Almost sick of sailing around the World. ( presently in Port Elizabeth )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Tue 23 Nov 2010 09:50
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MONDAY 22nd
NOVEMBER 2010
It was a dull morning as we got out and looked at
the conditions,
We are expecting to leave today for Cape Town, so
we called Tony in Durban for a weather forcast, Will we have a window
!
The answer is yes , The wind will be light
southerly for today and tomorrow, brilliant, that means a fetch for us
along the south coast.
The distance to Cape Town is 420 miles, just a hop
for us .we should get there in 2.5 days..................
Well , thats the theory, reality is often
different,
The trawlers that we were rafted upto are also on
the move, All busy since early morning getting their boats ready,
These trawlers have huge lamps on both sides of
their vessels, and we have often come across them on night
passages,
The light from them is almost blinding and we
usually see the glow from them over the horizon ever before we see the boat
itself.
Put a few together, and they look like a
city.
11.00hrs, The Trawlers want to leave , but are not
allowed out of port untill midday, but they have to get diesel , etc before
leaving port.
They will spend the next 3 weeks at sea catching
Squid, and all done with lights and hand lines.,, sooo we had to go
as well,
We cleared ourselves out of port, Thats us and "
Grand Filou " and by 12.00hrs were outside the harbour.
The wind was SW, right on the nose. and blowing 28
/30knots, feck ! this is not what we were supposed to have, but
we are big boys and kept going,
We passed many whales as we struggled west, The
sea's were big enough , but very lumpy and progres was slow, even
with
the engine running, we also had 2 reefs in
the main and 2 reefs in the staysail.
15.00hrs, we decided we would stop at " Knysna Bay
" about 130 miles west and spend a day and night there untill this
misery
went somewhere else.........
BUT, BUT but again, By 16.00hrs, we had enough .
and the port window was leaking like a basket again. ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
.
The poor old boat, not to mind the old sailors on
board , were getting an afull hammering as she slammed into
the severe choppy conditions , The packet of
"stugeron" ( anti sea sick tabs ) was gobbled up by all .
We are going back to PE. we radioed " Grand Filou "
and they agreed to return to PE as well. and will remain there untill
this weather changes direction.
We arrived back in the harbour around 7.30pm and "
Grand Filou " tied up to a trawler and we tied up to her.
We were frozen, even with all the heavy weather
gear we had on. Ohhhhh we could be sailing at home,
We must have looked like a bunch of Eskimo's.
We get news from home that the government have
collapsed and there will be a generall election in January.
OH poor old Ireland ,
It was a dark , damp and miserable night as we
climbed over the trawlers and then hauled Aileen up the quay wall and onto
the Quay itself.
There we were collected by our prearranged taxi and
off we went to the " Blue Waters Restaurant " for dinner,
The Yacht Club was closed , so we had to
travel.
We had absolutly great steaks, melt in the mouth
stuff, followed by sinfull desserts, mainly chocklet muffins, soaked in
beautifull dark chocklet
and then smothered in whipped cream.........ohhhhhh
to die for.
Later , we returned by taxi to the boats, Neil went
into " Grand Filou " for a few night caps , while Skipper and Aileen
crashed out on " A Lady "
Thats all for now.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (
Skipper )
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