After our wonderful short trip inland in Namibia to Etosha National Park, we prepared the boat for the start of the trans-Atlantic voyage. This meant having the 50 hour new engine Yanmar service performed, using our rental car to buy as many last minute provisions as possible, and filling up the water tanks and diesel tanks. To fill up the diesel, we had to get permission from the port captain in the busy harbor to move off our mooring over to the commercial fuel dock. When we arrived, there was a tug boat moving a very large cargo ship in the area, so we had to circle around and around outside the fuel dock waiting for clearance. Luckily the fuel dock service attendant stayed open after hours for us and he started to fill the tanks SLOWLY with his huge hose and nozzle. While Dave and Dean were managing this, Clyde and Linda walked out of the port about 5 blocks to the nearest ATM to get the final amount of CASH needed to pay for the fuel which was required. No credit cards taken. In addition, we didn't want to leave Namibia with much local currency because it isn't possible to exchange it back for US dollars when we return. Just one more example of the challenges cruisers face!
Finally we were ready to head out at 6:45 pm. This leg of the voyage was to be 1200 miles to the island of St Helena. We set up our 4 person watch schedule, with 3 hour watches at night and 4 hour watches in the daytime. We arrived in 8.5 days.
En route we fished, played various games, enjoyed good meals and rarely changed sails. The tradewinds were consistently at our back so we flew double head sails with no main. We set one of the headsails on our whisker pole, which is an unusual item for a 24 foot wide catamaran but it worked wonderfully and provided much stability in the heavy seas. Despite winds of 15-25 knots, the waves and swells tossed us around quite a bit. For several days we even changed the setting on our autopilot to "performance" to keep the waves from moving us around quite so much. We estimate that the waves/swells were over 10 feet high most of the time. Many times, the water broke over our back swim steps and washed up into the cockpit. But the seats at the front of the boat were dry and comfortable. Here is crew mate Dean enjoying the ride.