Durban, at last….  Tuesday, 12/11/2024

I had the most amazing experience today: sailing into Durban, the city of my birth. Growing up, never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would one day sail into the Port of Durban, having crossed the Indian Ocean alone on a yacht. 

The occasion was made even better by a welcoming party of several old friends. They were just at the end of the north pier, and then rushed over by car to Durban Marina to see me come in there. This made my arrival something very different – everywhere else, I have sailed in as a complete stranger. So it has been a very social day. I’m exhausted: I was negotiating changes in wind direction during the night, so slept perhaps three and a half hours. Nevertheless, still managed to have an early dinner out with my friends John and Jane Hart, and now I’m back on the boat. Had a 20 minute call with an old friend in the U.K. – I was at university with Susan and her brother in South Africa and then lived with her and three other women in my second year in the U.K. – way back in 1990. I’m probably overtired and don’t feel like sleeping yet, so I’m now sitting writing this.

It was a gruelling voyage from Reunion. It took twelve days to cover 1,450 nautical miles, so it was fairly slow going. The passage is renowned for high winds, and so I was prepared for the 30-35 knot winds forecast. Instead I had surprisingly light wind. A couple of days it reached 22 or 23 knots, but that was it – nothing out of the ordinary at all. And plenty of very light wind, as low as 4 or 5 knots. Having sailed so much over the past four months I just wanted to get to Durban, so it was all a bit frustrating. I had a bit of damage along the way: several of the sliders which attach the mainsail to the mast gave way, which meant that the mainsail was out of action for the last couple of days. That wasn’t a great problem, because fortunately the wind picked up enough for the foresail alone to be sufficient – but it was irritating, given that these things were new with the new sails bought in New Zealand. And a minor irritation was that my new water pump, also bought and fitted in New Zealand, seized up just before I left Reunion. I wasn’t going to be delayed because of that – for the twelve days, instead of having running water coming from the water tanks, I was relying on 5-litre plastic water bottles topped up with 20-litre jerry cans. 

But the simple fact is that I’ve made it! It’s been a very long voyage: since I left New Zealand in early July I have covered 9,660 nautical miles, which is 11,100 lane miles or 17,775 kilometres. Too much in a short time, but then this has been the best time of the year weather-wise for crossing the Indian Ocean. I am certainly happy that I made it across the Indian Ocean more or less in one piece.

I have tomorrow to buy a couple of things, such a phone SIM card, and then on Thursday I’m going up to the Drakensberg mountains for a week with John and Jane. We’re starting at a Parks Board chalet at Thendele, and finishing with three nights at Cathedral Peak Hotel (which is where my parents spent their honeymoon after marrying in October 1960). This should be a great break, not only for the Drakensberg’s stunning mountain scenery, but also because it’s far away from the sea! I need a break – I’ve had enough of water to last me a while.

– Many thanks to my old colleague Trevor Jones for arranging the photos: one taken from a pleasure boat going out, the other by a man up on the Bluff. Great to have this record.