Year 3- 19 August 2026 – Departure from Cape Town at last.
We woke early as the diver was supposed to finish off cleaning the hull at 7.00am. He did not arrive until 7.35am. It was a lovely blue-sky morning and we had our usual fruit and granola breakfast.
We all had showers and started to prepare ourselves. The team from Cape Town Yacht services came to do a final wash down. I then went through the outside of the boat and with the crew and then we went through our emergency procedures and I allocated various tasks in the event we have to abandon ship.
Mark continued to pack away and vacuvac meat for the freezer. We tidied up and packed more stuff away.
I went up to the office to hand back the passes and to collect documents which they had kindly printed off for me. I also went to say goodbye to Cape Town Yacht services – and Eric the manager who had helped with a number of jobs.
I returned to Stormbird and we took in the electrics and then we prepared slips and at 10.05 am I called up the swing bridges for the last time and at 10.10am we were off and ready to go through the bridges. The first opened at 10.15am and we then passed through both bridges. I called Port Control and they gave us permission to leave the port and we were off.
We passed a number of seals lying on their backs in the sun and raising their flippers in the air as if they were saying goodbye. We also saw lots of Cormorants feeding on the abundant fish.
We headed out of the breakwaters and headed toward Robben Island to skirt round the TSS (Traffic Separation Schemes). We then headed roughly on to our course toward St Helena.
The wind had come up a bit and we were soon sailing along under full main and genoa and making 7+ kts. As we were sailing the motion was better as we had 2m + swells. We sailed along nicely with a change of watch from Julian and I who had been on the first watch to Mark and Dave.
We sailed on and we had lunch of bread, coleslaw, meats and cheese. The wind began as the afternoon wore on to lessen slightly which was annoying and I could tell from Predict Wind that it was going to drop overnight and will pick up again in the morning. Paul and John took over at 4.00am and by this time our speed was down to 4.5kts and the sails were flapping as a result of the swell being greater than the wind.
By 4.45pm I decided to get the sails in and we motored and mat have to do so overnight due to lack of wind.
Paul suddenly saw a whale breaching and it was a humpback and it did it a few times. We also saw a pod of dolphins swimming fast and we saw a number of Shearwaters and Albatrosses.
John had agreed to cook so he prepared his ingredients for his meal which was a chicken cacciatore and it was warm and tasty. We had this in the dark and there was a cold breeze.
We motor sailed with the main up but with the wind and the swell it would flog every now and then.
We settled down for our first night watch with Julian and I taking the first watch.
We are 5 days later than planned leaving Cape Town. It has been a fantastic place to be and I got a number of things fixed and serviced on Stormbird. I have had a great time and it is a lovely place to visit and there is a lot to see. I am sure I will be back some time. In the meantime it is time to head back toward home.
The picture of the day is the view as Cape Town began to fade into the distance.
Need/Opportunity Year Three
I am now on the way to Durban and will then head for Cape Town and then on to St Helena, Azores and back to the UK.
The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com