Just a recap of why this passage is not one to be played around in, is risk of wind against the Agulhas current and the lack of shelter along the “wild coast”. In general, the summer months in South Africa allow for the South Atlantic High to position it’s self off the coast of Richards Bay to give you the NE winds down the coast. However, each year is different and while Summer was trying her best to become stable, disturbing coastal low pressures systems, which can be too small to see in Grib files, generate “uncomfortable” conditions and in short produce very short weather windows to head down the coast….hence why we choose to wait in Richards Bay for a month so long until we saw a window long enough for us to make more distance between ports.
The Agulhas current can run up to 5-6 knots along the SE coastal contour. 
Any wind in the SW quadrant generally create the type of conditions cruising guides and the like warn you of: possible 30-40 foot waves depending on the strength of the wind against….not something you want to be in. 
Predict Wind summary of a passage straight to Cape Town 
I had made an excel spreadsheet of all the possible ports and corresponding protocols, anchorages, marinas and contact information. Along with mileage at different speeds to determine day/night arrivals if we needed to ditch out.
Sunday December 8th, 2019…
As we drink our daily ration of caffeine, we get confirmation….Yeah…we are the NOT sane!!! Trevor determined to get south of the looming low pressure hitting Durban in a few days, we decide to leave that day. 11 boats left the next day…
At 3 pm it took about 7 people to get us off the dock as the wind was pushing us onto the dock and we had tide against us….it was a true “Slow Flight $&@! show”. Just outside the breakwater we had 15 knots SSE which translates that the wind will almost be on our nose (bow) so we anticipated it to be a bumpy and wet ride for the first 12 or so hours….
From the log book:
- 6 pm – COG: 226°m, SOG: 5 knots, Wind: 20-22 knots, AWD: Port 20°, Swell/Sea state: 1.5-2 m, Total Miles: 14 Notes: Small waves over the bow, not bad, engine on, main sail 1st reef, no jib, cloudy and light rain.
Monday December 9th…
Forcast from Des and Predict Wind
Wind at midnight 
Wind at 6 am 
Wind at noon 
Wind at 6 pm
Gusts at midnight 
Gusts at 6 am 
Gusts at noon 
Gusts at 6 pm
Swell at midnight 
Swell at 6 am 
Swell at noon 
Swell at 6 pm
From the log book:
- 6 am – COG: 237°m, SOG: 6.5 knots, Wind: 15 knots, AWD: Port 58 °, Swell/Sea state: 1.5m , Total Miles: 83 Notes: Just passing Durban, winds are light and variable, jib finally out, engine off
- 6 pm – COG: 237°m, SOG: 8 knots, Wind: 10 knots, AWD: Port 82 °, Swell/Sea state: 1.5m , AVG SOG: 6.25 knots, Total Miles: 169 Notes: Engine back on – Wind up to 20 knots, then turned behind and died then on our beam, kept about 10 miles off shore, 30 miles S of Durban, current began of 0.5-1 knot. Lots of little squalls, Jib poled out, main 2nd reef, reffed mizzen, dinghy motor bracket broken.
Tuesday December 10th…
Forecast from Des and Predict Wind….not the first time Slow Flight’s name was questioned… (LOL)! Looks like we made it south enough to miss the low pressure system…so it’s keep on keeping on….
Wind at midnight 
Wind at 6 am 
Wind at noon 
Wind at 6 pm
Gusts at midnight 
Gusts at 6 am 
Gusts at noon 
Gusts at 6 pm
Swell at midnight 
Swell at 6 am 
Swell at noon 
Swell at 6 pm
From the log book:
- 6 am – COG: 249°m, SOG: 10.5 knots, Wind: 10-15 knots, AWD: Port 124°, Swell/Sea state: 1.5m , AVG SOG: 7.3 knots, Total Miles: 285 Notes: Great current!! Jib poled out over night, engine off at 6 am, Wind goes up to 27 knots then dies back down to 10. Cloudy and drizzle.
- 6 pm – COG: 270°m, SOG: 10+knots, Wind: 25-35 knots, AWD: Port 160°, Swell/Sea state: 2.5m , AVG SOG: 8.39 knots, Total Miles: 428 Notes: Pasted East London (EL) about just before noon and dropped mizzen making us surf down waves, jib 2nd reef. Saw SOG of 15!! Saw TWS 40 knots, Now, 20 miles off shore, lots of frothy waves, slowly losing current but still about 2 knots, not horrible ride, sometimes scary, 50 miles to Port Elizabeth.
Wednesday December 11th…
Forecast from Des and Predict Wind…we just had our best run with 230 miles under the keel last 24 hours!!!….can we make it around Cape Agulhas by Thursday or Friday…? Our last major port, Mossel Bay, we would be passing by around midnight so we needed to make the decision to turn in this afternoon or keep going as fast as we could…?
Wind at midnight 
Wind at 6 am 
Wind at noon 
Wind at 6 pm
Gusts at midnight 
Gusts at 6 am 
Gusts at noon 
Gusts at 6 pm
Swell at midnight 
Swell at 6 am 
Swell at noon 
Swell at 6 pm
From the log book:
- 6 am – COG: 288°m, SOG: 6 knots, Wind: 10-15 knots, AWD: Port 170°, Swell/Sea state: 1.5m, AVG SOG: 8.22 knots, Total Miles: 518 Notes: Overnight we did a sail change to wing on wing in anticipation of hard downwind sailing and trying to keep a course directly down wind, rolly, Passed Port Elizabeth (PE) by midnight and lost current about 20 miles north of PE. light rain, cloudy, wind starting to clock behind us, engine on 2 am at low revs, Passed St. Francis Bay 6 am.
- 6 pm – COG: 296°m, SOG: 7 knots, Wind: 20+knots, AWD: Port 164 °, Swell/Sea state: 2+m , AVG SOG: 8.09 knots, Total Miles: 607 Notes: “So long as nothing breaks” is what Des said…ironically our bilge pump kept going off…not good! Trevor found our pin hole in our heat exchanger for our engine. Luckily he was able to move the hose a bit farther up to cover the pin hole and clamp it down tight…but not too tight…sun peeked out, we are 2 miles north of our rumb line to keep dead downwind, still wing on wing jib to 2nd reef. Need to keep an AVG SOG 6.5-7 knots to make it to Cape Town before the weather turns bad on Saturday am.
Thursday December 12th…
Forecast from Des and Predict Wind…Cape Agulhas…here we come!
Wind at midnight 
Wind at 6 am 
Wind at noon 
Wind at 6 pm
Gusts at midnight 
Gusts at 6 am 
Gusts at noon 
Gusts at 6 pm
Swell at midnight 
Swell at 6 am 
Swell at noon 
Swell at 6 pm
From the log book:
- 6 am – COG: 290°m, SOG: 7 knots, Wind: 15-20 knots, AWD: Port 168°, Swell/Sea state: 2m , AVG SOG: 8.03 knots, Total Miles: 699 Notes: Overnight, lots of commercial traffic by oil rig off of Mossel Bay, full moon and clear skies FINALLY!, wind seems more consistent, it’s bloody COLD!
- 6 pm – COG: 320 °m, SOG: 7 knots, Wind: 15 knots, AWD: Port 164°, Swell/Sea state: 1m, AVG SOG: 7.92 knots, Total Miles: 785 Notes: Rounded Cape Agulhas 3pm only 4 miles off shore, photo for Des, Amazing the sea state changed immediately….seas were calm and hardly any roll felt. Good bye Indian Ocean…Hello Atlantic!!!
OpenCPN track. I don’t know if you can tell but right after Cape Agulhas, there are 2 banks (6 mile and 12 mile). We went between shore and 6 mile bank and depth wasn’t an issue. 
Position at 6 am 
Self portrait sent to Des….he didn’t like that one…. 
…so we sent him this one..LOL! 
Position at 6 pm. We stayed pretty close to shore even though Des warned us about fishing fleets…we didn’t see any fishing activity on our trip….finally run…thank goodness.
Friday December 13th… (ekkks)
From the log book:
- 6 am – COG: 35°m, SOG: 5 knots, Wind: 12 knots, AWD: STB 64°, Swell/Sea state: 1m , AVG SOG: 7.84 knots, Total Miles: 871 Notes: Overnight, we stayed 5-15 miles off shore. We also rounded the Cape of Good Hope at about 3 am. We also did a sail change in anticipation of heading north so jib down engine still on…we are almost there…why delay it any further!
I actually tried to Google if it was bad luck to arrive in port on a Friday the 13th… still don’t know but so far so good. Just a few photos to illustrate : )
OpenCPN track 
No good way to capture rounding the Cape of Good Hope…here is Trevor’s attempt to get us on our chartplotter. 
I watched the moon set…. 
…the same time as the sun was rising…it was magical! 
In the early morning, this heavy fog set in as we were approaching the main shipping lanes to port at Cape Town. Fog signals were everywhere…we even saw on AIS a cargo ship not but 1/2 mile off our beam and could not visually see them….not that we could see out of our dodger anyways (Trevor had to splash warm water on the dodger to clear it up every so often.
The fog lifted just in time for us to come into port with sun at our backs…At 9:30 am we were tided to the dock at the V&A marina….we were greeted by our friends on SV Starry Horizons (Amy and David) and SV Aventry (Jamie and Lina)…again..tears of joy shed and lots of double hugs!!!
OMG!!!! It was such a sight to see the iconic Table Mountain as we motored into port. 
The V&A Waterfront is like a mini Disneyland. 
We had to call Bridge Control on ch 71 to lift the 2 bridges. They generally lift the bridges at 1/4 past and 1/4 to every hour. Here is the first “swing” bridge…. 
…and the second draw bridge… 
The managers at the V&A marina, Joshio and Lionel, are awesome! 
It’s been a fast run and we are glad we are done!!! 
Trevor at the V&A marina office…they give you a bottle of wine….WOW…pleasantly surprised…this bottle is going down…NOW!
- Total hours: 114.5 = 4.77 days
- Total miles: 888
- Total engine hours: 95
- Avg SOG: 7.75
Next up: “Plans set in custard”….?
OKG is all I can say plus you ever heard we made it on a wing and a prayer. Y’all are amazing. Hoping you believe in prayer by now!!!! For a human being to be able to figure all the things out u are doing is nothing short of a miracle. Just Amazing!!! Why not live in Charleston. Lots of boats there .. Shoyld be plenty of work there esp taking folks on boats or working on them…
OMGv. Love y’all. Taking care of yourselves is important. How old are I now. 5 years no way. What was ur date of leaving.? Oh we have a booklet will look it up….lots n lots of love…..