Wow. Over three months in beautiful South Africa (Oct 15 to Feb 16). We’ve really enjoyed South Africa’s offering of nature, scenery, lifestyles and, yes, boat upgrades. Trips to Cape Town and visiting its cosmopolitan center and surroundings, the amazing wine and foodie regions of Stellenbosch, Franschoek, Paarl, the scenic Garden Route, Karoo country and its variety of places to explore, Cape Point, South Africans, to name a few. But its time to move along and scratch our itchy sea feet as our desire to get back out to sea, sailing and finding anchorages grows. Our stay was extended partially as Rose returned to Singapore to attend her daughter’s wedding.

In our opinion the False Bay Yacht Club is the better of the marinas in the Western Cape. Affordable, scenic, secure, safe, active member club, albeit a bit windy. The staff here have been terrific. You do need a car however as it’s a bit isolated but we would have had a rental wherever we may have been to get out and around. Or jump in a taxi-bus for R70 to Fishhoek or Longbeach mall. The statistically frequent and strong winds around False Bay at this time of year were stronger and more frequent than normal. Relentless, continuous strong katabatic winds of 20-65kts that just seem to never stop - proof testing of our mooring lines! And often blowing ash over the yachts from local fires in the hills. Note that this is reminiscent of the other local marinas too. Now in the 2nd half of January the winds have subsided some and seem to follow their normal pattern of calms in the morning and picking up in the afternoons. Less ash too which means no local fires – good for all!

Well, Emerald Sea has been to the spa and been beautified! She’s been through the royal treatment with new LiFePO4 batteries, a hydrogenerator, new salon upholstery, replaced lazy bag, tuned up engines and generator, new bottom paint, repaired sails, new halyards and lines, replacement VHF antenna with improved cabling and lots of health checks. And with a wash and wax She’s smilin as she flexes up ready for the next Ocean!

A few folks of worthy mention that provide a great service:

• Steve Ouden – Electrical Tech for LiFEPO4 batteries and electrical systems. He freelances for C-Dynamics (Greg) who provided the battery system – also a well recommended.
• Rob – Raymarine electronics tech located at FBYC; Rob is an ex-Raytheon/Raymarine design engineer based in the US and ‘knows’ their systems.
• Ullman Sails – Tony is one of their managers and was very supportive and competitively priced.
• Associated Rigging –Warren and team for excellent works on masts and rigging. Our work was only the replacement of our VHF cable (which turned out to be more difficult than it should have been).
• FedEx – this is of worthy mention as some cruisers had a frustrating time with their couriers. This could have been due to the xmas rush, not sure. But we had six separate packages arrived via FedEx and they were great to work with, no hold ups, timely delivery after arrival.

Not all things work well …which is kinda typical in any country. Here’s a few examples.

Need a extension to your tourist visa? Home Affairs/immigration department appears one that is dysfunctional (I’ll use the word ‘fraud’). I applied, and paid for, a tourist visa extension within our first 4 weeks of being here and never received it before leaving (well after my 3 month visa expired). Absolutely no reason given and many emails back and forth – an no refund of course. However, one day prior to my existing visa expiring I visited Immigration Cape Town to tell them I needed to stay longer (boat jobs). After explaining my issue with Home Affairs they basically said not to worry about it; when you clear out, bring any dated receipts and the various HA correspondence. A bit dysfunctional. Note that some others we know did receive their extensions in time and others, like me, didn’t.

Royal Cape Yacht Club in Cape Town is the official port for yachts clearing out of SA. However, this is dependent upon available berthing space at RCYC and calm seas/winds for entrance – noting a few boats took a bashing coming and leaving in its narrow entrances recently. Over the weeks of high winds neither of these conditions could be achieved so many yachts cleared out from Simons Town … that worked but that didn’t come without some complications and frustration. Cape Town’s Harbor Master (she’s a lot of work!) it seems was in the loop when the decision to clear out anywhere other than RCYC was concerned. The result is that you need to run around between various posts, getting declaration letters here and there, costing between 4-6hrs, lots of taxis or parking with patience and a smile. By far the worst place we have cleared out from. We were told some yachts just left out of shear frustration.

And while the Rand is at historic lows against major currencies at the moment, it doesn’t mean all things are cheap. Sure, foods, meals, labour, sails, rigging, locally made goods, to name a few, are a fair bargain but some items are hideously expensive i.e. Raymarine, Furuno, Yanmar, etc. - more expensive than US/Euroland. So lesson is that one should consider what they require in advance and have them couriered in. Even after logistic and VAT costs (circa 14%) they can be considerably less. And you can have your VAT reimbursed.

OK, I know that when I've spent too many words complaining that its time to leave! It’s quite easy to complain or be judgmental or just plain arrogant and write about other folks woes, as we’ve seen from a few cruiser’s blogs, so this stops it for me today in SA.

In January, Kannad had a global recall on its SafeLink EPRIBs due to a faulty body and ours was courteously replaced free of charge at Radio Holland (Cape Town) including testing and registration. Also, when searching for a watertight case for our iPad, we met Roxanne of Tudortech, an importer of LifeProof cases, and she was kind enough to provide us, free of charge, with a Fre case as they had some samples available.

Farewell to you South Africa – a land of plenty. To your formidable coast. To your amazing scenery, wildlife. Tasty wines and fine food. Biltong. Courteous residents. Our amazing neighbors Nadia and Ray on SV Blu. To the Cape of Storms aka Cape of Good Hope. We enjoyed you and look forward to returning one day. We wish you lots of success for your future.