Photos of Trip

Here are a few still photos that I took during the passage from Brazil to Cape Town.

The flag is the hacked up Aussie flag that would serve as my courtesy flag for Tristan da Cunha.

There is a photo of Tristan da Cunha that was not as revealing as the actual sight, but unfortunately it is all that I can present.  You can see the dark base of the island at the bottom and perhaps get glimpses of the cloud-shrouded volcano that is the island.

There is a photo of the layout for repairing the Spray dodger.

There is one of the approach to Cape Town before I made the turn into the harbor.

Pachuca's first berth was at the police pontoon where we were trapped for the night.

Her second berth was at the end of a jetty, where you can see her yellow Q flag and a glimpse of the large SA courtesy flag behind it.

Courtesy Flag for TdC

TdC Shrouded in Cloud

Clouds Cascading Down Table Mountain

Pachuca at End of Jetty

Trapped in Police Section

Approaching Cape Town

Repairing Spray Dodger

Then there is a photo of the magnificent Table Mountain with the white cloud spilling over like a waterfall.

Quiet Day, More People

Yesterday (Thursday) I had a quiet day around the marina but nevertheless I was so tired after dinner that I postponed my blogging until this morning.

The internet service has been good  in every way except one.  I have strong 5-bar connection from the boat to the club router and can do my web work very well from the boat.  However, the Skype service has proved so bad that I have given up trying to use it.  Everything is wrong with it: voice fadeouts, long voice delays, echos, frequent disconnections, etc.  I do not blame either the club router or Skype, but rather the internet service provider for the club.  To get onto the internet I must go through their portal and am therefore at the mercy of their capacity and policies.  I am also getting annoying and impossible to eliminate adverts from the service.  I plan to purchase a phone card and make my calls from a pay phone at the club.  Fortunately they have good telephones and a nice antique desk to work on.  It will mean fewer calls from me, but at least they will be of good technical quality.

Yesterday began badly for me.  In Bracui I had put all of my passwords into an encryped thumb drive so that I could have them on hand whenever I was off the boat doing my internet work.  Before leaving Brazil I changed my banking password as a precaution and updated the thumb drive but not the good old reliable paper record that I keep in a notebook.  The flaw in this is that I must have the thumb drive in order to see my passwords, and I spent about 2 hours looking for it all over the boat with no success.  In the end I was forced to telephone my bank in Australia and obtain a new password. 

While visiting the club house to make that call to Australia I met Marcus Reuter, the general manager of the RCYC ( http://rcyc.co.za/).  He walked over to me and asked me if I was from Fremantle because he had overheard me talking with Diane.  He had spent three great months in the SW of WA when he has younger and we had a good chat about the area. 

He spoke about the great organizational confusion over the recent changes (not changes so much as new enforcements) of the government's POE rules which were promulgated with very little preparation and consultation with the yacht clubs, key players in the system.  The club plans to allocate three slips for new arrivals with big yellow signs above them.  I strongly endorsed that, telling him how I had come in not seeing a clear indication of where I should go.  I said that they needed a great big sign with big arrows pointing very clearly to the arrival/immigration slips. 

I told Marcus how I had tried contacting the club on VHF 16 and VHF 77 during my approach, with no success.  Marcus told me that the club has not monitored VHF 16 regularly for years because they are a yacht club and cannot spare the resources.  That was understandable and fine but I told him that the Noonsite web page had informed me to not call the port captain on VHF 16 but rather the RCYC, who monitored VHF 16.  Marcus will have the Noonsite instructions amended, and I could tell that he would do that fast.  The only question I have is why it has taken so long for this to come out.  Anyway, I like to think that in my own small way I have helped future visitors,

Toward noon I began work on cleaning out the boat.  It seemed like such a daunting task that I worked mechanically with no goals, overview, or schedule.  By the end of the day I had cleaned the storage areas on the upper starboard side of the cabin and transferred the wine bottles from the V berth space to the cabin, which enabled me to get rid of several soggy cardboard cartons.  I had also cleared out the entire V berth area, wiped everything with a bleach solution, and opened the sail locker covers to dry and air out the sails. 

The material on all of Pachuca's cushions is outstanding.  It is tough and has shown little wear, hasn't faded noticeably, and has not been affected by dampness.  The problem is that the cushion material underneath the covers is not waterproof and acts like a gigantic sponge, and this does not make sense to me in a small and wet boat like Pachuca.  I will address the problem (at great cost no doubt) when I refit the boat in Fremantle.  In the meantime the two mattresses in the V berth were damp and the one on the port quarter berth area is downright soggy.

So I took the mattresses of the V berth section up to the jetty and washed them all in good soapy water using a soft brush.  Afterwards I rinsed them very well, trying to get the fresh water to work its way through the cushion material and flush out the soap.  I then managed to fling the heavy soggy mattresses onto the deck and leaned them on edge against the rails where they dried amazingly well - but not completely - in the last hours of sun.  For the night I lay them flat on the deck with their vinyl backs up to protect them from dew and any rain shower that came by.

That left the starboard settee and the space under the table crammed with material, leaving me with the port settee and a bit of table space for myself.  That worked out OK and if we get good sunshine on this day (10% chance of rain predicted) I may be able to begin sleeping in the V berth area for the first time since leaving Argentina.

While I was at the bow of the boat doing some work I said hello to a man passing by and he asked if I was Robert.  It turned out to be Tom, an old hand in the ham radio scene and other aspects of boating who had heard my communications with SAMMNet (South African Maritime Mobile Net).  He knew the founder of SAMMNet as well as Sam and Graham and no doubt everyone else who supports the network.  I asked if the network was supported in any way by the SA government and he told me that it is 100% resourced by that remarkable group of volunteers.  They purchase all of the equipment themselves and of course put in the many hours of work every day.  I asked Tom if there was any avenue by which I could make a donation to the network for equipment.  He seemed surprised and pleased at the thought and before we departed he suggested that he would arrange a visit to meet Sam.

Tom and his son are experienced sailors, and I know that his son is a boat builder.  He spoke of the biannual Cape Town to St Helena yacht race, and how the race boats are transported back by the cargo/passenger ship that services the island in order to avoid the headwinds of  the South Atlantic high, not to mention the current.

I asked him about Tristan da Cunha.  He had passed it three times.  On one passage they were heading directly for it with a plan to visit but a gale prevented it.  He spoke of the Cape Town to Rio race and how one time it was just him and his son hand steering the boat (which his son had built in only 4 months) all of the way back to Cape Town.

I told him about the savage gales that I had encountered on my way to TdC.  He told me that on one passage from Cape Town they got hit by a gale on this side of TdC with 50 and 55 kt winds that stayed with them for 5 days because they were sailing before it with two storm jibs.  Again it was he and his son steering by hand.  I told him that 55 kts is more like a storm and they must have been exhausted after 5 days.  I also said that I assumed that they were trailing warp for steering stability but no, they had nothing overboard.  (They were obviously in the "dangerous semicircle" where they were moving in the direction of the gale and therefore prolonging their ordeal.  I would have hove to and let it pass over me, but they had their own agenda.)

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.

Internet from the Boat

It appears that for the first time since La Paz I have access to the internet from the comfort of the boat.  This is a biggie for me because no longer will I have to try to work through the screen glare of daylight or move around at night or in bad weather.  And it is just as well because I have 155 items of email to go through in my Gmail account.

Last night the wind was calm but Tommy warned me that we are due for heavy SW winds which will come up Pachuca's starboard quarter.  I spent at least 2 hours yesterday setting up the lines to my satisfaction.  I've now got two separate heavy mooring lines acting as springers from different cleats on the starboard side to different attachment points on the jetty at the stern of the boat.  Another heavy line acts as a forward springer and the fourth one holds the bow in position.  Then for good measure I have a line running from the main jetty to the spinnaker turning block at the port stern of the boat then up to a winch.  I'll ever say "Bring it on" again, but I think that I'm ready.

If this blog entry ends here then it means that it was published from the boat. 

Boat Moved Again

This morning I met with Dianne at the office and we discussed my plans. 

She told me that contrary to what I had heard at Customs, if I took to boat to Simons Town I would have to bring it back to RCYC for clearance from the country.  She told me that in this country a yacht may obtain entry or exit clearance only through a yacht club in a Port of Entry.  I told her that this was the first country I had visited with this requirement.  She wondered why so many yachts wanted to go to Simon Town and I told her that it was supposed to be a nice place and the marina rates were probably cheaper, which was not of such importance to me as it might be to others.  The Fremantle Yacht Club had confirmed my full membership via email and Dianne told me that with the reciprocal rights privileges their rates to me would without a doubt be cheaper than in any marina in Simons Town.

I raised the issue of permanent staining of sails and rigging from sand blasting while the summer SE winds were blowing.  She had not heard of the problem and suggested that I speak to Ian the marina manager about it.  The told me that a problem of the dimensions that I had described would not be tolerated.  I admitted that all of the boats that I had seen in the marina looked very clean.

Dianne suggested that I hold off payment to the club until Friday, when I've decided how long I'll be staying.  I thanked her for her flexibility.

After lunch I took a load of clothes and bedding to the laundry, which has 2 washing machines and 2 driers.  The machines take tokens that can be purchased at the office.  After I started the washing I wandered over to the yard office next door to find Ian.  There was nobody in the office but soon a member of the staff came by and told me that Ian was on a jetty and should be back in 15 or 20 minutes.  He asked me the name of my boat and when I told him he replied that he had looked for me yesterday, and  I explained that I had been in the city going through the entry formalities.  He told me that my boat would have to be moved because with it tied at the end of the jetty a group of catamarans moored further down would have trouble getting past me.  I asked if he wanted to do it now and he said Yes.  I clucked a bit about the wind and he told me that he would come on board and help me move the boat.  He showed me a slip in which the boat would be facing the SE winds and I said fine.  I would have jetty on my starboard and another boat to my port.  I told him that coming into the slip the prop walk would take my stern to the boat on my port side and he said that he would get a second person to help.  I then asked him about the issue of boats being fouled from sand blasting operations during SE winds.  He told me that steps had been taken and the company doing the sand blasting had ceased operations last July or thereabouts.  I went ahead and got the boat and lines ready and 15 minutes later they arrived and soon we were under way.  I made the turn into the slip OK  in the side wind and by luck there were two more members of staff on the jetty so I had 4 people helping me bring the boat in. 

We were just finishing tying up when word came to hold everything because the owner of the slip was coming back that night.  The club must have been in communication with the boat because 10 minutes later we were told that I could stay in his slip and he would use another slip.  Before we had put the finishing touches with my lines the other boat showed up and went into a slip 3 positions away.  When he had his boat securely tied he came over and I apologised for squatting on his turf and thanked him for his flexibility.

The story of that boat was a frustrating one.  They had set of for Namibia with crew.  They arrived at some port in SA presumably further north in order to dispense with the formalities of leaving the country.  When they arrived  every member of the crew seasick and he the only one able to sail the boat.  At this port they were told 'Sorry, new rules.  You must get your clearance at Cape Town.'  With that they had to turn back to Cape town and now plan to set off again in 2 days' time with the same crew which hopefully will not desert.

I had earlier introduced myself to Tommy who was working on the boat on the other side of the side jetty and it was he who explained the reason for the return of the boat.  He told me that the new rule had been introduced with no fanfare and announcement by the club.  I then told him that I had learned that morning that the winds in Simon Town were as bad as they were in Cape Town.  He told me that they were worse, since they cop it before Cape Town, and straight off the sea. 

In this one day two of my concerns about this marina had been addressed: The winds were no worse than at Simons Town and the pollution problem no longer existed.  On the other side of the ledger I had been advised by several people that if I took the boat to Simons Town I would have to return it to Cape Town to obtain my clearance.

Sailing to and from Simons Town would not be a trivial operation.  First of all, the winds would have to be right.  Then an overnight sail would be required to ensure arrival in plenty of daylight.

We all know what this was leading to. I planned to visit Dianne in the morning.

Screen Photos of Track

Here are some screen photos showing my track from Brazil to Cape Town.

Boat at Left in Brazil

Rhumb Line to Tristan da Cunha

Rhumb Line Tristan da Cunha to Cape Town

Sail by Tristan da Cunha

Track around Tristan

Approach to Cape Town

Entire Track (Ignore Line to NE)

Approach to Cape Town

Into Royal Cape Yacht Club

Overall Track

In the OpenCPN screen shot showing the entire track as a blue line ignore the straight line shooting off to the NE.  It represents some sort of glitch.

Cleared into South Africa

I went to the club house at 8.30 PM and was soon working with Diana on the formalities.  The club would give me reciprocal rights so I produced my 2010 FSC membership card explaining that I had been away for 5 years and the postal services in certain Latin American countries were not reliable enough for mailing the latest card.  However, she sent an email to FSC administration giving my name, boat name, and membership number, and their response must and will be positive.

I asked Diana if the building we were in was floating on pontoons or on solid ground.  She laughed and told me that it was indeed on solid ground.  I told her that after 37 days at sea the entire building felt like it was moving - and it did, big time.  She smiled and seemed to understand.

Diana had seen Ian Meggy, the General Manager, and she commented on my proceeding to Simons Town.  I told Diana that I had told Ian in good faith that I would stay at RCYC until 4 March but I had received a message via Sailmail in the last two days that there was an Australian yacht "True Blue" in Simons Town and I wanted to join it.  OK, this was a partial truth but I wanted to spare bad feelings.

I expressed anxiety about squatting in slip SN20, not knowing whose it was.  She checked and found that the slip belonged to the marina.  I responded that things just seemed to keep getting better.  If it was a club marina then it was unlikely that I would have to move the boat.

She produced a  two-sided map of the city showing in big yellow arrows the paths to Immigration and Customs.  It even had photos of what the buildings would look like as I approached them.  I congratulated her on the map, stating that it was by far the best such aid to visitors that I had yet seen.  She suggested taking a cab but I looked at the map and asked why I couldn't just walk it.  After all, it was a beautiful day and I would enjoy the spectacle of Table Mountain as I walked into the city.  She said Sure, and it would be about a 25 minute walk.  (Twenty five minutes?  Shit that's nothing.  At Ilha Bela I had to walk about 6 miles to the ferry then at Sao Sebastiao walk another 2 miles or so looking for the office of the Policia Federal.)  I left her office with a temporary membership card in hand.

The walk to Immigrations went OK.  I got confused because I left the harbor area through the Christiaan Barnard which wasn't even on my map, instead of the Oswald Pirow gate.  Later on a man giving me directions explained that in the last year or so Oswald Pirow Street had been named Christiaan Barnard Street.  I would have to pass this on to Diana. 

The walking was strange, although it was something that I had experienced before.  I felt that I was not in the world but observing it through some sort of plastic cacoon.  When I closed my eyes I would stagger and splay my feet like a drunk.  I knew that it was a case of Sea Legs and probably Sea Mind after 37 days at sea, but it would pass.

The Immigration process went well.  The woman spent more time talking with me about my sailing and marital situation than about the immigration issue.  She asked how my wife could allow me to expose myself to those dangers.  I replied that I wasn't married.  OK, then why did my friends let me go?  Well, I guess that they understood that it was a dream that I wanted to fulfill.  So why didn't you marry?  I explained that I had come to within 2 days of marriage but just couldn't do it.  Haven't you ever been in love?  ... Well ... yes, a few times, but things never seemed to work out.  Well what about children, do you have any?  No, but my twin brother has two and they will carry the family name.  Yes, but they are not Yours.  You have been given a great gift and have not used it.  OK I said, I hear what you say and if I meet the right beautiful woman it just might happen.  I did tell her that she seemed to be a very caring person and I liked her very much.  So much for stiff South African Bureaucracy.

I found Immigration easy enough but ran into a problem due to my honesty.  She asked what time of the day I had arrived yesterday.  Like a fool I replied 10 AM.  What?  You are supposed to report to Immigration within 24 hours of arrival!  It was 1 PM and I had been in the country 27 hours.  I told her the story of winding up trapped at the water police compound.  Fortunately she knew about the compound and after telling me that it was a strange story (I couldn't agree more!) she accepted it.  When it came time to fill in my arrival time in the form I put in the date but not the hour.  She told me that she would give me 30 minutes' grace and to write down 12.30.  Bless your heart! I told her.  Regarding reportable items I started off by saying that there was no tobacco or hard liquor, and I had drunk the last beer yesterday.  Then I mentioned that there were "a few" bottles of wine on board.  That did not seem to bother her.  Are there any items on your boat that should be reported?  I thought about it and replied No.  I told her that a had several backup computers on board, but nothing else that I could think of.  I then mentioned that there were no pets or guns and we started a discussion about pets on boats.  She mentioned that the Japanese seem to like to bring dogs on their boats and the guy behind me replied "Probably to eat them."  I told her that I could not understand why anybody would bring a dog on a cruise.  And as for cats, every book that I had ever read where there was a cat on board ended with the cat going overboard.  Cats love jumping and climbing and walking on spooky places and with the inevitable slip it's Hola to Davy Jones' Locker.  

Then the lady offered me words of caution about being always wary of my surroundings because even though Cape Town was a fairly safe city, there were the few people who would do harm.  She mentioned the numerous security personnel throughout the city.  I thanked her for her advice and said that I would heed it but hey, the same situation existed in any large city such as New York, Los Angeles, or London, three cities that I have visited.

I got my Immigration approvals and left.

Neither the wine on board nor the lack of a Zarpe from Brazil caused any problem.

On the way to Customs I had spotted a bank logo that reminded me of one that I had used in Mexico.  I've learned to be a bit choosy about which banks I try my Visa card on because some banks are intra nation only and cannot deal with overseas credit cards.  My big fear of course is that one of these ATMs will swallow up my card, leaving me financially denuded.  This one turned out to be "ABSA", a branch of Barclay's, which meant that it would be international.  I walked out financially armed with 3,000 rand.  (Recently Brenda quoted 1 ZAR (rand) = $0.11 AUD and 1 AUD = 8.83 ZAR.  It is slightly weaker against the USD.)

I then took the opportunity to look around the city, and headed for the "V&A Waterfront", which was of interest to me because I knew that there was a small marina inland somewhat toward the city center, and accessible by a canal with two swinging bridges along the way.

The V&A Waterfront turned out to be more than just a marina.  It is a "Must See" for any visitor to Cape town, being a combination of up-pmarket canal condominiums and tourist facilities such as shops, restaurants, watering holes, and bookings for all sorts of aquatic events, all in a colorful and interesting setting.  It has all been well done and is definitely world class. But as for the marina, it was full of power rather than sailing boats, there was the reek of money blowing in the wind, and it seemed a place not suitable for visiting cruisers, particularly with those two bridges that must be swung open.  I could well be wrong in this speculation, nevertheless I advise prospective visitors to make inquiries before committing themselves.

On the way back to the boat I was lamenting the fact that I had not seen one serious food shop and then I stumbled upon the Holy Grail of food, the "Food Lover's Market" at the corner of Loop and Strigdom. (And look for the yellow building cranes, Robert.) There was a bakery, a fruit and vegetable section, a wall of chutes where you could fill up your bags with every variety of nuts, dried fruit, and muesli's that you could want, a "help yourself" section where you could fill up you plastic container with a mind boggling variety of fresh vegetables, meats, and fish, all paid for by the weight.  There was also a Sushi bar.  I purchased fresh bananas, grapes, oranges, nectarines and a mango from the fresh fruit department. At the bakery I purchased a loaf of wholemeal bread that turned out to be outstanding, but eschewed the temptations of the wonderful pastry on offer.  I then loaded up a large plastic container with a wonderful variety of vegetables too numerous to list here.  I will say, however, that when I finished loading up I had trouble forcing the lid of the container shut.  Then I got another container with three pieces of nicely marinated roast beef.  For a lunch I got a yummy looking Salami Paninni.  My fresh food problems were over and I would certainly visit the shop (don't forget the yellow cranes, Robert!) again to provision for the Simons Town passage.

Then I proceeded back to the marina and noticed an arrow pointing to a Tourist Information place.  It took some doing but I found the placde and got another map of the city and some brochures that might be of interest when Brenda and we visit the city.  (I've go the names of two Back Packers places, Brenda, if you want to go Cheap and Nasty like we did in Mexico.)

I then made it back to marina at 4 PM.  I had been walking almost continually since 10 AM on just 4 cups of black coffee with a half teaspoon of sugar.  Unfortunately I just missed Diana who had gone home, so I consoled myself with the luxury of a tall ice cold glass of draft ale overlooking the marina. 

Back at the boat I unloaded the gear then went out and struck the "Q" quarantine flag, sadly for probably the last time in a foreign port during this circumnavigation.  The wind was up again at the marina (it was quiet in town) with it gusting to 30 kts, not quite the 35 kts of the day before.  This time, though, the boat was orientated differently so that it was taking the gusts off the port quarter rather than the side and better yet, was being sheltered by the catamaran on the other side of the jetty.  The boat was being held off the jetty by the wind and conditions inside of the cabin were calm and relatively gentle.  Nevertheless I added a heavy mooring rope to accompany the jib sheet holding the boat at the bow. Table mountain was topped by brilliant white cloud cascading over the edge like a waterfall, a sure sign, according to Jeanne Socrates, that we would be in for a blow.

I then returned to the club house with my biggest physical need in mind after 37 days at sea.  Was it sex, drugs, Rock 'n Roll, or maybe heavy booze?  No No, it was much better than that.  It was a hot shower!  And wow, did I enjoy it.  I returned to the boat feeling squeaky clean and then ripped into a chilled bottle of "Argentinean Sute Pinot de la Loire" while licking my chops in anticipation of the great meal ahead.

Looking back on the day I concluded that I liked Cape Town very much.  I found the city to be  spacious,  very clean,  with traffic moderate, and it was definitely not overcrowded with people. Everyone I spoke to I liked.  Three times people picked up the Lost Tourist Look of this gray haired old guy poring over a map and came forth offering very helpful advice.  Because of the demographics of South Africa most of the people whom I dealt with were black and I must say that I have found them to be wonderful, gentle, courteous, warm and "human" people whom I like very much.  Everyone seems prosperous and contented and the difficulties of the transition to complete equality of the races seems to have been relegated to the dustbin of history.  Nelson Mandela did a great service to this country when he pointed to Reconciliation as the way forward.

At 8 PM the gusts were topping 30 kts.  I just button up the cabin and went to sleep.