The Wild Coast, Leg 2 East London to Port Elizabeth

Fishing boats off our jetty

Tied to fishing jetty wall - low tide!

Zeke and Klaudia negotiating with street vendors on the promenade

 

Surfers on PE beachfront

The Wild Coast, Leg 2

East London to Port Elizabeth

Oct. 12, 2016

About the only good thing I can say about that last passage is that we are now half way to Cape Town. (This is Carol writing.) We are almost at the same latitude as Cape Town now but have to go south to round Cape Agulhas and Cape of  Good Hope. We left at dusk on Fri with still some south wind on the nose. It is more challenging to get set up for the evening of motoring/sailing in the dark. By Sat there was not much wind and it was forecast to stay that way until 6pm which would give us lots of time to get in. But it started to blow SW, on the nose again,  in the afternoon. We arrived at 5:30 about 2 hours later and wetter than we expected. We were lucky to have the other 2 boats here to catch lines to tie up along the fisheries jetty.

There is a lot of fishing boat action at the dock. Mostly they are going out at dusk and returning to unload in the morning. There is a big squid business, and the squid are unloaded in frozen blocks. The other types of fish are fresh. Today we are going to try the nearby seafood restaurant that is recommended for lunch. May also purchase some fresh fish for the next trip.

On Sunday, we all walked to the tourist area of town which spreads out along the beaches. There is a beautiful paved promenade along the shore, with seating, plantings, kids' play areas, a pool, and lifeguards. On the weekends there are vendors selling souvenirs. Too bad we can't store much more on the boat. The downtown of the city is just to the north of the marina. It has some historic sites, but it is not recommended to walk around from a security point of view. Some security guards by the beach said that things have gotten much worse over the last 5 years. Too bad!

The Algoa Bay Yacht Club is really nice. Good views over the harbour from a second story, bar and restaurant, wifi, and hot showers. No water or power available on the jetty however. At low tide it would help to be a monkey to get off the boat.

The current plan is to leave Thurs lunchtime and stop at Mossel Bay, which is 188nm. There are supposedly 40 hours of decent conditions to get there, probably a night arrival for us. But at least you can anchor until morning there. Everyone prefers to make it to CT in one trip, but the weather isn't cooperating. Our router says that the conditions we are seeing are more typical of winter than spring. The upcoming scenery is supposed to be quite dramatic, so hope to have good visibility.