svbeachhouse

Category: Ship’s Log

  • Richards Bay to Port Elizabeth with stop in Durban…..

    Richards Bay to Durban, South Africa…..

    02 February – 08 February 2013

    Alexandra and I had just had a lovely time exploring the Thorny Bush Game park near Kruger National Park in northeast South Africa. Included was a spectacularly scenic drive near Nelspruit, just west of Swaziland. The game park was terrific with sightings of all the \”Big 5\”. Elephants, Cape Buffalo, Lion, Rhinoceros and Leopard. (We got to see a Cheetah too!). If you want to see an amazing YOU TUBE video, google \”Battle at Kruger\”. I won\’t swear to this link, but give it a try. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM This was shot in 2010 by tourists.It\’s 8 minutes long and don\’t leave till the very end. It will give you a feel for what we saw, but without the dramatics of the video.

    The drive back through Swaziland (an independent nation), had the scenic highlights of \”God\’s Window\” and more dramatic vistas. It was time to start moving toward Cape Town and to that end, after the usual provisioning and boat projects, we left Richards Bay at 3:30 a.m. to make the long day trip to Durban.

    When we left, it was pitch black and we had a short period 2.5 meter (8 foot) swell running which made our first several hours quite bumpy and uncomfortable. The good news was that we got to sail for several hours and Alex quickly adapted with a big sailing smile as we were going through the miles on a nice port tack beam reach with the geneker and full main. We entered Durban Harbor around 3:30 pm and were fortunately able to get a slip where we settled in nicely at the Point Yacht Club.

    Durban (Downtown) is a bit dodgy as to crime, etc. and we were warned to be cautious. We actually walked to Customs/Immigration/Port Authority (which was fine), but then continued on to see the Aquarium. We were actually stopped by a local who warned us to move out of the area as it wasn\’t safe. NOTED! We took the taxi back whose driver laughed at us for being not too smart for where we were walking about. Parts of Durban (outskirts) are lovely and very nice; \”Downtown\”, not so much.

    The next day we took the taxi to the Aquarium (it was closed when we arrived yesterday) and enjoyed the afternoon watching the dolphin show and seeing the \”big fish\” in their tank. Monterey it\’s not, but it was quite nice. We also saw a big 50 foot monohull that limped in coming up from the south. He had an accidental gybe in a big gust and broke his boom. One of the crew had a badly cut hand, but seemed that all would recover. They were on a delivery up from Knysna; one of our planned stops.

    We were getting a bit noodgie as to moving on and with a seemingly \”ok\” weather window, would be off the next day on the 6th of February. The weather reports in this part of the world are pretty accurate as to direction and timing of the wind and sea. BUT awful as to the strength of the wind. If it says 5 knots, it could be……or 30 knots…ummm!

    We left with a predicted 10-15 knot norther which turned out to be 25+. This should have been my first clue! The day was decent, a bit bumpy and we were sailing off on the 3 day, 2 night passage to Port Elizabeth. That night, the winds went down, the sea went down and we thought a lovely motor with the strong Agulhas Current would be an okay way to fly. Then the LIGHTENING started. At first, it was behind us and not gaining. It moved north as we headed south. Then, on Alex\’s off watch. I started to see lightening on the bow about 5 miles ahead. Shortly thereafter, it started bolting down in front of us. First a mile off to port, then a half mile dead ahead, then a quarter mile off the right side, Then back in front of us and finally – WHAM! About 200 yards off our port beam (left – middle for you land lubbers), we had a strike. The wind instruments died, the AIS died, the bilge alarms went off and the sound was not only deafening, but you could feel the air shock from the hit. Alex quickly came up from her cabin and it started to POUR LIKE CRAZY. Then the outside/helm auto pilot went down. We took a deep breath and turned inshore as what can only be described as a surreal \”Tesla Coil Event\” was going off from cloud to cloud every few seconds. This was less than a few miles away to our seaward (left) side and the show went on for at least 3 hours!

    The final synopsis was: Lightening 1, Autopilot Zero, Wind Instruments came back but slowly would die off over the next few weeks. AIS came back to life. The Bilge Alarms were damaged and will need to be replaced. AMAZINGLY, our chart plotters (Raymarine e-127 and e-125), never went offline and didn\’t seem to care! Needless to say, \”That was exciting\”… but stand by…more to come!

    So the lightening went away…YEA! The wind slowly then died off during the night and we ended up motoring. The next morning, the predicted 5-10 knots from the south became 20-30 knots from the south! YIKES. The danger here is not the wind, but that the Agulhas Current in it\’s fastest area at the fastest time of year was pushing us down the coast (where we wanted to go by the way!!) at 4-7 knots!!! However, the wind and more importantly, the sea was against us. This created not a dangerous situation, but a very uncomfortable situation. Alex made a small offering of pre-digested meal to Neptune and was quickly back in action. Our speed through the water looked dismal. We were only going 1-2 knots. BUT, it was WITH the current so we were actually going 7 knots down the coast. We decided to tough it out and took our lumps for 18 hours. It finally subsided and we motored in flat seas past East London at dusk. A thankfully flat evening and the next day had us at Algoa Bay Yacht Club in Port Elizabeth by 3:30 p.m.

    The really cool thing about the last 50 miles was that we saw our first African Penguins in big groups as we entered the bay to Port Elizabeth along with distant Right Whales and nice weather. More soon,

    Scott with Alexandra (Her \”Deegness\”)…..recovering in Port Elizabeth, Algoa Bay Yacht Club

  • The Journey Begins a new!…..

    01 February 2013 (Eastern Hemisphere) UTC +2

    Dear F&F,

    After some R&R in Santa Barbara and London, I\’ve returned back to South Africa with Alexandra Deegan from the UK who will crew with me from Richard\’s Bay to Cape Town. Once in Cape Town, Alexandra will head back to the UK and Nicola Woodrow will rejoin me for the Atlantic crossing. This leg of the voyage will be approximately 1000 miles and take us from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean. The highlights will be Durban (where we will be heading off to tomorrow very early), Port Elizabeth, possibly Knysna, Mossell Bay, around Cape Agulhas (the Southern tip of Africa) and into the Simon\’s Town/Cape Town area where we hope to be by the third week of February. Alexandra and I did a lovely private game park called Thorny Bush immediately adjacent to Kruger National Park and a quick one day tour of Swaziland. We saw Elephants, Lions, Rhinoceros, a Cheetah and a Leopard as well as all the usual suspects. It was a terrific experience. Again…photos…one day!…:-) Hopefully Nikki and I will have an opportunity to do a similar experience once in Cape Town. But for now….stay tuned as we\’re off again…..heading to Durban tomorrow!… Scott with Alexandra!

  • The Wind is in from Africa…..

    The wind is in from Africa….. (Joni Mitchell)

    24 November 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

    Dear F&F,

    Well…it\’s been 10,000 miles this season! Wow… Lots to reflect upon.

    We arrived here on the 20th in a blustery Northeaster of 20-25 knots. We did see a 38 knot gust here in the harbor at Richard\’s Bay on the night of the 21st. We\’re all checked in, we have internet and phone. We\’ve gotten the boat in the slip where Beach House will be for a few months while I\’m back in the UK/USA. Nice to be able to go to a restaurant too!

    We\’ve found our \”boat guy\”, Hebron (a local Zulu chap), who works on lots of boats here at Richard\’s Bay. Geoff and Chris from \”Shambala\” highly recommended him.

    I was very lucky. AS A COMPLETE COINCIDENCE, the boat across the dock from me had the fuel polisher guys up from Durban today. They only come a few times per year without huge travel fees. $220.00 US later, I\’m clean and polished down to 1 micron. What a bonus! They are all about installing the \”Algae X\” system. I may consider it. The fuel was black for awhile while being polished. Apparently, in either Indonesia or Nose Be (or both?), the fuel companies added paraffin to the fuel. This saves them money, but causes the fuel to turn brown and is not good for the diesels. It has a much heavier smell to it too. So between the water/dirt/paraffin, this may be my \”power problem\”.

    The fuel guys said it could easily cut performance by the 1/3rd I\’m seeing. The mechanic wants to check my exhausts on Monday. We may go for a boat ride to see if \”Mr. Fuel\” made a difference. I still need the alternator fixed and major oil/filter change. I replace the impellers, belts, etc. \”Sunflower\” got in yesterday noon. And a good thing. It blowing like stink outside right now. This will all be gone when I \”go around\” the 900 miles to Cape Town in Jan/Feb. They say then, that motoring is just as likely as sailing. Apparently, it\’s unusually wet/windy here for this time of year. The sailmaker arrives Monday to take the main and genoa to Durban, they come up here once/week. (Quantum Sails).

    We\’ll be going 1 hour north to Cape St. Lucia where hippos roam the streets! Upscale town too! Then a Hippo/Croc river tour. Don\’t mess with the Hippos or the Cape Buffalo. They kill more people annually than all other animals combined. They are not aggressive and they don\’t eat meat. It\’s a problem only if you threaten them or scare or corner them. A local up in St. Lucia, recently had his leg taken off by a Hippo whom he startled. They really do roam the streets at Cape St. Lucia, especially around dusk.

    After our Monday afternoon and evening at Cape St. Lucia, we\’ll drive to Umfolozi Game Park on Tuesday which has everything in terms of animals in high density except big cats. We can easily do the whole place in one day. It\’s only an hour and 15 minutes from here. We\’ll do Kruger National Park upon return in January. It takes about 3-4 days to do that park. An 8 hours drive each way. It has all the big cats.

    We\’re cleaning and decommissioning…. Happy Thanksgiving to all in the USA!

    KIT, Scott and Naturally Nice Nikki…..:-)

  • A little bit of stress for the end of the ride…..

    A little bit of stress for the end of the ride…..

    19 November 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere now on +2 UTC)

    Dear F&F,

    We left Linga Linga yesterday morning and had no trouble getting out of the estuary. We headed south into the SSW head wind, but it didn\’t seem too bad and we found the current. Unfortunately, we soon lost the current and the seas and wind built right on our nose.

    Eventually, we gave up the pounding and headed toward Inhaca. A look at the weather showed we have 48 hours to get to Richard\’s Bay if we proceeded, but a few issues have come to light.

    First, BOTH engines are only giving us 75% power. I don\’t know why? I have changed both sets of filters on both engines and turned on the priming pumps. No more than 2350 on each engine. Second, if we don\’t get to Richard\’s Bay on this weather window, we might be stuck at Inhaca for a week!

    We also have not reacquired the current… Paul Teanby of Peri Peri sent me coordinates and I wrote one down wrong. So, with our course adjustment we should get back into the current in about 5 1/2 hours. My calculations of 6.5 knots gets us to Richard\’s Bay well ahead of the weather event. But then Murphy was an optimist!

    As long as this engine speed can be maintained we\’re good. The wind should start to come back up behind us (currently we have none), late this afternoon. By then, we hope to have found the current and we\’ll take it right to the beach. With those to good things hopefully to come, we should be good. Do you hear a little trepidation in my voice?….:-)

    Okay, the last 200 miles of the previous 10,000 may be the hardest. Let\’s hope not!

    KIT, Scott and Watch Commander Nikki

  • A little bit of stress for the end of the ride…..

    A little bit of stress for the end of the ride…..

    19 November 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere now on +2 UTC)

    Dear F&F,

    We left Linga Linga yesterday morning and had no trouble getting out of the estuary. We headed south into the SSW head wind, but it didn\’t seem too bad and we found the current. Unfortunately, we soon lost the current and the seas and wind built right on our nose.

    Eventually, we gave up the pounding and headed toward Inhaca. A look at the weather showed we have 48 hours to get to Richard\’s Bay if we proceeded, but a few issues have come to light.

    First, BOTH engines are only giving us 75% power. I don\’t know why? I have changed both sets of filters on both engines and turned on the priming pumps. No more than 2350 on each engine. Second, if we don\’t get to Richard\’s Bay on this weather window, we might be stuck at Inhaca for a week!

    We also have not reacquired the current… Paul Teanby of Peri Peri sent me coordinates and I wrote one down wrong. So, with our course adjustment we should get back into the current in about 5 1/2 hours. My calculations of 6.5 knots gets us to Richard\’s Bay well ahead of the weather event. But then Murphy was an optimist!

    As long as this engine speed can be maintained we\’re good. The wind should start to come back up behind us (currently we have none), late this afternoon. By then, we hope to have found the current and we\’ll take it right to the beach. With those to good things hopefully to come, we should be good. Do you hear a little trepidation in my voice?….:-)

    Okay, the last 200 miles of the previous 10,000 may be the hardest. Let\’s hope not!

    KIT, Scott and Watch Commander Nikki

  • Linga Linga, Mozambique……

    Linga Linga, Mozambique…..

    17 November 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere), now UTC+2

    Dear F&F,

    Ah the best laid plans! We thought it would be easy to anchor at the Light House anchorage here in Inhambane Bay, but no such luck. The NNE at 25 knots makes the anchorage a lee shore and it would be horribly uncomfortable. We have come inside the bay and are anchored here at Linga Linga (which I suspect means long or big tongue). The peninsula we are on looks just like a long tongue. This spot would not be good for a SWesterly, but we\’re tucked in close and the winds are supposed to be Southeasterly which we should be okay with. We came in on the rising tide with Des\’s waypoints which were spot on. We never saw less than 10 feet (3.1 meters) under the hulls and that was only briefly.

    We\’re here due to the expected strong Southeastly tonight. It will have solid 25 knots and going directly against the Mozambique current which was 1.5-2 knots outside Inhambane Bay. This same current will give us a great sleigh ride once we get going tomorrow early. The rising tide will be about 1.5 hours before high as we leave this river estuary. We\’ve a good track on the chart plotter and expect no dramas… That\’s saying a lot on this trip!

    Yesterday, we had the STARBOARD engine\’s \”V\” belt brake. No drama replacement and away we went. We still have 3/4th of our fuel tanks full too and 66 liters in reserve.

    Once we get going tomorrow, we will make BEST TIME to Richard\’s Bay directly and will hopefully be there by the end of Tuesday the 20th. There is expected a much stronger SWesterly on the afternoon of the 21st at Richard\’s Bay and we want to be tied to the dock by then!

    Hopefully, a nice night\’s rest and away we go!

    KIT, Scott and Nikki (Welcome to Africa!)

  • Getting busier around here……

    Getting busier around here…..

    16 November 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

    Dear F&F,

    We sailed all night and ran out of wind per usual by 9:30 a.m. BEFORE I would start the port engine, I wanted to check on my Rube Goldberg. Good thing too! I used one clear plastic hose OVER the main fuel tank hose and hose clamped (Jubilee Clamped for our UK friends). This was good. This clear hose had a plastic reducer to a smaller hose which I clamped to the priming pump. When I looked at my \”Goldberg\”, I saw the plastic reducer had melted in the diesel fuel!

    So, I had to re-do it with some bronze fittings. Just as \”Rube\”, but more durable. We\’re back in the port engine business!

    We\’re beginning to close the coast of Mozambique and are starting to see several cargo ships on the AIS. As we go by Inhambane, we expect to see lots more vessels. About 10:30 this morning, I got a little nervous when we were on a reciprocal heading with a 50 meter rust bucket fishing type vessel. He was 3 miles abeam of me and suddenly turned toward me. I immediately made a 140 degree turn to starboard to keep our distance and pass as quickly as possible, port to port. He then turned back to his original course. He did this again. I responded as above, he turned back to his original course again. He did this a third time and I did not respond. He turned back to his original course and we both proceeded away from each other. This was in a current area and this could be some fishing technique (most likely?), but it did get my attention for awhile. I\’m sure it was nothing and we\’re all a bit jumpy since the \”Quest\” incident last year…. There have been no bad guy reports this far south that I\’m even aware of.

    We did use both motors to go away faster and we still are with 148 miles to Inhambane, Mozambique. This may be a stop for us tomorrow? We\’ll let you know re: weather. It\’s the second of three \”Hidey Holes\” on the coast. We would be in a remote area and not go to the mainland of Mozambique. It\’s about 350 miles north of Richard\’s Bay. We\’ll let you know…. A brief Southerly may effect us if we proceeded directly. Not sure until tomorrow\’s weather report. Checking with Paul from Peri Peri Radio to get his opinion as well.

    It\’s a lovely day, motoring away! Should be in a fast current pushing us, anytime soon. Now it\’s just a bit positive. We\’re still 80 miles offshore, so it\’s strength will be closer in.

    No wind now, and I mean NONE! The pattern is, wind in the late afternoon and all night, not much during the day…. This will start to change a bit as we get south of Inhambane and the South African weather pattern starts to take hold.

    KIT, Scott and Nikki the Navagatrix

  • What a difference a day makes!…..

    What a difference a day makes!…..

    15 November 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

    Dear F&F,

    Yesterday\’s engine room antics were a great crest fall when the engine started and ran for 10 minutes and then failed. Ken Dickenson of Norfolk, UK and Dave Blanding of Shawnee Mission Kansas (\”Sunflower\’s home port) kept telling me about AIR and BLOCKAGE. With all due respect to Rube Goldberg, I FIXED IT!!!

    First, the prefilter system WAS leaking AIR and couldn\’t be stopped, so it had to be removed from the system. This is where Rube Goldberg came in. For those of you who don\’t know who Rube Goldberg was…Google it!, but here\’s the short story. Rube was a guy who always wanted to make a better mouse trap. Some of his designs looked like the schematic from the space shuttle. In other words, he over complicated a simple problem and he worked his own ways to make things work.

    So to get the pre filter out of the system, I had to use plastic hose reducers, lots of hose clamps, two different sizes of hose to reduce the main fuel line to the priming pump. The NEW pump is in line and assisted in priming, but is not necessary to run the engine. So once I got all this set up, I removed the fuel hose from the ENGINES lift pump and turned on the electric priming pump. The pressure in the primary fuel filter housing went way up (it has a pressure gauge) and NO output. UMM??? So I removed the outbound fuel hose to the engine lift pump from the primary fuel filter to see if it was blocked. I went to look inside the primary filter side and saw the line was completely blocked! But with what? Turns out, that when I was in Fiji, the \”boys\” had the hose on and off so many times they stripped the inner lining and it balled up. We\’ve wondered since Brisbane why we couldn\’t get full RPM out of the port engine. Now we know why! I kept the hose piece I cut off. You cannot blow air through it. It apparently got worse and worse and eventually starved the fuel from the engine.

    Having cut it away and remounted it, the fuel came out the engine lift pump side like an artery. It also easily came out of the engines secondary fuel filter with the bleed screw open. It started right up and has been running under load for the last hour and a half. Mystery solved. The other good news is that while running this engine, the alternator is charging and I don\’t have to use up fuel running the generator to just charge the battery system. Also, if it\’s really hot we can run the little Air Con unit, the water makers and run the washing machine all while motoring and charging. Life is better!

    The unhappy part of the day is that the wind is coming exactly from where we are trying to get to at 15 knots. The seas however are not bad. The wind is expected to back around to SSE sometime late this afternoon and when it does, will go close reaching again.

    Thanks to all of you for your suggestions on the engine issue, especially Ken and Dave!

    19-34S x 038-18E, motoring at 6.3 knots against the wind with a now neutral current. This should improve over the next 12 hours.

    KIT, Scott and Reading Nikki (who of course was extremely helpful to the Captain in the engine room!)

  • What a day!…..

    What a day!…..

    14 November 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

    Dear F&F,

    Yesterday – we ran out of wind in the late afternoon and motored on our one operable starboard engine until 3:00 a.m. when the wind came back up from 13-18 knots. Prior to the arrival of the wind, it was calmest night at sea I can recall. It was so calm, if we\’d dropped the sails and drifted, we would have thought we were tied to the dock!

    We had a lovely evenings sail and around 10:30 a.m., the wind slowly shifted from SSE to the E and then to the NE and essentially quit. We again motored for much of the day. We attacked the port engine fuel starvation problem with earnest. VERY FRUSTRATINGLY, we got it to start on 4 occassions, but it would never stay on for more than 10 minutes under load. We had all manner of issues. The pre-filter was leaking air, the new priming pump wouldn\’t prime, one of the old ones did, but leaked. We had great fuel flow and finally, without either the prefilter or the priming pump in the system, I could not get fuel to flow to the secondary fuel filter EVEN when using the manual priming lever. I think we may be beat on this? I\’ll try again tomorrow, but I think that the engines \”lift pump\” must be bad (as I cannot even get the manual pump part of it to prime) and that we were just running on what was in the engines secondary filter for awhile an running out of fuel…?

    If anyone out there has any ideas, please email us!

    The other trauma of the day was that the clew of our mainsail ripped out. Fortunately, it happened during the day and when the wind was only 7 knots. I had to go out to the end of the boom in the bosun\’s chair and guide the sail around the boom mandrel while Nikki rolled it up from the furling system at the base of the mast. We now can only use the main up to the first reef for the duration of this trip. Shades of the Galapagos to Marquesas voyage.

    Also, until mid day today from mid day yesterday, we had a 1.5 knot current AGAINST us. This was making our slow speed dismal. Around noon, we finally either got north or west of the counter current \”gyre\” out here and are now enjoying a .5 to .75 knot push. Dave from \”Sunflower\” and Paul of Peri-Peri Radio emailed me with the latest \”real time\” current chart of the Mozambique Channel from buoyweather.com. This aided us on where to sail to escape the current.

    The wind came up around 4:30 p.m. and we\’ve currently 15 knots from the SSE, close reaching to the SW. We\’ve still a long way to go, but we are getting there.

    Yes, we feel we\’ve been snake bit, where\’s the snake bit kit?… The seas are comfortable, the wind is in from Africa and night three begins.

    KIT, Scott and Offwatch Nikki

  • South Africa or bust?….

    South Africa or bust?….

    12-13 November 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

    Dear F&F,

    Okay, did all the last minute checks…THE WEATHER looks good, we\’re off….sort of.

    First thing, the port engine won\’t start. It\’s a fuel starvation problem. The filters look awful, so does the fuel. The fuel we picked up in Indonesia and Hellville may be coming back to haunt us. Changing the filters (both primary and secondary), cleaning out the lines with compressed air did not help. We have a boost pump and it doesn\’t seem to be working? So I changed it with two different spares. Same thing. Not sure what\’s going on but I\’ll keep trying to brain storm it and come up with a solution. I would not go into the \”inside\” of the \”hidey holes\” with only one engine. Hope I won\’t have too.

    Next we discovered when motoring on just the starboard engine that our house battery alternator is not putting out a charge. This has been masked by the other engines operable one. Good news is we\’re getting closer to South Africa where I can get all this fixed!…:-)

    We have a small air conditioner that cools one cabin and can\’t use it now without the generator and it is VERY HOT out here.

    So we finally ESCAPED Cape St. Andre which was no small feat! The winds kept heading us into the cape and I finally (again), had to motor out for about an hour to get around the dangers. After that, the wind kept going from NNW all the way to SSE (anti clockwise). We tacked to go straight North West of all directions, but the wind then again continued to go around the circle. In the last 24 hours, we have sailed the boat on every possible wind direction.

    We passed the island of Juan de Nova this morning. It looked a lot like Salomon Atoll at a distance. We\’ve used the geneker and the spinnaker today, but as I write, we\’re motoring. The current is giving us a 1/2 to 1 knot push which is good. The wind prediction is to remain light for a few days, but hope springs eternal.

    The south swell has been uncomfortable all day long, but it is finally settling down.

    Just spoke with Dave and Kathy on Sunflower who just arrived at Baly Bay. They\’ll be a few days behind us. At the rate we\’re going, they may catch us.

    We\’ve just about 900 miles to go to Richard\’s Bay. Could take another week at this rate.

    KIT, Scott and Cooking Nikki