Cape Town To Luderitz Namibia

Our time in Cape Town has flown by and it's time to go. Sunday morning we checked out with customs and immigration and the port captain filling out lots of forms that assume we are ships, not private yachts. We got under way be 11am and picked up a nice breeze as soon as we cleared the harbor. Our next stop would be Luderitz in Namibia about 500 to the North. The wind was forward of the beam and then slowly came around astern as we cleared Table Bay and soon we were sailing along at full speed in perfect conditions. By midnight the wind started to ease and by 3am we were only dong 2 to 3 knots.

I started the engine about 7 am and we motored for a few hours until the SE wind filled in again. This was the pattern over the next several days. A new moon was just starting so the nights were very dark. looking into the ocean we could see the most incredible phosphorus I have ever seen when the bow wake disturbed the water. As the waves broke you could see curls of green phosphorus boiling down the waves. One evening in the middle of the night I heard some dolphins blowing behind us as they followed our stern light. I watched them swim by our boat looking like green torpedoes as they disturbed the phosphorus.

We saw very few ships along our coarse, most of them seemed to be further out to sea. On our third day out we noticed the water temp got up to 65 degrees and the air much warmer. then a day later the water temp got back down to 60 then 58 degrees. This made for cold night watches. We had our toques on and sweaters and wind pants on if we spent some time outside.

Late in our third day out the wind started to pick up. We have been getting weather every day from the SAMM net on the HF radio and they said we would be getting winds of 30 to 35 knots tonight. They were right as by 9 pm we had 3 reef in main and about 5 feet of genoa out and were still doing 6 to 8 knots. The boat soon had a very uncomfortable motion as it rolled around in the big seas. By 4 am the wind started dieing making for bad sailing because there was a huge sea running and with the light wind the sails kept having the wind dumped out as the boat cork screwed in the wave and then the sails would fill with a bang. In big confused waves you need a strong wind to sail properly.

The last hundred miles we mostly motored as the wind died completely. This section of coast is known for lots of fog and that's what we got. The rest of the trip was in thick fog. I turned the radar on and set the guard bands so it would beep if it picked up any target. Also set radar scanner so that it would only turn on every 5 minutes and do 20 scans and shut off. This is a power saving feature. At night we both slept as you could not see even if there was something coming at us. The radar did a fine job and only woke me once with a target near by. It turned out to be a small boat about a mile off our port heading south. It was not a problem so went back to sleep. I would wake every hour or two just to make sure the boat was okay, that no wind had come up and sails and engine were all okay.

As we rounded Diaz point and entered Luderitz harbor we suddenly popped out of the fog and could see again. An hour later or about 6:30pm, we were tied up to a mooring ball that looked fairly substantial, though we were warned that their condition was unknown. But we have heard the anchoring here was not very good so either way we could drag. So we just made sure we kept our anchor drag alarm set. We cleared in with the officials next morning after a good nights rest. Then scoped the small town out. Very nice clean town, that looks almost 'brand new'. We climbed a small rock out crop by the church to get a great view of the town and harbor. It was nice to be walking again and get the legs stretched out.
The following day we got togeather with Cats Paw and Sal Darago and did a tour out to Kolmanskop. This is an old abandoned diamond mining town. It is about a 20 minute drive out and is basically in the middle of the desert, a very desolate spot. The building are full of sand from sand storms.  Namibia has got most of its money from its diamond mining industry and is doing fairly well as far as African countrys go. 
We are considering leaving tomorrow or Sunday for Walvis bay and may stop at an anchorage on the way up.


INFO

-We left Cape Town Sunday Jan 13 2013. Checked out with the marina office first and she gave us maps and instructions for the rest of the checkout procedure. This involved a trip to the port captain, immigration and customs, all separate offices in the port area. No fees had to be paid.

-Luderitz is 500 miles North of Cape Town but there are at least 3 good anchorages that you could pull into that are protected from the prevailing summer Southerlies on your way up. Dassen island, Sandy bay, and Lamberts bay.

- Definitely call port control on 16 or 12 when entering Luderitz harbor. We took a mooring at 26 38.319S    15 09.505E there was also a big open area right behind us you could anchor in, water about 17 feet deep. Cats Paw anchored just behind us and the waypoint given, they said the anchor bit fine and backedhard on it and held and they sat out a 30 wind without dragging. You then check in with immigration, customs and then port control. All offices a 5 minute walk away. Paid no fees and much less paper work than South Africa.

- They are happy to take Rands hear and lots of atm's nearby that give you Namibian dollars which are equivalent to Rand. A few medium sized super markets nearby as well, stocked similar to Cape Town and similar prices or a tad more. Can use the yachts clubs showers just by signing in at their guest book. After 3 days they will charge you 150 Namibian dollars a day or about $1.50 a day. There is a dinghy dock just in from of the yacht club which is not located where shown on the South African Nautical Almanac, but a bit further North.  I filled two jerry cans of diesel at local gas station and some one gave me a ride back for 10 rand, was only a block and a half.