip.
   We could see a cloud forming on the top of table mountain, often called the table cloth. It pours over the mountain like a waterfall and disappears. From past reading we knew this was the start of a gale coming. Sure enough as we motored around the large marina we saw a bunch of race boats come charging back into the marina, the race had been canceled and it was soon blowing over 40 knots out there. We had to dodge one race boat to get into our slip and just in time. As we tied our dock lines the wind started to howl making it hard to get the lines correct. A few more minutes and we would have been stuck on the fuel dock for the day.

After making sure the boat was well tied with our heavy dock lines we did a 50 minute walk along the waterfront main road to the V and A Waterfront. There is a huge amount of shops grocery stores and other tourist activities there. It is very hot once you are out of the marina and in the sun. When we arrived back at the boat, the wind was still howling, we noticed little wind down near the waterfront mall.



INFO

-Left Mossel Bay Dec 14 2012

- Leaving Mossel bay we plotted a coarse that took us just inside the shipping lane around Cape Agulhas and then to a waypoint that took us between 6 mile bank and 12 mile banks marked on charts, putting us about 7 miles offshore. We had reasonably good seas along this route in 18 knots of wind and a 1 knot positive current between the banks. We have heard that it is not good to go around Cape Agulhas in real strong winds but Cape Point is okay in strong winds.  We again used the Samm net and Peri Peri for weather when at sea.

- If you round Cape Agulhas okay but there is a SE gale pending at Cape Point you can apparently anchor in Pringle bay at 34 20.5 S 18 49.4E. I have not been there but the South African Pilot says it is the best anchorage in False Bay and good spot to sit out a SE gale and it is not much out of the way being on the outside edge of False Bay. This was our backup plan if Cape Point was going to be too wild. There is also anchoring behind some off the headlands for Westerly blows.

-There is a yellow emergency buoy just outside the entrance to the RCYC marina where we stayed. We used it for 20 minutes while I paddled my kayak in to check out if room on fuel dock. Everything was closed on Sunday.

- Waypoint of fuel dock we tied to is 33 55.216S 18 26.532E

-We are being charged 160 Rand a day for our 36ft boat, I believe this is about $5.00 a day more than Simon's Town.