Durban to East London

Umadum stays 1 month in Durban to spend time with friends and Malaka Queen will continue its journey to Capetown. Lets hope there is a weather window, I want to leave Durban ASAP.

The next leg is challenging: 255nm to East London and no place to hide when a low comes…

I imagine riding the Agulas current as sitting on the back of a mad crocodile (not that I ever did that;-). It gives you a really big push southward when sailing down to South Africa. Lucky for me the forecast is good but boat speed must be more than 6 knots. That should be possible with 20 knots of wind from the northeast later.Lets go already this afternoon, bigger safety margin.

On route a vessel calls Malaka Queen over the radio. Good afternoon, I am the cargoship 7 miles behind you. As the sea is a bit rough can your sailing vessel do 10 degrees to starboard so we will have a larger separation distance, thank you in advance for your help? Copy that, thank you for calling, 10 degrees to starboard, have a very good watch, out!

Des monitors my progress continuously and sends me reassuring messages like this: “deadline East London tomorrow morning 0600UTC”.

We both know by now that arrival will be sooner as there is a big margin of 6 hours left if the current speed over ground can be maintained.Slowing down to be able to enter the port of East London might be a new challenge. Lucky again, as soon as I exit the Agulas current the wind reduces as well on approach so entering East London harbour at 23.00 is safe.