Zululand Yacht Club

 

 The last day and half of our trip into Richards Bay was pretty bumpy. We forereached (aka hove-to-light) for the night offshore to let things calm down and wait for the southerly to start to move toward SE. Then sailed in from offshore. We arrived at Richards Bay and proceeded to the International Wall (also known as the Small Craft Harbour or Tusi Gaza). We tied up to this rather rough wall and waited for the testing company to come down to give us all some nose swabbing. Once the Covid tests came back negative we waited on Health and Immigration to clear us in. We got our 90-day visa stamps in our passports and then got a ride from Natasha, the Ocean Cruising Club Port Officer, to Customs. Then we were clear to head to the Zululand Yacht Club after waiting for the tide to get high enough to make it up the channel.

The Zululand Yacht Club has been over the top accommodating for the international yacht arrivals. They have shifted member's boats around to make dockage space, given us very low cost rates and been very friendly. We were treated to a "braai", which is a South African BBQ. If it is a potluck then they call it a "bring and braai".

This is one of the club members, Morgan, offering up what they call venison. It is wildebeest that he shot while game hunting.

The club gives each arriving foreign boat a bottle of local Champagne as an arrival gift.

. Learning a little about South Africa and the languages.

Interesting signs around the yacht club.

They put this sign up at the head of our dock a few days after we arrived.

The grounds around the yacht club are pretty much owned by the Vervet monkeys. The one on the right has a baby between her legs.

The adult male Vervets have some distinctive turquoise blue parts.

It can get pretty windy around here. We had a storm come through a couple of days ago and woke up to our neighbors headsail destroyed and flapping in the breeze.

It's interesting to see which cruisers make it as far as South Africa. It's a hardy group. The boat above is Baluchon, from France. The builder/Captain is Yann Quenet. The boat is 4m long (13 feet) that he sailed from France across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. The story goes that when he arrived in Richards Bay the authorities questioned whether they would give him permission to continue along the coast to Cape Town. This is a tough, 800 mile, passage where you have limited places to stop yet the weather windows change every few days. With some luck a normal performance cruising boat can make it to the next port and wait for the next window. Not a 13 ft boat. With the wind against current along portions of the coast there have been documented 20m (65ft) waves. Yann has apparently decided he'll do like he did to get across Panama, being too small and slow to use the Canal, he will put the boat on a trailer and drive it to Cape Town.

Yann receiving his bottle of Champagne from the Zululand club.

Paul