Anchored on the launch pad in Madagascar

It’s time for Part II of our trilogy of ‘Tough Indian Ocean Passages to Cape Town’.

We’ve been monitoring the weather over the past few weeks as Adina tracked south down the west coast of Madagascar, watching for a suitable crossing to South Africa. The challenge is we couldn’t leave too early as we only get a three month visa and didn’t want to risk thwarting New Year’s Eve plans in Cape Town!

We thought we had a window yesterday and made a dash for it around midnight. Alas the forecast was wrong and after a period of bashing through seas hoping it would improve, we decided we’d had enough of salt water being thrown over us, chucked in the towel and headed back to console ourselves. It’s never easy turning back and required some soul-searching but the sea needs to be respected, there will be another day and there is no point in needlessly breaking the boat.

Our eventual target is Richards Bay on the north-east coast of South Africa.

It’s a tricky passage that needs to be well planned and as we’re learning you need a bit of good old luck on your side too. Without getting too technical, big low pressure systems regularly come bowling around the south of South Africa heading north and bringing associated strong winds. These are southerly winds, not what we want when heading south as they’d be right on the nose. They can be nasty and hence sailors like to call them “southerly busters”. Heading the opposite direction to these winds is the strong flowing Agulhas Current. Winds from the south and current from the north is not a marriage made in heaven and all hell breaks loose out at sea.

So, we have been patiently wait for a break, looking for winds from the north or east. Life is still a little complicated as these breaks rarely last long enough to get to South Africa in one hit. So one of the favored strategies is to sail west across to the Mozambique coast and then head south. If a southerly buster comes up seeking a fight with the Agulhas Current there are a few places you can run for cover along the Mozambique coast. It’s this tactic we hope to deploy if we need to.

Please cross your fingers and toes for us folks, this is going to be a passage of weather watching and frequent sail changes.

Adina on the launch pad.