I have so much to write about and share with you and so little space to do it. Instead of writing a missive, I think I will just spread out all the things I wish to share over the next few days. Some of things I wish to write about include: the sail last night and this morning; clearing the entrance to Richards Bay by having to side step the remainder of the large ship that sunk and its bow is still sticking out of the water; tucking into the small boat harbor here where we have tied up to a concrete pier and where we can stay for free, including free electricity and water; the great food we had for lunch with David and Peggy; the emergency help we gave to get Gromit into the marina next door as everyone had been told that their rudder was broken; the wonderful reception we received from Lawrence and his nice family, who manage both the Tuzi Gazi Marina next door and the Customs Dock where we are staying; wonderful reunions with friends we have not seen for a long time; meeting a couple of characters who are warm and friendly, and the list goes on and on and on. Whew! I don't know where to start�...

Well, let me just focus this blog on the sail we had last night and this morning because it was another memorable experience.

Shortly after I posted yesterday's blog the winds came up to 20 knots from the NE. This put the wind directly behind us so we unfurled the head sail and sailed in a wing and wing configuration. Along with the wind came the seas and soon we were getting swells behind us of 2 to 3 meters. Unfortunately, Catamarans do not sail very well when the wind is directly behind you so you need to alter your course by 15 degrees to bring the wind slightly off the stern. However, now the current and the swells were working to push us to one side or the other as we climbed up one side of a swell and surfed down the other. We had the most difficult time keeping our heading toward the coast of South Africa and poor Otto struggled and struggled to control the boat. In fact, a number of times he just gave up and since Mary Margaret was on watch, she had to fight to get Leu Cat back on the heading we wanted. Otto is usually a real trooper and can handle a number of adverse conditions but this time he was fighting swells, gusty wind of 25+ knots and a strong current that gyred and meandered and it all ended up being just too much for him.

Mary Margaret came up with the idea to turn on the engines and let them balance these various conflicting forces and her idea worked like a dream. Thus, during the rest of her 4 hours watch she had a nice sail.

However, during my nighttime watch, the winds kicked up some more, the seas grew a bit more, and even with the engines trying balance things out, Otto struggled and finally I ended up having to take over and sail manually, This is really a lot of work as you need to steer one way going up a swell and then another way when you surf down the swell. You have very little room for error because sailing wing and wing, if you are not perfect, either the head sail will backwind or the main sail will jibe and you swing wildly either to windward or leeward. This was the reason Otto had been struggling so.

Finally, after trying various tactics to control the boat in a reasonable fashion, I mimicked Otto and gave up. I decided to drop the main and just go with the head sail and the engines. It was a bit galling to have to run the engines with this nice wind instead of relying on sails to do the job. If we were not trying to maintain a specific heading to make the coast, it would not have been a problem. We would have just sailed the wind like we usually do but that would have taken us out to the middle of the Mozambique Channel instead of in toward the South African coast which was still 30 nm away.

In dropping the main sail I had another weird experience. I turned into the wind, the breakings seas and the strong current and dropped the sail. It came down just fine but now it was time to turn the boat around and sail downwind by unfurling the head sail. However, neither I nor Otto could get Leu Cat to turn around. I could turn Leu Cat so the wind would be abeam to us and then she would turn no further. The swells, which were coming from two directions would push us back into the wind and not let me complete the turn. It was really weird. I tried running both engines running maximum RPMs to get our speed up and still could not turn the boat through these swells. I tried one throttle forward and one throttle in reverse, which usually spins the boat around on dime and this time even that did not work.

Finally in desperation, I used the engines to get the wind back to abeam and then unfurled the headsail to add additional turning force. Whew! This worked but was still a struggle. I have never experienced this before and will just have to chalk it up to the high breaking seas from two directions, the heavy winds, and the strong currents acting together and not wanting to release their combined hold on Leu Cat.

Once Leu Cat was heading downwind again with the headsail pulled way out like a spinnaker she handled well and the rest of the night was a piece of cake. So was the sail into Richards Bay but I will write about that tomorrow.