18 July 1580 - English admiral, Sir Francis Drake, rounded the Cape on his voyage round the world. He called it "a most stately thing and the fairest cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth".
It's easy to see why. The Cape is majestic with it's mountains and bays and colourful culture.
We spent a lot more time in Simonstown than we meant to. We quickly ran out of time to sail to the Caribbean and settle in there before a trip back to Australia and particularly to be there for Bek and Ant's new arrival in September.
The decision was actually taken out of our hands when we found our transmission was losing fluid at an alarming rate, a sure sign that the seal had failed again, or worse.
The False Bay Yacht Club was friendly and helpful and agreed to let us bring Wind Wanderer around the end of the surge barrier and tie up to their visitors berth, at a price. It meant that Chris, the local marine engineer guy would be able to get the transmission out and back in much more easily.
Just before we were due to bring the boat in we had a wild storm with extreme winds barrelling down the mountains and valleys, hitting us from one side then the other. At 30 tons we have some resistance and the enormous lateral pressure against the mooring lines broke our bobstay. It's the bracing arrangement from the waterline to the end of the bowsprit that counters the forces of the main mast, so a vital piece of rigging.
On a windless morning we picked our way 'round to the berth and tied up with only a little overhang into the narrow channel behind. We later saw our boat there on Google Earth and realised why people think she's a big boat.
The bobstay was repaired with stainless steel rods and is no doubt stronger than it's ever been, although the original lasted over 30 years and only failed in the teeth of a Cape storm. The transmission was another story.
Chris is an old salt and plodded his way through one obstacle after the next. He has a few employees and Sammy, a Zimbabwean with a happy smile soon became a familiar face on board. The transmission came out and in doing so he discovered 2 bolts were missing and the rest were loose! The likely reason was propshaft alignment causing a vibration, so when the seal was replaced Chris did a realignment. It also explained why we'd always had difficulty putting new packing in the stuffing box.
After one particularly tense morning when we pulled out all the old packing so we could start again from scratch, with a diver in the water with tallow to pack around the shaft and a big pump on standby, the shaft was realigned with new packing and I must admit the engine and transmission has never run so smoothely.
But before we got to that point, we had more drama. The new seal failed immediately. Out came the transmission again. This time we decided to have the shaft machined so the new seal would fit perfectly. Chris also managed to track down an old friend who was retired but still had a good supply of Borg Warner spares. He replaced some more worn bits and eventually, after nearly 2 months we had a fully functioning boat again.
In the mean time we explored the Cape and caught up with old friends. David and Marcie on Nine of Cups were at the Royal Cape Yacht Club getting work done before their Atlantic crossing. On a day when they'd hired a car they came and picked us up and we had a wonderful lunch at Live Bait, our favourite Kalk Bay restaurant. Highly recommended (thanks John!).
We also enjoyed a catch up with Michael and Dualta Sparrow when they came over to the club for a meal.
Sandy can't believe how many friends I have that go back to school days, even though we haven't caught up for decades. The best part is that she always likes them when we do. Catching up with Errol King and his wife was just such an example.
Errol came and met me at the club and had a look over the boat. The camaraderie was just like old times, but with grey hair and wrinkles!
A week or so later we had lunch at their place and Errol offered us the use of a little Smart car he had for his business but didn't actually need. It was fantastic and gave us enormous freedom. We caught up on quite a few occassions and the war stories flowed.
Once we knew we weren't going to make it to the Caribbean in time we set about making arrangements to leave the boat at False Bay Yacht Club. The cost advantages of being a full member made it well worth while to pay the joining fee and a years subscription as opposed to being a visiting temporary member. Fortunately my good old friend, John Martindale is a life member there so getting a proposer was not a problem. But we still needed to go through the interview process and be formally accepted. All very proper. Well the interview evening came and we made our way to the club, Sandy nervous of anything this formal. We met the vice commodore at the bar and talked boats and the cruising life, as you do. Then the commodore arrived and we were introduced but I didn't quite get his name. It was still 5 minutes to interview time, there were about half a dozen of us to get through so we just talked boats and background. I mentioned I'd grown up in East London (S. Africa) and Mr Commodore said "I know East London. My father was an anaesthetist there." Talk about a small world moment. My father was the first anaesthetist in East London and the practice ended up with half a dozen. Our fathers were business partners! He turned to the vice commodore..."I knew Harold well. Interview's over. They're in!".
But that was the easy part. Home Affairs in South Africa is another story.
On entering the country we were given the normal 90 day visitor permit. When we started having boat issues it became clear we'd need more time. The long and short of it is we could not get an extention before the permits expired. This is normal aparently and you just hang around illegally until the processing is complete and then you're legal again.
Our problem was that we needed to fly back to Australia during that illegal status period before we would become legal again. We had all the supporting documentation, repairers and club letters. We spoke to city councillors, the Australian High Commissioner, lawyers, immigration agents, you name it. The answer was the same. We would be categorized Undesirable Aliens and banned from entering the country for 5 years. This can be appealed but the process could take a month, or a year! And if we approached Home Affairs directly we could be detained and deported immediately.
After pursuing every avenue including people who knew people we realised it was way too much of a gamble to risk being seperated from our boat.
By this time Nine of Cups had left Cape Town and sailed to Luderitz, Namibia. It's a small, friendly place and they soon established we'd be most welcome and they had moorings big enough for us to leave Wind Wanderer for a few months while we flew back to Aus.
So that was our only sane course of action and South Africa lost out on the revenue involved in storing the boat etc.
I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here but when the time did come to leave Cape Town we had the most miserable, humourless white guy handle our clear out. He snarled and wouldn't listen to any explanations and gleefully did the paperwork banning us for 5 years as Undesirable Aliens.
Three months later we flew back to Windhoek, Namibia and had to change flights in Johannesburg, requiring a trip through passport control. The black guy looked at our passports, stamped them and waived us through. I couldn't resist it. "Did anything show up in our passports that we should be concerned about?" Sandy nearly fainted!
He looked me straight in the eye and with a big smile said, "No sir. You're still desirable. Please come and visit us again soon."
So I have no idea what our status is, but I suspect it's Home Affairs at it's efficient best!
Simonstown was interesting and friendly and we enjoyed the little boutique shops and bohemian cafes. Being right next to the naval base we saw submarines come and go a few times and enjoyed a few quite spectacular night gunnery exercises with tracer shells creaming across False Bay. We had Cape fur seals visit us and the very best whale sighting we've had. Not only did we see it close inshore, but when it decided to leave it swam right up along side us and actually swam under the back of the boat.
We visited the penguin colonies nearby, climbed up to the waterfall, it was meant to be a walk!
Eventually the day came when we untied and headed down and around Cape Point then back up the coast and in to Table Bay with a perfect view of Table Mountain. It was a special moment. Just on nigtfall we tied up at the visitor berth at the Royal Cape Yacht Club. The next 2 days were cold and windy and Table Mountain was completely hidden in cloud.
All leaving yachts have to come to the club to complete clearout procedures.
The night before we were due to leave I insisted we have our last meal at the club. Sandy thought we were mad but she humoured me in spite of the weather, knowing my departure from South Africa again was an emotional thing, especially as we were freshly undesirable.
Fortunately there was a roaring fire in the club and we had a good table near it.
After the meal, and I have no idea what we had, but it was good, I popped a small box on the table in front of her. Her face was a picture. Confusion, questioning, excitement, you name it. We've never discussed marriage so to say it was a surprise is an understatement. To me there was something romantic about being at the foot of Table Mountain and the association South Africa has with gold and diamonds. I was either going to end up engaged, or she was going to have a great momento of her time getting to know the country of my birth. Obviously Sandy found it romantic too!
She said 'Yes!', and it appears I chose well.
Until next time...