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| Tamarin Bay sunset session -- alone |
Warning, some of the following material may not be suitable for concerned parents!
Hello from Africa!
Our week in Mauritius stretched
imperceptibly into three. We broke from the yachtie pack and
anchored in Tamarin Bay at the base of an extinct volcano. On
display, a postcard left pointbreak wrapped around the base of the
cinder cone. The heavy locals and crowd never materialized and we
shared days of blissful weather, offshore conditions and smoking
overhead surf – often alone.
We returned to the main port on
Mauritius on an empty boat with empty stomachs. The town market in
Port Louis may once have been open-air but hundreds of merchant's
stalls have grown--almost organically--over the narrow alleys to
enclose the sidewalks in merchandise. Dazed by the riot of colors,
we walked in a crouch to avoid hanging octopus, tuna steaks,
textiles, baskets, carvings, and 80 lb stalks of bananas. Farmers
of every skin-color hawked their crops in three or four languages
behind towering slopes of potatoes, citrus, pumpkins, and watermelon,
always being careful to avoid an avalanche of pomegranates that could
bury potential customers.
Fully stocked, we left the jungle,
monkeys, market and Tamarin reef behind and set out for La Reunion
about 100 miles to the west. This large island, strangely, has no
natural harbors. When the sun rose behind us and cast its rays over
the sea to the west, we understood; the island is a mossy basalt
boulder. The rock rises abruptly out of the sea, quickly gaining
altitude into the clouds. Rifts and chasms in the brittle lava lead
under the thunderheads into the dark interior. On the coast, the few
patches of land that are flat—and that term is used loosely—are
dotted with small houses clinging to 45 degree slopes or balanced on
razor-sharp treeless ridges. The streams on La Reunion all flow
vertically, spending more time in free-fall than flowing like a
proper river.
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| "unfortunately, you're here in the dry season" |
We had the email address of a close
relation—my dad's co-worker's sister's husband—who lives on La
Reunion. Matheu and Cecile were excellent tour guides and hosts.
They informed us that, regrettably, as they were still in the dry
season most of the big waterfalls wouldn't have much water in them.
However, they were able to show us around to some of the smaller
cascades, which were terrifyingly majestic.
Matheu and Cecile also told us of a
mystical lost world deep in the mountains. The interior of the
island is an inhospitable jumble of mountain-sized basalt shards on
an inconceivable scale—the result of an apocalyptic collapse of the
original volcano crater. There are a handful of small communities
clinging to tiny ledges—called islands—deep in the mountains, accessible
only by multi-day hiking expedition. Supplies for these
outposts are loaded into cargo nets and lowered by winch from
helicopters.
Kara, of course, decided that a hike
was just what we needed and so off we went. We opted to take a bus
to the other side of the island and hike across the interior, a
distance of about 40 kilometers, which should have been a two-day
hike. We struck out and quickly found the trail to be almost
entirely composed of stairs. Stairs carved from the stone, steel
stairs on scaffolding bolted to stone faces, rickety stairs of wood,
concrete stairs edged by re-bar and galvanized cable, stairs slimy
with algae passing
through waterfalls, and stairs leading to
rail-less bridges with 3,000-foot vertical drops. It was a
40-kilometer staircase; the engineering involved in the trail's
construction was amazing and the views were spectacular. We were too
tired notice.
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| Ultra-remote villages in the mountains |
Eventually the cliffs gave way to the
ocean and we stumbled back to the boat. It was time to head to
Africa. The trick with any passage out of the tropics is to time the
seasons correctly. Ideally, a late-spring passage avoids the summer
tropical hurricanes and the winter storms further south.
Further complicating this particular passage are the hazardous waters
south of Madagascar which are spotted with shallow sea-mounts and
3-knot currents which, according to legend, make this a high-risk
area for rogue waves. A successful passage through this area will,
hopefully, deposit you on the African coast in the powerful Agulhas
current during a period of fair weather. This current runs to the
south along the coast and is infamous for causing massive breaking
seas when opposed by storm-force southerly winds—which are common.
In this area, the official government charts warn that "abnormal
waves of up to 20m (65 feet) in height may be encountered."
There were about 40 other sailboats in
La Reunion looking at the run to South Africa. The highly volatile
weather of this region renders any weather forecast beyond 72 hours
useless, so departure dates were decided in the same way as most
lottery numbers. This 2-week passage is like playing Russian
Roulette on a sailboat, and things already weren't looking good. A
small patch of convection to the north of La Reunion spun up into a
surprise early-season category-3 hurricane which was forecast to hit
the island in two days. Larger boats with lots of diesel and big
engines raced south to escape, while the rest of us put out extra
dock lines. We caught a break when tropical cyclone Anais made a
last-minute course change and swept off towards northern Madagascar
to unwind over the cooler springtime ocean water.
We set out into the leftover slop from
the hurricane's narrow miss and had a pleasant four days to Cape St.
Marie, the southern tip of Madagascar, where the weather took a turn
for the worse: three days of 35-45 knot easterlies. By the second
day we had battled free of a 3-knot counter-current and were passing
30 miles south of a scattering of sea mounts. Passing below
Madagascar, we had confused 20-30 foot seas and sustained 40 knot
winds. The strange currents, seamounts, and general Indian Ocean nastiness were causing occasional waves to break heavily from
unnatural directions. With just our storm stays'l sheeted flat
amidships we ran 150 miles in 24-hours. At 2 a.m on a black moonless
night, one of the large breaking seas caught up with us. It came
from the south, at a right angle to the prevailing waves, and broke
over the boat. Orca was
knocked down, her mast dipping into the ocean. The boat was buried
under whitewater, the dodger's panels were blow off, and everything
not double-lashed was swept away. The companionway was securely
closed but with the entire boat underwater, jets of the Indian Ocean
flooded in every crack and joint at high pressure. The coffee
grinder broke loose, flew across the cabin and smashed through a
cupboard door.
At 90
degrees of heel, Orca's
4,500lbs lead keel had maximum torque and quickly brought the mast up
out of the water. The cockpit was completely empty – everything,
including all the sea water, had been dumped out. The rigging
streamed wetly as the steering vane rose from the waves to put us
back on course. Halyards and sheets trailed behind us in a yard-sale
of odds-and-ends swept overboard. Down below, the splintered cabinet
had allowed seawater into the main electrical hub and the harsh smell
of burning electrics oozed from the ruins. Kara swiped a hand across
the main switchboard and Orca
fell into blackness. The sound of books and fruit sloshing in
ankle-deep water on the cabin floor was barely audible over the howl
of the midnight wind.
While
traumatic, a knockdown is not inherently dangerous and is something
we've planned and practiced for. The bilge pump, on a separate
redundant waterproof circuit, automatically sensed the ingress of
water and pumped it overboard. A handful of chem-glow sticks
cracked and scattered about the cabin provided temporary emergency
lighting. A super-pure solution of industrial alcohol rinsed the
seawater out of the electrics before corrosion began and evaporated
in minutes, quickly restoring power. We swapped the storm stays'l
for a triple-reefed mainsail and hove to. Orca took
care
of herself while our adrenaline drained away. We put a call out
on our single-sideband advising other sailboats of our situation and
received invaluable emotional support—even if practical support was
impossible. True to the volatile meteorological nature of the area,
the next day was windless and the ocean glassy except for eddies and
swirls of conflicting currents. Continuing towards South Africa,
were were disheartened that the 'hard' part of the passage—crossing
the Agulhas current—still lay ahead.
We
were 380 miles east of Richard's Bay when the South African sailing
community, in near panic, put out a call on the single-sideband
warning all incoming sailboats to abandon any attempt to close with
the coast and to run for nearest safe harbor. A deep low forming off
the Cape of Good Hope was steamrolling northeast towards Madagascar
generating 50-foot breaking seas with sustained winds of 55 knots.
In a race to South Africa, the weather would beat us to safe harbor
by a mere 6 hours. In the interest of survival, we turned Orca
away from our goal and set a
desperate course to the north. The South Africans said that, pushing
hard, we could make it up obscure river in Mozambique twelve hours
ahead of the storm. We set all sail.
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| Mozambique boatyard |
Knowing
nothing about Mozambique—except that their national flag features
an black AK-47—we crossed the bar into the Inhambane River. Even
though we were entering the country illegally, we were comforted to
find ten other rebel sailboats, diverted by the single sideband
transmission, already sheltering behind the sandbar. Most of the
boats we'd never met, but they all had heard our transmission and
greeted us with hugs, loving support, and cold beers. The shy
locals, paddling hollowed trunks with bamboo poles, were astounded at
the unusual sight of sailboats in the river. We weathered the storm
at anchor, tucked into a safe harbor.
Three
days later, we set out—again—for South Africa. We were headed
south with the current in our favor but feeling bitter about the
extra 600 miles of sailing and skeptical about the so-called
'powerful Agulhas.' We were shocked when we were swept away by five
knots—that's the speed a fast
run—of southbound current. Even becalmed, the coastline unwound
before us and we were profoundly grateful to the SSB radio nets and
our new friends in S.A. for warning us not to cross this river in
50-foot seas. We're now safely ensconced in Richard's Bay, South
Africa, eating a jucy steak surrounded by new close yachtie friends
on a restaurant patio that, four days ago, was a war zone. As the
low passed, clay tiles were blown from the roof by storm force
southerlies to fall three stories and destroy the metal railings of
the dining area along the quay. The camaraderie of the sailing community continues to amaze us.
Fortunately, today
the weather forecast looks excellent and all we have to worry about
are the packs of marauding monkeys that, we are told, make it
necessary—for safety--to walk to the grocery store in a group.
Thanks,
John & Kara
