More of that deep end

The Day Skipper prac week got underway on Monday with a 14-hour sail from Hout Bay to Saldanha Bay. The week ended with the reverse trip of course.... but this time 6 exhausted, dehydrated and heat-affected people arrived back in Hout Bay after a hectic 26-hour trip from Saldanha.... but more about the week’s end at the end!

Saldanha Bay is used by all the training schools as it provides a good training ground... or rather, sea... that brings tides into the planning and coping strategies. So up to Saldanha we went.... and some of us found that those Atlantic rollers bring another new challenge: nausea! Pills deal with that adequately, but tend to make one tired: an unfortunate situation when you are trying to learn and keep your head about you. On the way up, we did a fair amount of motoring in patches where there was no wind, but were generally happy with our progress (our departure having been delayed due to problems with the electrical board yet again so we set off late... even then, at no stage on the trip did we have lights in the cabins, saloon, etc).

The late departure gave Irene a very unhappy navigation experience. We each had a turn in the week to plan a pilotage: i.e. prepare the navigation for coming in to a harbour and find your way to a mooring. For this your resources are the Almanac (which actually gives complete routes and advice for all SA ports) and your detailed area chart. So Irene prepared her strategy... and landed deep in the proverbial, as the almanac had failed to mention that a night entry is a completely different ball game, as none of the reference leading lights can be seen amidst the mess of lights that is Saldanha Bay! Let’s just say that having a Royal Navy man as an instructor is not an easy thing: lessons are certainly learned by the person under correction and all those in the “class”, but in a different manner from that used by the great majority of those in the education field. General lesson learned by Rolf and Irene to apply in their future journeys: find another resource to supplement the almanac and charts, most useful being the local yacht club people.... by phone, before you get there!The next two days were spent sailing to and around Langebaan and Mykonos, practicing under sail and under power, catching mooring buoys, doing man-overboard procedures (with fenders as the MOB), coming alongside moorings (i.e. parallel parking) etc. Winds were hectic so the latter was “done” 5m away from the jetty.... a decision taken after the first person leaving the jetty inflicted some damage on the transom of the boat. The effect of wind and tide is amazing.... and provided Rolf with some bad moments. His task was a pilotage into Langebaan, an area which is very shallow but has a few narrow dredged channels. The recommended method is to use visual references that are on the chart and take bearings off them with a hand-held compass (as seen .... and note the schnazzy new foul-weather gear!); you then use these to guide you to your destination. All good as our Rolf is particularly skilled at this.... but yet, after the slowest, most tortuous hour going starboard-side round an island with the shallow-depth alarm going off continuously, we found we were on the wrong side of the island! WHAAT!? Scrambled (slowly) our way back and round the other side (through some pretty scenes, actually, of very skilled kite-boarders) and made it safely in. What went wrong? Wind and tide combinations caused the yacht to crab sideways so that we maintained boat bearing but went totally the wrong way! (PS Rolf turned to me that evening and said, wryly, that Pretoria was beginning to look like a good option!)

On Thursday afternoon, after doing “evolutions” (i.e. series of manoeuvres) and prepared meals for the passage back to Hout Bay, Irene was helming under power when ....nothing happened. A significant moment, when the boat does nothing despite your increasing the throttle desperately. Turns out (after sending Shane underwater ... short straw!) we no longer had a prop. We were towed to a mooring buoy where we discussed options and Graham decided we would go anyway, but set course to go way out to sea (don’t want to be carried onto land if the wind should die!)

We set off about 3:30 pm, with watches set for 2 hours on then 3 hours off throughout the passage. The wind howled (25 knots), the sea boiled (very disturbed sea with 5m swells, some breaking), we all dressed in layers and layers under our “foulies”, above which we wore lifejackets of course which we harnessed onto stays or clips on deck.

I wish I had the verbal skills (or a video... but you are too busy surviving to think of that) to describe the experience! On deck it was astounding to be helming or on watch (always two together) as we mounted amazing waves, surrounded by white swooshes on a broiling dark sea, through the night as we saw the sun set, stars glitter on, moon rise, moon set, stars and milky way brighten then finally dim as the sun rose and birds swooped over us... Down below it was hell. Get into a large washing machine (start off nauseous for good measure) with giant bags, ropes, cushions, people; (allow yourself some handholds, but just you try to grab them....ha!), start the cycle BUT it must be on the “random, unpredictable” setting, and have a few giants slam the outside with hammers while you are in there. That’s about it. Now sleep (remember, you must be on duty again in a few hours). Oh, and for good measure actually toss in some water (salty)... the hatch above the heads lost its seal and “the one who needs to sit” got it down the back just before watch duty. Not a lot of fun. Rolf took a bad fall in the saloon but fortunately (after initially suspecting a cracked rib) now just has impressive bruises to boast (the 102nd Dalmatian). But we have learned that we are not frightened by these seas, you can cope with discomfort, one can sail in such conditions.... and we will NEVER CHOOSE to sail in them!

Of course, we also became becalmed. With no motor, that was frustrating. But this is the Cape... and of course the wind came back and took us back to the previous paragraph. One needs power to berth so ultimately we were rescued sea-side of Robben Island; that was a great experience as our rescue vessel was the super power-trimaran that broke the round-the world speed record recently. It towed us in to the Royal Cape Yacht Club where Benguela was lifted, given a new propeller, and we were underway again. We eventually got back to Hout Bay... go to paragraph 1!


















Saturday was spent doing nothing at all in a timeshare apartment (in which we can take at least 10 steps in one direction at any one time!) which we have until the end of the week, when we will finish our Coastal Skipper Theory course ... before setting off on the next prac week to Saldanha. Going “cold turkey on the norm” as it has been expressed has been a real learning curve that has not been fun but we would not have done without.