Marlin

Our sail from Cape Town to st Helena has been a fairly quiet one with the only frustration being the lack of wind to take us there! We have delivery crew on for the leg back to the Caribbean. Bryony has gone to do a cookery course back in England to make use of the time so it is myself, tosh, roger who has jumped from boat to boat and Richard who sailed the ARC with us. Unbeknown to anyone else, one morning roger had put the fishing gear out of the back and the only announcement we received from this was a few hours later when the line went mad. We had hooked a white marlin weighing quite a lot (we don't have big enough scales) and of about 7 foot in length. We are going to be eating this one for a long time!

Cape Town over Christmas and New Year!

As far as cities go Cape Town is well up there as one of my favourites. I did get the feeling that where we were in the Victoria and Alfred marina and the surrounding waterfront area was like living in a bubble away from what South Africa is really like. During our time here Cheryl Cole and the cast from Made in Chelsea were staying just down the road in Camps Bay. 

To summarise I had a brilliant time with some great friends over our time here. I went on a safari, did some partying and had the opportunity to get a lot of bigger jobs on Proteus done with the good resources and amenities that Cape Town had to offer. Oyster laid on a fantastic meal at a vineyard just out of town the turned inevitably into drinking and dancing. 

Agulhas current

Leaving Durban and heading for Cape Town takes some very careful weather planning. This is crucial as the current runs heavily from north to south down the coast. If the wind is against this then massive seas build in an instant and these are what have claimed many ships over the years. The weather is very changeable but luckily for us there was a week long weather window which gave us the opening we needed to make Cape Town in one hit. By the time we were making Cape Agulhas we had caught a few of the other yachts in the Oyster fleet and continued to sail round Cape Point with Purusha with the wind soaring down the side of Table Mountain and gusting in the bay at up to 50 knots before our arrival into a very calm harbour at Cape Town.

Durban, South Africa

South Africa welcomed us with a display of whales splashing their tail fins against the surface of the ocean and breaching, landing with a massive explosion of water around them. Their was also a peculiar object in the water not far from us which turned out to be a manta ray about fifteen feet wide. The marina is hidden away around the corner within a huge commercial docks that is busy with shipping transitting through the narrow entrance channel that protects the harbour from the often bad weather at sea. The city of Durban is a bustling place that seems to go very quiet as dark falls and as I was told it is not safe to walk the streets at this time. There is a very obvious divide in class an wealth from expensive cars to people begging at every set of traffic lights. Overall everyone seems friendly and helpful and the Royal yacht club made us very welcome during our stay

The inevitable sail explosion

We left Reunion into very calm seas and no wind for almost two days. For the beginning of a passage into what is meant to be some of the most feared waters on the planet off the south of Madagascar and into the Aguhlas current off the coast of South Africa it was all very subdued, and then the weather rolled in. Plenty of wind and a big unsettled sea state took us to our destination of Durban. I had my base layer thermals on for the first time this trip and waterproofs to keep the rain and the cold out. The weather didn't help to nurse the mainsail into port which has been delaminating and failing more rapidly as time has gone by until one after noon with all three reefs in it the inevitable happened when the sail blew clean in half! The bottom half landing mainly in the boom and the top section pinned against the spreaders still full of wind but still attached by its luff. We managed to retrieve the sail with no further damage done but meaning the remaining two thirds of the crossing was done under headsail only with the help of the engine when needed to help keep the speed up. 

Playing catch up

We are now sailing from Cape Town  back up north to the Caribbean. It's a strange feeling after all that we've done and been through as this is the last big leg and an ideal time to fill in what has happened over the past couple of months. 

Since Mauritius we moved on to Reunion where we had an amazing time. It is a beautiful island and being French has all that feeling of France and their culture and amenities. Whilst there we took a helicopter tour over the mountains inland and even dropped into a couple of volcanoes that have formed the island over the years. The pilot also took us through the valleys past massive water falls above us, this was one of the highlights

A few days later we took a guided tour canyoning which was full on and one of the best things I've done. We started off high up in the mountains and gradually made our way through water cut gorges and canyons by climbing, abseiling, zip lining and sliding down waterfalls. 

It was a hard, physical day and brilliant. 

All in Reunion was an amazing place and somewhere I'd highly recommend that I think goes a bit unnoticed by the rest of the world.

Next on to Durban, South Africa

Mauritius

To be honest, I don't know quite what I was expecting from Mauritius but it wasn't anything like what I had in mind. The area we were in, Port Louis, was very noisy, busy and industrial so it was good in the sense of staying focused and working on the boat. I didn't have a chance to explore as much of the island than I would have liked to but from what I could make out it was a great place to call in on a boat to reprovision or to stay in a five star resort which housed all of the best restaurants, golf courses, etc. We were at the back of the fleet again upon leaving with the only other boat with us being Valentine next onto Isle de la Reunion and a bit of European culture again.