Wild, magnificent, untamed. An unparalleled mountain scape carves a magnificent corner, around which two great oceans compete in constant combat, occasional fury. How appropriate that this place marks the entrance to exotic Asia. The charts are littered with the marks of wrecked ships – some 3,000 by all accounts (that’s about 1 for each kilometre of coastline…). Even today, a foul wind will send fishing boats and cruise ships alike running for ports and boltholes. Nature rules here. The wise man yields, for this is called the ‘Graveyard of Ships’.
The sailing has been magnificent. From Mossel Bay we ventured into a slowly building south easterly. The wind just kept building, so we decided to pull into Pringle Bay, on the South East corner of False Bay. With a tiny bit of staysail up, we eased our way into the bay, to find flat water and bullet gusts of up to 45 knots coming from the mountains. We could barely make progress into it under engine power, but eventually found good holding in sand, and settled into a night of howling wind and sporadic rain. Gurus being gurus, it was deemed ideal conditions for a BBQ. Pornstar confessed expertise, and was duly sent onto the back deck to see if he could burn a few snags. Which he did. Magnificently.
Next morning we ventured out again. We saw gusts of 50 knots first up, but what the heck. The wheel house was quiet, dry and cosy, and Ressie rolled down the swells at 10 knots with a postcard sized bit of staysail showing. And what a coastline! It is impossible to sail here without imagining the tens of thousands of ships that have sailed here before us over 5 centuries and more. Each corner reveals more extraordinary coastline; each cliff face issues forth another series of bullet gusts.
Finally we arrive at Cape Town, and make our way through the swing bridges and into the heart of the V&A Waterfront development. What a culture shock! I can’t think of a single development in Australia that remotely competes with this – a fully operational commercial and leisure boat harbour studded with fabulous bars, restaurants and shops, full of colour and music. We quickly find our place at a dockside whiskey bar that manages to be both slick and homely (read Melbourne, not Sydney) with customers of all shapes, sizes and colours. This country was segregated?
Rainbow on the stormy cape
Of course, waterfront Cape Town no more represents South Africa than Mayfair in London represents the UK. Insane property prices, gorgeous people, luxury-good heaven. The veneer is thin. I’m wonderfully confused by the juxtaposition of world class infrastructure and industry (a least in boating), incredibly pragmatic and efficient private sector businesses, a byzantine and impossibly ineffective customs and immigration service, the squalor of the ever expanding townships, and a taxi driver who told us last night that things were better under apartheid. And then there was the Afrikaans guy working on my boat who took a playful slap at his black assistant after he made a mistake. It makes Indonesia look simple!
Ressie is in heaven. New sails, new genoa furler, a strengthened bowsprit, alternator sorted, port light replaced.…. The list goes on. She has probably never been in better shape, and the Atlantic sounds like a bit of a doddle after where we’ve been. Time for a quick break back home, and then, come January first, I will somehow figure out how to tip Andrew and Mike into the west-bound plane. We have another ocean to cross!
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