Tawodi Sailing Adventures

39.10 S 23.57 E 5590 Miles West of Hobart, Tasmania

More than 6000 miles of water between point A and point B is a bit daunting. It’s easy to say we were as reluctant to leave Cape Town as we were to stay. It’s no simple thing to let go of great hospitality foisted upon us right in the heart of a bustling metropolis set between the jaw-dropping background of Table Mountain and the Atlantic Ocean but we left, slipped the surly bonds, such as they were, of the Royal Cape Yacht Club on Tuesday morning.

Now we’re back to each other, the ocean and the albatross.
But we didn’t get to leave without a day of smoke and ash pouring onto us from inland wildfires and not without one last bit of dock excitement. On Sunday 50 knot breezes pulled out the top edge of headsail on Totallymoney.com- the Open 50 young Mike Perham’s sailing round the world. It was loud, dangerous and profoundly close to being disasterous- rig whipping away as the forestay was being pulled bodily about by that free bit of cloth. For a tremendously thrilling 20 minutes the Captain, myself and a group of willing bystanders frantically struggled to get the mess under control.

Mike Perham missed all the fun.
Those were Sunday’s winds and Sunday’s dramas. On Tuesday there was barely a breath of air. We spent our first two days at sea burning diesel fuel, turning the cabin into an oven. It took three days before we found and relocated the two stowaway crickets.

Now five days out, we’re sailing well, cooling off and we’ve suffered our first loss of this leg.

And no, it’s not the crickets we’re talking about.
Sadly the Captain attempted to enjoy a little ice cream this afternoon not fully appreciating the struggle it took to originally pack the freezer. Originally everything was malleable, originally there was a flexible shovability to the system. This afternoon the Captain was faced with a rigid pack of meat that would not allow the ice cream back into its lair. He fussed with it. I fussed with it.

In the end there was no moving the solid blocks of beef in any way that would allow the ice cream a fair chance of survival.

With a heavy sigh and a quiet tear slipping from the corner of his eye the Captain set the ice cream free into the Indian Ocean.
Our hope is that we’ve either given Neptune a great treat or, at the least, saddled a great white shark one heck of an ice-cream headache.

It’s always such great fun to meet new people, take them sailing and have at least one of them throw the contents of their stomach into the sea.  Must thrill Neptune to no end. 

Well, that’s what we did on Saturday.   There were eight aboard; Gavin, Christine, Caylan, Boris, Felix, Stephanie myself and the Captain.  We were given a gray, coldish morning with enough swell to make Felix give up his breakfast overboard. 

In these fine moments it’s strategically beneficial to travel with the Captain; no matter how ill our passengers might become we can always fall back on the entertainment value of the Captain actually being a one man walking circus. 

 Upon returning to the dock he went up the backstay, down the forestay, up the shrouds, down the shrouds, up the mast steps, down the mast steps, across the boom, ending with an athletic swoop into the cockpit and talking like a master of ceremonies during the entire escapade.  How Caylan, Christine and Gavin’s nine year old daughter , reacted probably needs little description.

We did put her in a harness.  We even tied a line to her.  The Captain was good enough to winch her up most of the way. We probably should have given her a rag and had her do a little cleaning while she was playing around up there.   Perhaps we’ll be a bit more prepared and savvy the next time we send a child aloft.  Needless to say, between the Captain’s show, Caylan’s show and the healthy adult beverage we provided Christine, Caylan’s Mom, most thoughts and recollections of seasickness slipped away quietly. 

After sailing, seasickness, sending a child to the mast-head and watching the Captain as he dashed all about the boat, we went out for food.   It seemed the right thing to do. 

It was lovely food.  A good Italian meal eaten while watching a herd of women  wander up and down the street with a six foot long inflated penis, variously laughing or thrusting their inflatable toy into the open windows of passing cars. 

Apparently we were witness to a lively bachelorette party. 

The woman relegated to the parry and thrust of the toy was wearing kitten ears and whiskers.  She was being followed about by an escort gaggle of giggling girlfriends.  They were not wearing kitten ears or whiskers.   Hardly seems fair.

But it was a lovely meal- good food, good company and free entertainment.

These are the kind of days we couldn’t have invented if we tried.

And so we’re about done with Cape Town.  We’ve left our mark but not with the flare and generosity left on us by the city and its denizens.

Hopefully we’ll be underway Tuesday morning.

Lovely city, Cape Town.

We’d been warned about crime; a never go anywhere at night, alone, wearing jewelry or carrying wads of cash warning.  All of that easy for us to guarantee.  We don’t go out at night, don’t have much in the way of jewelry and as for wads of cash- that’s just something we dream about. 

What nobody warned about was the hospitality of South Africans and the pride of place Cape Towns’ citizens put forward.  Assiduous and smiling in their efforts to put the city’s best foot forward, it’s hard not to enjoy oneself here. 

Of course we’re talking about a city here, a city, like any, with poverty and dissension.  And we’re talking about a country rife with an uncomfortable history, a country resting at the bottom of a continent that rattles with violence.  There’s crime, there’s assault, there’s a legion of horrors waiting around the corner but that should not be the opening salvo describing Cape Town.

Far better to take on the larger view, to balance the snapshot of this place.

Table Mountain looms huge and square over the city.  Aged buildings wedge between malls and apartments. There’s a metropiltan hippness slipping about the masses. In the Port an oil platform sits tied to a dock not more than half a mile behind our boat.  A massive thing of steel floating with the container ships, the tankers, the fishing boats and the mega-yachts.  And, in town, it feels as if you can’t turn a corner without finding an open market, a sculpture or a plot of green space.

The place seems to ooze with both human and commercial diversity.

Since arriving we’ve be slathered with friendliness and interest.  Repairs- quite the variety we’ve got, have been sorted out with help from the yacht club staff and Marshall, a rather intrepid cabbie.  The club bar and restaurant, more than affordable, has provided a welcome respite from cooking and dishes.  And then there’s Gavin, Christine and Caylan, the family that gathered us up over breakfast one morning and have since provided an endless stream of conversation, wine, food, transportation, laughter and an apparent bottomless well of patience with all our blathering.

We do tend to blather.

All of that and our clothes are clean, our closets are dry, there’s dry land to run on and the weather’s darn near perfect.

34.00 S 17.46 E Almost to Cape Town
There’s this saying: ‘The difference between ordeal and adventure is attitude.’ As sayings go it doesn’t sit well with all situations. Sometimes the difference between ordeal and adventure can be affordable medical care, a cell phone, being a member of the AAA auto-club, money or, in the case of many sea-stories, time. Yesterday’s ordeal becomes today’s adventure.
That brings us to yesterday. Early in the day the wind climbed above 30 knots and then above 35. By early-morning the Captain and I had wedged ourselves in with pillows and lee-cloths- pinned into corners trying to oh-so casually read while waves washed fully over the boat. By mid-morning the waves became mean, ugly, bullish and, worse yet, unreliable in their direction. And then in the late morning one rogue wall of water rose up like the Kraken and punched out the starboard side of our dodger.
This was one of those moments that require a Clint Eastwood squint- a stare off into the middle distance where one might catch a view of acceptance and patience. Roll the shoulders, take a breath: good air in, expletive out and do it again and release. There hung a third of our dodger, flapping in the wind like a loose bit of flesh, doing nothing to keep the sea from flopping itself into our cockpit.
By early afternoon the wind was topping 40 knots and the seas had evolved into a creation akin to the rush of a panic-filled crowd of really angry, really big people. We decided to hang out our sea-anchor. This giant water parachute strung out from our bow and essentially held us in place, facing the waves while went back below to wait out our storm.

Four hours later a sailboat-hating monster from amongst the crowd of monster waves hit us square on, tipping us aft, knocking out our galley drawers, sending the contents of the forepeak onto the floor and taking our sea anchor into its clutches, ripping it forever away from our boat.

With a Clint Eastwood squint and a gaze towards the acceptance and patience filled middle-distance we pulled in the line and grimaced at the splice that had failed.

The Captain looked at me: “How much did that sea-anchor cost?”

I shrugged.

“Nevermind. It doesn’t matter now.”
We spent the rest of the day and the evening hove-to while the sea punched at us and the wind shrieked at us. All in all the day was an ordeal and then this morning arrived.
This morning with its benevolent seas,its happy little 15 knot breezes and its sunshine and smiles view of the African continent under puffy white clouds. Now with Cape Town 30 miles off, our sails up and out at full hoist, our boat motion like that of a loving mother rocking her baby we can look back on yesterday and almost call it an adventure. Almost.

Maybe when we patch up our dodger it’ll be easier to use that word.

36.07 S 14.36 E 220 miles to Cape Town
Hey, at least we’re neither sinking or on fire.

The Captain punts that phrase about when sailing conditions are less than ideal. Thought of it yesterday morning while holding a fire extinguisher, contemplating said extinguishers fullness gage and uselessly batting smoke from my face.

We weren’t on fire. On smoke, yes, but no actual flames occurred when the electrical wiring from the starboard wind generator shorted and then the circuit breaker, rather than trip, melted.
The movie; ‘Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle’ had been the morning’s intellectual fare, a step up from our usual cartoons, when the Captain’s prodigious sense of smell alerted us to the melt down. The Captain began sniffing about like a coon dog on a blood trail. What followed was a frantic 45 seconds spent sticking our noses in corners, lazarettes, behind the stereo, near the batteries, under the distribution panel, anywhere that might hold an electrical fire. Fortunately located before it had the power to do more than send smoke signals, the accident only temporarily strips us of using our wind generators to charge and, sadly, left the Captain with a blister on his thumb.
We tried to catch fire, averted that but could do nothing with the opposing current. After being acrimoniously assaulted by faulty wiring that left us trying to acclimate to a smoke perfumed cabin we spent the day watching as our boat speeds lost an average of four knots. In the 25 knot winds our average speed read 9 knots but we were only making about 3 to our destination. To be sailing so fast while covering ground so slow, what a bitter pill that is.

When I was a kid my big brother use to stretch out his arm, put his greasy big-brother paw on my head and stop me from getting any closer to him. Granted, I may only have been trying to get closer in order to hit him, but that’s not cogent. It was the powerlessness of the moment, the feeling of being held in place by a force greater than one’s own that matters. That’s what sailing to Africa was like yesterday.
Smoke, counter current plus confused seas that made forward progress feel a bit like trying to shoulder one’s way through a soccer riot, who knew getting to Africa would be so challenging.

But at least we’re not sinking and, mostly, not on fire.

38.28 S 00.57 E 885 miles to Cape Town

A solid round of apologies for failing, but hard as we search for horrific catastrophe, the very meat of a good story, the days insist on passing uneventfully. The worst that can be noted would be the sound of the diesel engine, which we’ve had to run more than we’d like. But it’s running so why waste our time with sniveling?

And even the motoring’s tempered by slices of smooth wind and sea that the boat sucks up like a cold one on a hot day.
We could endeavor harder with our lessons on stargazing. Can’t say as there’s a finer spot than this one for that for that particular bit of education.

We lope along into warm weather and the night sky fairly shouts for attention. Maybe it’s been shouting all along but who could notice that noise through the incessant chatter of teeth and the muffling insulation of 42 layers of clothing. Amazing the change 30 degrees in temperature can render.
Benign in sea state, wind and temperature, this wedge of water gives the sky back its power. Instead of enduring the vicissitudes of massive water and breeze smacking us about like a poorly behaved dog, we ponder the clouds; watch them fade into pink evenings and disappear into blue twilight leaving only the difficulty of pondering the clear night sky.

After all’s said and done what could be more difficult to ponder than beauty expanding beyond scope.
In spite of all that beauty we’re doomed to stumble over a host of Pavlovian responses scratched onto our psyche by the charms of the deep latitudes. Easy weather, easy sailing and days passed without significant breakage seem to make us more nervous rather than less. No doubt we’ll find ourselves sailing through an epic battle of sea-monsters or, almost as terrifying, our toilet will break, no doubt there will be some terrible cost for what amounts to a pleasant yachting holiday. Even as this is being typed we worry that the simple act of noticing how placidly the days pass may well ensure havoc will be wreaked upon us.
Maybe yes, maybe no, until then it really is simply nice on this patch of water. Here we are sailing lazily along on port tack under full main, jib and staysail, we’ve crossed the Prime Meridian and raised glasses to another line of zero passed under our keel. Clear, star shot skies follow puff-clouded days that come spotted with the entertainment of albatross, shearwater and petrel. It’s almost pleasant enough to wipe away the memory of icebergs.

Well, not really. We may spend the rest of our sailing lives on the look out for ice. Some terrors just never let a body forget.

37.08 S 11.33 W 1480 miles east of Cape Town
Now that all’s said and done we’re Africa bound- autopilot link-plate repaired and the doom of a Friday-begun voyage left behind. The list of minor failures and breakage that haunted us from South Georgia Island reads like an omnibus of maritime mishap, an iteration good enough to confirm the evil and idiocy of beginning any sea voyage on a Friday. Still there lingers an idea that the Friday bad ju-ju might not have been the only reason for our epidemic of problems.
As the green volcanic audacity of Tristan Da Cunha falls behind we can’t help but wonder if fate batted us about simply to force our visit to the island. To say the visit was worth a 600 mile detour fails to do justice to the charm and lure of the place.

Verdant and shocking in scenic scope, the island’s mass rises sharply; breaking, sliding and cracking on its way skyward. Short expanses of pasture land run hard into cliffs so vertiginous and abrupt that looking at them too long leaves a body spinning in the attempt to absorb the contrast. Remnants of lava from the 1961 eruption vault upwards and then roll into the ocean coating part of the island with a film of rocky sharpness.

But that’s just scenery. Lovely, really lovely scenery, but not the great treasure to be found on the island. For those of us whose lives are spent surrounded by the indifference of city life, inundated by the stress of work, debt, appearance and the ignominy of long hours spent in traffic, where the faces encountered are strange faces and too many interactions hold the seed of malevolence or the simple obscenity of rudeness, the people of Tristan Da Cunha offer a welcome alternative. They restore one’s faith in the fundamental niceness of humanity.
Granted, nice as a word lacks bluster, force, power, dominion but that’s precisely why it describes Tristanian dealings with strangers. They followed us from days out, kept track of our position. They watched us approach their small boat harbor, sodden and a bit foolish making landfall in our inflatable kayak. They waved, they smiled. They laughed at our jokes and expressed genuine interest in our travels and our lives. They opened homes and histories. Advice, opinion and food from their own larders came without a price. Repairs, fees and goods did not upend our wallets. No doubt the quality of human avarice exits on the island but it lives as a lesser fellow to the quality of human generosity. It awed us and left us wishing we had more time to spend enjoying the rich simplicity of their community.

But the season marches on and we have a home to sail towards.
Much like a book’s acknowledgements or a movie’s credits we own a list of Tristanian names worth mentioning. They are only the few that we managed to remember while paddling back to our boat and as such hardly begin to fairly give credit where credit is due. Though it’s not usual to read acknowledgements or credits we’d ask that everyone make this their exception.

A hearty thank you to Andy Repetto for following us via email and radio and for making sure we arrived and anchored safely. To Conrad Glass, Chief Inspector of Tristan, for collecting our wet selves up from that first kayak landing and shuttling us to administration, post office, supermarket and repair facility. Also to Conrad and family- a grand thanks for the home-made bread and fresh eggs. To Joe Green for not only repairing but improving our failed autopilot linkage armature. To Nicky, Emma and little Ryan for opening your home to us and feeding us a fine last meal on your island. And to all the people who made us feel more than welcome and put up with our confusion with British currency coupled with our forever talking mouths- a very large thanks.

Tristan Da Cunha has been our loveliest stop yet. Glad that fate pushed us that way even if it had to force our hand. Perhaps the next time an obscure location comes within range we might consider visiting before fate feels it has to start breaking bits on our boat.