East London to Simon’s Town

Spirit Seafood Restaurant looking upstream

 

 

 We stayed on a trot mooring at Buffalo River Yacht Club, East London, for a week. It’s a 

very friendly and welcoming place. The bar is open every day. Once a week, hot food is 

available in the clubhouse and it is quite likely that the fire will be lit for a braai one 

evening. In addition, there are hot showers, toilets, a washing machine and a clothes 

line. Most visitors tie up to the walk-on pontoon. Alternatively, yachts can lie at anchor.

We were given lots of information about the club and East London by Peter the Commodore, who lives aboard on his catamaran. Judy, the Communications Secretary, is also very helpful and kept us informed about anything that was going on in the club. We would recommend that all visiting boats stop at East London, especially as there is no longer a yacht club at Port Elizabeth.

Spirit Seafood restaurant looking downstream

We needed to source a new temperature sensor for our engine. A club member called 

Jarpi, took Jeremy in his car to a number of motor factors. He also took Jeremy to a 

garage where he filled up several diesel cans. Sadly no sensor of the correct type could 

be found. We were told we were the first international boat to arrive this season.

It is important to take local advice on where it is safe to walk or shop in East London. We used the Bolt app and the link to Go taxis and found them reliable and inexpensive. There is a seafood restaurant and bar called Spirit just up river of the bridge. This was easily accessible by dinghy and the food was good.

The first weather window that opened up for us had gale force following winds and a big, sideways swell. It would only last long enough for us to reach Port Elizabeth and would be a very wet and uncomfortable passage. I was not keen. A few days later a longer weather window opened up giving us time to reach Mossel Bay and possibly Simon’s Town. However, we still had following winds gusting to gale force at times until we were west of Port Elizabeth. Nothing is ever perfect, so we went for it, leaving East London as early as possible when the SE winds calmed and the barometer peaked.

Early morning cruise ship

On Tuesday 1^st November, at 0445, we prepared to leave East London. The first hazard after exiting the river was a cruise ship called Europa 2, for which Jeremy took avoiding action. Then he saw a whale between Sal Darago and Europa 2. The whale chose to follow SD for the next 15 minutes.

Breaching whale near SD. Best photo ever for Jeremy

As expected, the wind rose in the evening. The mainsail had been taken down earlier and the genoa poled out to port. We were being whisked along by the Agulhas current with our one sail well reefed and a following wind gusting to gale force. We saw seven or eight ships on the AIS. Fortunately, only one was on the same course astern of us. The officer on duty responded to my call on the VHF radio and altered course to avoid us.

The wind moderated once we had passed Port Elizabeth, although there were still winds of 18-24 knots from the ESE and the seas were big, with thundering, breaking waves surfing down on us at times. Then early on Thursday 3^rd November everything suddenly went quiet. There was no wind and no ships, just a misty haze as we motored along feeling like we had entered a parallel universe.

Rough sunset

Jeremy had been able to get a weather forecast on his phone as we neared the coast. The SE wind would continue and we should make it to Simon’s Town in False Bay. The visibility dropped to less than three miles and we were 95nm from the most southerly point on our passage, Cape Agulhas.

Gradually the wind returned and the sea became boisterous once more as we sailed with just the poled out genoa. After passing Cape Agulhas, we had to motor for a while until just before the entrance to False Bay at Cape Hamilton. It was exciting sailing into False Bay with hazy views of the Cape of Good Hope to port. We had about 30nm to go to the marina at Simon’s Town.

Hazy Cape of Good Hope

Jeremy was able to email Chantelle to let her know we were arriving 10 days early. He said we would anchor off until the morning. The wind strengthened to gale force as darkness fell. The genoa was furled and the pole stowed. We motored towards the anchorage, but it was soon obvious that anchoring in the current conditions was not tenable.

Simon's Town Marina

Chantelle sent a message to say our marina berth was available. With some difficulty I kept SD to windward while Jeremy struggled to find shore lines down below. Gaining shelter from an anchored ship outside the naval dockyard, we managed to put fenders on. Jeremy steered while I went forward with a spotlight to find our starboard-to berth. Another vessel was tied up there. We had passed a vacant berth, which was port side
to. Jeremy turned SD around while I moved our centre line to the other side, tying it on with a bowline in the dark. Two men were on the pontoon to help us in. The wind was blowing at 35 knots. It was 2100 on 4^th November and we had arrived at the marina at Simon’s Town.