Tenure, Rules

I started the day by putting in a couple of hours on the internet here in the comfort of the boat, catching up with my email.  I read every comment that had been sent to the blog during my time at sea then through the Christmas greetings from friends and family.  I certainly enjoyed and appreciated those thoughts.

Later I visited Dianne and told her that I would like to stay at the marina until my departure for Australia on about 4 March.  I was willing to pay the entire amount up front but she thought better that I pay for the first month only and deal with the second month later.  For the first month I am entitled to a steep discount under a reciprocal agreement as a  member of the Fremantle Sailing Club.  The charge for 31 days was 2,269.20 Rand, which represents 73 Rand per day.  Using the exchange rate of a week ago that is equivalent to an unbelievably low $8.28 per day in Aussie dollars, slightly more in US dollars.  Afterwards I will pay considerable more.  She showed me the figure and from memory it was not quite twice as much, which is still a modest amount by my reckoning.  Club Nautico in Argentina was charging me $30 USD per day for a mooring which of course offered no electricity, water, or walk on shore access.

Dianne gave the a copy of a very interesting declaration from the Dept of Home Affairs entitled “Yacht Clubs and Immigration Regulations” dated 20 Dec 2012.  The policy is clearly stated and here are some excerpts:

“All vessels entering into South Africa for the first time from a foreign port, whether a South African vessel or a foreign Vessel, must only enter at a designated Port of Entry and must be cleared for entry at such a port.  Such vessels cannot go straight to any yacht club or marina that is not in a designated port of entry.  Likewise in case of any vessel leaving South Africa for a foreign port, such a vessel cannot be cleared for exit except from a designated port of entry.”

Current ports of entry are:

Cape Town Harbour
Saldanha Bay (for crew changes only)
Mossel Bay (for crew changes only)
Simonstown Harbour (naval and research vessels only)
Port Elizabeth Harbour
East London Harbour
Durban Harbour
Richards Bay Harbour

Here is the kicker:

“Harbours, Yacht Clubs and Marinas are required to adhere to the Immigration Act and Regulations and to ensure that all foreign vessels and local vessels from a foreign port will first report to the nearest designated Port of Entry (PoE) for clearance before mooring at a non-Port of Entry marina.”
…
“Any yacht which enters the Republic of South Africa for first clearance and does not enter a designated Port of Entry will have done so unlawfully and any Marina, fishing harbour, slipway or waterfront which allows such an admission will have acted unlawfully.”  (Italics and bold mine)

As I told Dianne when I read the document, “Well, The Party's Over.”

Also, the authorities will begin rolling out more wireless points around the harbor and in future immigration processing of visiting yachts will take place either at the marina or on the boat itself.

I returned to the boat with the plan to do some wet work before the rain arrived.  I connected the hose and the first thing I did was to top up the water tanks.

I had plumbed the starboard tank the day before and reckoned that there were 35 liters of water remaining the the 140 liter tank.  When I topped up the port tank the vent started gurgling immediately and in about 30 seconds the tank was full, so I made the generous estimate of 20  liters of water consumed from that tank.  That represents a total of 125 liters of water consumed over 40 days (the 37 days at sea plus the first few days in Cape Town), which means that I consumed an average of 3.125 litres of water per day during the passage.  This did not surprise me because I was fairly certain that I was using less than 4 liters per day.  Extrapolating from those numbers suggests that I could have sailed for 90 days on those two tankfuls of water.  (Let's not forget that I used 40 or 50 liters of the extra water that I brought in jugs for washing, but I consider that discretionary use.)

I then thoroughly rinsed the two sets of wet weather trousers and the sailing jacket in fresh water, turning each inside out to make sure that they were rinsed inside and out.  By then it was starting to rain but that didn't matter.  I hung them up and would leave then out for days if necessary.  Then I filled up a bucket with soapy water with bleach added to it and washed my bedroom slippers and the sports shoes that had been my sailing shoes since Brazil.  I rinsed them thoroughly and left them on the deck upside down to drain and dry.  The idea was to get the salt out of these garments.   I then gave the boat a good hosing down in the rain, which must have looked ridiculous.  It then stopped raining and I went to the club house for a good hot shower and change of clothes.  

After lunch and a nap I prepared for a walk into the city got purchase enough of that marvelous food at the Food Lovers' Market to last 2 or 3 days.  By the time I was ready to leave the wet weather gear was dry enough to stow inside, but I left the wet clothes from the washing activities hanging on the line.

It took 30 minutes to walk to the market, 30 minutes to do the shopping, 30 minutes to get back to the marina, and another 20 minutes to get back to the boat because I treated myself to a tall glass of draft beer at the club.  The market was as good as I had remembered it.  I filled up three containers with fresh food.  I also purchased pieces of chicken marinated in chutney.  And of course another loaf of bread and more bananas.

It had not rained during my absence so I was able to bring in the clothes off the line and tucked the shoes under the spray dodger.  I expected two days of rain and wind.

Tommy, the chap working on the next boat over, had told me that SA industry pretty well shuts down from the middle of December to the middle of January, as Australia did in the 1960's when I arrived.  He told me that the boat repair and maintenance people would be back at work this coming Monday, so I had a few more days to work on other things before I addressed the issue of repairs.  High on the agenda are the spray dodger and masthead wind unit. 

The radar is an interesting one.  It failed as I was closing in on the SA coast.  But after I made it into the harbour for some reason I restarted the chart plotter, saw that the radar was on Standby, hit the Transmit button, and it started to work.  I was pretty groggy at the time and wasn't 100% sure that it had actually happened, so yesterday I turned on the radar and it worked fine.  Was the problem a software glitch?  An intermittent cable problem perhaps?   All I can do is describe the events to the Raymarine man and get his opinion.  Perhaps we can change the cable on spec or perhaps we can just leave it all as is and hope for the best.