Port Elizabeth to Mossel Bay South Africa

　

Port Elizabeth is a nice place to stay for a few days, but we now had a good weather wind and it was time to go. The weather window looked good for the next 5 days and we thought great, an easy trip to Cape town.  Ya right!   This is the bottom of Africa here and we have the two great capes to round.   Cape Agulhas and then 100 miles further is the Cape of Good Hope often called the cape of storms.  There almost always seems to be some sort of gale blowing here. 

We motored out the port at 5:30am and about 11am the wind filled in and we had some good sailing. The seas were the most comfortable we have had in a long time. The wind got light during the night and we soon were motoring again. It was an easy night with most of the ships South of our course line and the seas pleasant. Had a few light rain showers and the wind was up and down. Around noon we listened the the local South African weather service on the VHF and big surprise! There was now a gale warning for the Cape Agulhas area and Cape Point (Cape of Good Hope). We had been talking to the Samm net for weather this morning and they mentioned nothing about strong winds coming. Cape Agulhas apparently is not a great place to be in a gale.

We were just coming up to Mossel bay so we decided to divert to there. This has happened several times where you think you see a nice long weather window and suddenly something moves in and it closes. Since we had thought we were going straight to the cape we were a fair ways out so it took a while to get into Mossel Bay and arrived about 9pm, after dark. Port control said there was one spot in the marina but I did not want to go up the dark and narrow looking channel looking for a spot as we could not have backed out of there. So port control said we could take take a spot on the end of the wall by the fishboats until daylight.  There is just enough ambient light in the harbor to see what we were doing.  Tired out we crashed as soon as the boat was squared away.

Early the next morning I took my kayak over to check the marina out and found the only empty spot was  right on the end, nice and easy. We moved into here and washed the boat off. We could not get out of the locked marina and no answer on their phone #.   About 9am the manager comes by and says sorry we cant stay there as it is taken. Great, so we moved out to take a mooring ball the manager said we could use that are outside the harbor behind the wall. 

Just after we were settled in and had put up some laundry to dry a large zodiac roared by at full speed inches from our boat, drenching the boat in spray, wetting the laundry and also my dinghy that I had set out and was doing a glue repair. We were down below at the time and I was angry stuck my head out and gave him a rude gesture. We were right next to a swimming and boat launching area and they had no business driving like that. It turned out it was a police boat and when they came by after seeing my angry stance,  and they said they were trying to fix their planning fins and needed a calm area to do it. I though then they should of warned us and we would could have been ready. Generally we have found South Africa to be one of the friendliest places we have been, the people always helpful.

We spent the afternoon walking around. This is apparently a much safer town than the other places we have visited along the coast. It is touristy and a nice clean city. We took an enjoyable walk along the coast trail past the Cape Blaize lighthouse and up the trail that follows the cliff tops for miles with super views.
   While Mossel town is a great place and the yacht club is welcoming and a nice place.   But it is not really a place a yacht can stop easily as there is no place in the protected inner harbor that you are welcome.  If you have a problem or bad weather is coming, I am sure you can tie to wall or a fish boat.  The marina is full this time of year and the slips are for smaller yachts only if available. You can anchor outside the wall and is safe there in most winds I think. It is a bit bouncy but okay and there is jet skis often buzzing around you, also there is no dinghy dock so you need to pull dinghy up boat ramp at yacht club.  They are friendly and give out a gate card and can use there showers, complementary.

INFO

- We left Port Elizabeth Dec 9. We never saw more than a half to 1 knot of current with us no matter how far out we got. Though we never got out to 100 fathom line which is a long ways out on this part of coast, like 40 miles.

- Entering Mossel bay in the dark is not difficult with a electronic chart or chartplotter which I use. It is bang on.  Call Port Control on Channel 12.  The wall where we first tied up to is at 34 10.711S 22 08.843E.    later the swing mooring we took was at 34 10.636S 22 08.401E in 16 ft. There are moorings and are newly done they said with one ton blocks anchoring them. But I notice they only used 3/8 inch poly rope coming to the surface and for the pickup. They said the mooring are for yachts. But I set my anchor drag alarm anyways. You could also anchor closer to wall if come in at night in 16ft at 34 10.62S 22 08.54E which we did initially but later they suggested we take the mooring as we were blocking the passage to beach a bit by yacht club which is used in daylight.
       We noted later than printed on the mooring ball is  'light mooring'  and coupled with the thin line  I believe it is true and some one else confirmed this.  So I re-edited this and say there are no moorings here.   The one we used is light duty, another mooring is unusable, and one is marked 'private' and is more substantle looking than the others. I rowed to each one to check it out. We  went and reanchored a bit closer to wall to be out of way.  Later when wind went more east it but us side ways to swell and rolling got bad so I put out a stern anchor to turn us a bit into swell, then ok.


-The shopping, a good hardware store, marine store, and grocery stores are only a 10 minutes walk away and the tourist office as well. 

-We have been using both the Peri Peri net and the Samm net for weather when at sea.  These are mentioned in the Madagascar section of blog.  Note the Samm net on this portion of coast uses 7120 on LSB at 08:35am local time and 01:35pm.

-Note.  The next common stop for yachts is knysna.  We skipped this as we thought we had a good weather through to Cape Town.  This is a better place for yachts than Mossel bay from all I heard.  The only if is getting in.  Apparentlyh it is best if swell is under 2 meters and then come in a hour before high tide.  All the yachts we knew went in with no problem.  They said it was their favorite spot.
Entrance waypoint start is about 34 05.51S   23 03.44E to give an idea where it is.
    We stopped at the next stop of Mossel bay when weather forecast changed. See next post.