Between Knysna and Durban

We are now on our way to Durban, there are only 170 nm left. We may arrive there tomorrow before sunset if we can pick up some speed but on this trip so far we’ve been motoring, there is barely any wind.

We try to stay close to the shore to reduce the adverse current, we are within half a mile from the land on an average. We’ve seen several shipwrecks on the rocks, mysteriously telling their stories through the fog.

This weather reminds me of Nova Scotia. As I stood on my watch in the rain looking out from under the beak of my cap that framed everything, I imagined this journey as a movie. I watched the genets with fascination. I find them both elegant with their long white bodies and black wing tips and tails and funny with their yellow heads as if they had been fishing in split pea soup. I can’t keep myself from smiling when I see them. Then, in my movie under my cap and in the fog, a mother humpback whale swam by our boat with her calf. They were only two boat lengths away and surely as big as our boat. They gently surfaced and dove again. They reminded me of my mother and myself as a little girl.

As sailing feels timeless and days melt into one another, motoring feels like riding the train and counting the miles, looking at the villages through the windows. Non-numerical vs. numerical, floating in timelessness vs. being aware of the constant movement, just being vs. traveling.

I look forward to watching the sun rise in Durban on Wednesday morning. We will be in a new port again; we are like snails, carrying our house with us… or I should correct myself and say that our house carries us. Most things are different in this movie… and even the four of us onboard are filming this journey from a different perspective. This is just mine. I like watching the birds fly above the ocean.

Location: 32° 30 S, 28° 39 E
Monday 12:00, 10.16.2006

The Schooner Maggie B was at 32° 30.0S 28° 39.0E today at noon. We are about 1/2 mile off the beach (Big Surf!) along the Transkai Coast in Kwa-Zulu Natal, about 201 NM from Durban and 633 from Cape Town. We are motoring at 7.3 knots on a course of ENE, with the wind behind us from the West at 10-12 knots.

Normally we could sail fine is 10-12 knots, but here we have to carefully pick our way along close to the coast to keep out of the strong adverse Agulhas Current. Even the big container ships are within three miles of the coast, roaring past us like express trains.

After lunch today, we put up our two storm sails (named Kathy and Susan for the people who made them — see photos on the web site). Not because we expected any storms, but to put up some simple sails to slow the rolling in the 2-3 meter swells and chop. It also was a good exercise so that we would know what to do in a big blow.

I was just interrupted from writing this by a call from Hannah when a humpback whale breached alongside, perhaps 50 feet away. I came on deck and saw it breach another 20 times as it got behind us and disappeared in a small rain shower. In the last two days I have seen perhaps 200-300 humpback breaches, ten times what I have seen in the rest of my life.

The Transkai Coast is part of the Kwa-Zulu Natal area, another part of the failed apartheid effort. It was “given” to the Zulu nation with the thought it could operate successfully, independently, essentially without any government support or infrastructure. Without any work, the men left for work wherever they could find it, leaving the women and old behind in very hard times. But from here it looks green and lovely, with many classic Zulu round houses and many, many cattle.

The Maggie B runs on computers, and not just those in the GPS, plotter and autopilot systems. Last night it was amusingly clear when I was on one computer watching the TV series “House,” Bori was on another burning songs from CD’s onto her new iPod and Hannah was on a third, doing her email. Willis? He was on watch using the three other ship’s computers to steer and navigate. Must have been rough in the old days.

We expect to arrive Durban tomorrow afternoon.

All is well.