RTW Leg 25: South Africa & Namibia

And not much sailing

When I think of eardrum popping noise, I think of the Saxon concert at the Apollo in Glasgow in 1984.  Or my Colour Sergeant at Sandhurst, with his mouth less than an inch from my ear, yelling profanities for a minor indiscretion on the parade square. These decibel defying memories pale in comparison to the howl of the wind screaming through the rigging of Broadsword as I clung to what I could in force 12 hurricane winds.  It’s hard to describe the noise, but this strength of wind had a persistence and intensity that was both exhausting and terrifying.  You couldn’t walk away from it, close the door on it or turn it down.  There was no escape from is proximity.  It had to be endured.

Four days earlier, we had arrived in Gordons Bay near Cape Town battered and bruised with a bent boom and a smashed windscreen, thankful to be anywhere that offered an escape onto dry land.  Lucy ran down the gang plank like a naval rating on shore leave and in a blink of an eye we were luxuriating in her brother and sister in law’s,  Michael and Tracy,  splendid house with air con,  pool and all the trimmings. On Christmas eve, we drove the one hour to Hermanus to spend Christmas with Tracy’s sister’s family. They had the most beautiful house high in the hills with a view to die for, over looking a fruit farm owned by none other than Marks & Spencer. That’s what you call vertical integration!  After all the rigors of our passage this was all too much to ask for and we had to keep pinching ourselves to check we weren’t still on the boat in a hallucinogenic stupor. 

Christmas day high in the hill above Hermanus

But it was too good to be true.  On boxing day we were all in Hermanus ready to order lunch in a charming sea front restaurant, when Lucy’s phone goes.  “Where are you?  You need to get back to your boat now!  The wind is tearing your sails apart”.  With my heart in my mouth, we made our apologies, ran to the car and high tailed it back to Gordons Bay with the impending doom rising like a flood.  It had been windy in Hermanus but not that windy.  When we arrived in Gordons Bay it was howling as the surrounding mountains shed katabatic winds like invisible avalanches in the Alps.  Broadsword was in a sorry state.  The wind had chaffed through the lazy bag * releasing the main which had been flogging over the side wildly all night.  The main was badly damaged but the flogging had also shredded our spray hood, popped the guard rails and damaged our bimini.  To rub salt in the open wounds, the boat was covered with sand, inches deep in places, lifted from a nearby beach and deposited like a snow drift.

Sails gathered and secured

With the wind pumping and the situation deteriorating we had think fast and act.  The main sail first.  I ground in the first reef, then the second, then the third.  Then gathered the remainder of the sail and lashed all to the boom.  Next, the wind was on the beam blowing her onto the pontoon which had resulted in two fenders exploding.  I needed to release that pressure.  We ran additional lines to the adjacent upwind pontoon and using our winches, cranked them in.  Next the spray hood and bimini which we folded down and pulled back respectively and lashed tight.  With the boat secure, Lucy and I took stock, crestfallen at the continuing disrepair of our beautiful boat.  Shouting to be heard above the wind I told Lucy to go back to her brothers and I would stay on the boat that night.

Additional mooring lines to hold Broadsword of the pontoon

Sleep was out of the question.  The wind kept building ticking through the Beaufort Scale from severe gale to storm to violent storm to hurricane by midnight. Every mooring line straining like an arm wrestle to hold its position against a dominant opponent. The boat at an unnatural angle, the noise, the vibrations, the violent snatching, the worry.  If this is what its like in a Force 12 hurricane in harbor, god forbid being at sea in one.

Force 12: Catagoriesed as a hurrican on the Beaufort Scale

On 2nd January, we “sailed” Broadsword to Cape Town.  I say “sail”, but the main sail was as much use as a string vest and the wind was light anyway.  We motored to Cape Town.  It was a gorgeous day, leaving at first light at 0530 and arriving into the V&A Waterfront Marina at 1600.  Sailing round Cape of Good Hope was a joy tempered by the dangers of hidden rocks of Cape Point and sudden winds from the soaring mountains.  To enter the marina, two bridges had to be raised resulting in the unwelcome consequence of hundreds of tourists waiting to cross, watching our every move, tempting a wrong move.

L to R: Lucy taking it easy as we round Cape of Good Hope; Broadsword leaving False Bay with Devils Peak in the distance; rounding Cape Point

To say we were pleased and relieved to be in the V&A would be a ridiculous understatement.  This world-renowned harbour redevelopment put fabulous eateries, shopping and entertainment right at our doorstep.  We were slap bang in the heart of it all under the backdrop of the iconic Table Mountain.  But there was work to do.  Businesses returned to work from the festive break and Broadsword was hive of activity as a succession of trades poured onto the boat to survey the damage and quote for the work.  We needed a new main sail, a new boom a new lazy bag and a new spay hood while or bimini and smashed windscreen needed repair. Thankfully, South Africa is great value with very cheap labour, and we decided to make the most of that and also have our hull stripped of the varnish that was starting to peel.

Broadsword on left in Victoria & Albert Marina, with Devils Peak behind and Table Mountain to the right.

The main sail would take at least three weeks to manufacture and rather than hanging around the marina drinking and eating and getting fat and growing lazy we decided to fly up to Namibia, rent a roof tent bucky for two weeks and have a road trip. 

Flying over the Namib, gazing down on the vast dessert, empty for as far as the eye could see, offered a mouthwatering prelude of our adventures ahead.  Landing in Walvis Bay we headed into town to meet and get acquainted with Uncle Buck, our bucky. The plan was to camp in the roof tent for half the time, while we would upgrade to lodges for the other half, a happy compromise that would have a fighting chance of keeping our marriage intact. Although, to be fair, Lucy’s family grew up on camping trips to France while our own family, that’s Harvey and Lily if you don’t know us, enjoyed (tolerated) west coast tenting for many a year. I’m not entirely sure Lucy actually enjoys camping. Its just been written into her DNA, a bit like a horse doesn’t like standing in field in a howling gale and torrential rain, but it just gets on with it   “Lodgeamping” it was. 

Uncle Buck ready for action

We took to Namibia quickly and easily enjoying the wide empty horizons, the stunning landscapes, the friendliness of the people and after South Africa, the safety and security.  At no stage did we need to worry about our safety which in South Africa is constantly on one’s mind.   Our highlights were:

Spitzkoppe: An extraordinary rocky massif of burnished gold rising up from the billiard table flat dessert.  Our first two nights in, or perhaps on, Uncle Buck  and our first Namibian brie under the setting sun was heavenly.  We clambered the boulders with an adolescent disregard for the vertiginous exposure. I climbed one of the peaks with my guide Mervyn and on our last day we climbed the chain walk to a cave high in hills where lingered timeless and ancient San cave paintings.

Driving through the landscape to each onward destination was an experience in itself, not just for the scenery, but for the roads.  Except for a few arterial routes, the roads are of loose gravel.  The speed limit? 100 kph. That’s 62 mph in old money; the sort of speeds the late great Colin McRea would hammer in his Subaru in a Northumbrian forest.  It took a bit of getting used too but I did find that the faster you went, the smoother the corrugation became.  I reserved the speed testing for when Lucy was asleep.

Spitzkippe. I climbed the second peak from the right.

Etoshe: Namibia’s vast game reserve in the far north on the edge of a huge salt pan covering over 22,000 sq km.  We spent three nights here and the daily regime would be to get up before dawn and drive for a couple of hours and repeat before dusk. This is not like a private game reserve where you walk out the front door and there’s the big five lined up bidding you a good morning.  You have to work hard for your spot.  Lucy took the port arc from 1200 through to 0900, I took the starboard arc from 1200 through to 1500.  No distracting conversation allowed, now concentrate.  When you see something, its like “holly shit”, the excitement is palpable, and you’ve justly deserved your stripes that day.  And so it was, we spotted a distant herd of elephants, a white rhino very close and a leopard moderately close.

What else? A zebra crossing.

Brandberg, Damaraland: At 2573m, this is Namibia’s tallest mountain under which the White Lady Lodge nestled.  We would camp on the ephemeral riverbed, home to the only herd of dessert elephants that would roam up and down the dry river feeding on the sparse vegetation in an otherwise barren dessert. Benny our guide drove us up the river, which had not flowed since 2022 and before that 2017.  After thirty minutes of torturous driving, we found the herd. He switched off and we waited.  On they came, plodding, one by one, closer, closer still, until close enough that you could stetch out an arm and touch.  The proximity was breathtaking as each in turn passed, unperturbed, undisturbed.  Except the naughty little one named Fury that decided to chew our tyre.

Brandberg at dawn. Namibia's highest mountain.

Soussusvlei: No visit to Namibia would be complete without exploring the monumental sand dunes, the largest of which is the unfortunately named “Big Daddy”, standing a lofty 325m high.  Accessed over the stunning Dead Vlei, scattered in dead 900 year old camelthorn trees, the climb was a hard shift. In the baking heat with the steep oh so steep sides.  For every short step up you slid back down half.  I started at the far end of Dead Vlei, not the recommended route, but was rewarded with virgin ground and scatterings of tiny foot prints of little vertebrates scratching a living in this arid austerity.  To the top I eventually ascended, exhausted, surprised and delighted to be the first summiteer of the day.

I could wax lyrical about all our other experiences but Lucy is counselling “less is more”.

 We returned to Cape Town on the 28th January ready to receive the army of trades that would be installing all the bits and bobs that had been under manufacture in our absence.  Again, the boat was a hive of activity with workers tripping over each other getting the jobs done.  Broadsword repaired, emerged renewed as if from a chrysalis. 

Working on Broadsword; the hull has its varnished removed. Teak sanded down and oiled. New boom fitted.

And of course we returned to an intense round of socialising with our community of yachty friends, some to leave with us, and some to linger.   Rudy (Sea Ya) and Carin (Footloose), a mad Dutchman and a crazy Dutchwoman, both sailing solo had already left but we would catch up with them down the line.  Tim (Tipsy Tuna) and our most recent drinking buddies Seathan and Audry (Rehua) both planned to stay a year. We would leave with Tristan and Weendy (Pangaea).  This is one of the great pleasures of what we do.  We meet some wonderful people with an immediate affinity and a common purpose who become lifelong friends.

A lovely evening at concert at Kirstenbosch Gardens.

Our onward journey, to cross our fourth ocean, The South Atlantic, was nearly on us.  The last few precious days were shared with Lucy spending as much time as she could with Michael and our final provisioning and preparations.  Two months in South Africa was a month longer than intended, but a month shorter than we would have wanted.  Its an incredible country and we will doubtless return, perhaps not by sea, but we will return. 

Lucy takes Broadsword out of Cape Town and we head into the South Atlantic.

Footnote

I would like to dedicate this to a friend and loyal supporter of our blog who has had the most ghastly time with cancer. From the edge of death and seven grim operations on, he has recently been declared to be in remission.  I admire his extraordinary fortitude and am humbled that he managed to visit our blog from his hospital bed.

*Lazy bag: Fitted the length of the boom, the main sail, when lowered drops into the lazy bag which is then zipped up to keep it stored and protected from UV.

Follow our journey: No Forgein Land - https://www.noforeignland.com/boat/broadsword?sid=5279125994471424&tc=1708536501552

Repairs and Renewals Completed in Cape Town

• New Boom: Intended for a brand new yacht, it had a scratch and so could not be used. We got it for half price.  Gratitude to Warren and Andre at Associated Rigging.

• New Main Sail: New. Thank you Morgan from Ullman Sails.

• Jib and Staysail: UV strips repaired.

• Mooring lines: Four new with spliced ends.

• Jib, staysail and storm jib sheets: Replaced.

• Mainsail sheet and topping lift: Replaced.

• Spray hood: New, with strata glass.

• Bimini: Repaired and reinforced with additional edging.

• Starlink dish: Sunbrella cover made for it.

• Lazy bag: (stack pack)  New

• Fenders: Two new fenders to replace those blown.

• Windscreen: New panel replaced by Rafa, the window guy from Leopard.

• Teak cockpit table and companion way: Sanded and re oiled.

• Hull: Varnish removed, hull buffed and polished by Maffa the gafa and his gang.

• Bottom: Scraped and cleaned by diver Andrea.